In response to an surge of questions about whether I am running for President (the trend went from zero to one), I hereby announce that I am not running for President in 2016.  Still, a subsequent questioner might ask,  What would be my Policy Agenda?

Domestic Priorities

We need to take care that everyone shares in the bounty.  For the less well off, we need to double the minimum wage, expand the Earned Income Credit, create lots of low cost education opportunities, and subsidize jobs in useful industries like a vast expansion of solar power.   For those in the middle layers of our great country we need lots of higher education opportunities, at very low cost.  We need to dramatically increase manufacturing jobs through apprenticeships and other education for highly technical jobs.  We need to invest in infrastructure, including green energy.  Most subsidies should go to small to medium firms.  It turns out manufacturing policies can also be environmental policies. 

For the top income groups, we need tax simplification, at progressive rates, and a financial transaction tax to discourage rent-taking through high speed and other volatile trading practices.

And, of course, a single-payer health care system.  We should open Medicare to all. 

International Priorities

We have a profession of trained diplomats who have vast experience in international affairs.  We should put them more at the center of our policymaking circles.  At the same time we should not put there people whose main qualifications are helping a President get elected.  We should not rely on people who have demonstrably misled our policies.  This would include all neo-conservatives, for example.  Since war and corruption are the two biggest obstacles to the poor countries catching up with the wealthy, we should not encourage war (for instance, by sending more weapons into a civil war) and should discourage corruption through all of our policies.  The domestic clean-energy policies mentioned above should dramatically shift our position in international climate change policies.  We should avoid unnecessary entanglements.