<...First off, make sure we've got every terrorist that has managed to infiltrate our borders, and then tell the people. If Mueller can't deliver better on this, bring in Giuliani. Shit, just bring in Giuliani now, and find Mueller another job, as he's a good man.

Works for me. I'm waiting to see the proposals for overhauling our crappy immigration procedures.

Second, pass all the Republican and Democratic energy proposals. All of them, and hold the engineers in Detroit's feet to the fire with way better gas mileage. Another aspect of the energy problem is better roads, and the states could use money for that now.

I'd have to look at the proposals in detail. Government plans can often do more harm than good, and although we need to do more drilling, that's only part of it. I would like to see a lot more thought given to rebuilding our nuclear infrastructure, including breeder reactors.

As for the Detroit engineers, there is a large number of people, most of who have a knowledge of physics that barely extends past the concept that Things Fall Down, who are utterly convinced that Detroit could come up with a full-sized car that gets 100mpg, or runs on water, if only they weren't such stubborn, uncooperative bastards. A considerable number of people honestly believe that Detroit ALREADY has these things, but has suppressed them as part of some Vast Conspiracy.

Good gas mileage is a major selling point for a car. If Detroit COULD build a Ford Excursion that got 100 miles per gallon, they would be rich, rich, rich. This glaringly obvious point seems to pass right over the heads of many people.

You can't "make" engineers break natural laws by saying they have to (the "spin this straw into gold, or die" Theory.) Increasing mileage standards arbitrarily on all cars, without the truck loophole that saved the industry from idiot politicians last time, would wreck the car industry. I'm sorry, but most of us with families just don't fit into a goddam Honda Insight.

Give the industry time, and they will do it on their own. They are already working on it at top speed. They have an incentive, and given time, they will do the best that is possible and marketable. A useful solution has to be both. The government should keep their hands off.

As for funding for roads, most of the highway funds in California are being earmarked for Politically Correct mass transit projects. Screw the highways. Cars are evil, hadn't you heard?

Third, give the current tax breaks to the least wealthy, as the most wealthy won't invest until demand picks up.

Great idea, if you learned economics from lemonade stands. Okay, let's see: in simple lemonade stand economics you have the guy who sells a product, and the guy who buys it. Okay, if we give the buyer a bunch of his taxes back, he can buy the product! Yay! Now the seller can sell more and make money! Now he can hire people and build factories! Oh, wait--we still need the tax money from somewhere...how about we take it from the rich seller? Gosh, looks like he's not going to do so well after all. Well, there are a hell of a lot more small buyers than big sellers, and they'll all vote for the one who passed the money out to the buyers, so I guess at least the politicians win.

If this worked, I could generate a booming economic civilization in the middle of Mongolia by throwing a hundred thousand dollars into each yurt.

There is no such thing as a consumer. There are only producers who trade with each other. Give money back to everyone who paid taxes. Period.