Universal Healthcare. This is a no-brainer, Dan Quayle couldn’t screw this up. The vast majority of the country supports it period and every study shows it. Studies from the University of Boston School for Public Health show that there is enough money in the system to pay for everyone to have decent healthcare and give doctors a raise, simply by going to a single payer system. You still get to choose your doctor, you doctor doesn’t work for the government and we will have rational healthcare reimbursement for appropriate services.
Our car insurance will go down, our homeowner’s insurance will go down, our business liability and workers compensation insurance will go down, tort reform will no longer be an issue over who is going to be richer, trial lawyers or corporate lawyers and we can get our bunions taken care of. Its simple, stop kissing up to your campaign contributors and represent the interests of the American People.
2. Expand Social Security to provide a decent Disability Pension and Retirement for every one. This is impossible right? Wrong. Take the upper limit off from income taxed for social security and expand it to dividends and capital gains. In addition requiring the payment of a real living wage would raise tremendous sums due to additional social security contributions. While this would raise the price of some goods and services, there would also be some offset in costs due to retirement, medical and disability no longer being a cost to business Phase out or convert private plans, that’s what business is doing anyway without any safety net. People who have more then the conversion would pay get to keep the difference in a private account.
3. Support the growth of local economies and small business. The government could invest the money collected for social security and disability in community owned, controlled and operated credit unions that would loan the people money to start small businesses. The credit unions could recruit scores of retiring executives and business people to mentor, educate and guide small business development. Given access to expertise and capital, workers who are held in bondage to healthcare and pensions would desert corporate slavery corporations in droves to set up small local businesses. Small town America would thrive again, local economies would grow as a result of keeping money in the community as opposed to sending it to Bentonville, Arkansas every night.
4. Invest in Infrastructure. If there ever was something to invest in to help every American it is modernizing the infrastructure. We need leadership to think on the scale of Eisenhower. The coming wars in the world will be economic not military. We are in perfect position to win a conventional military war but will lose the coming economic ones if we don’t change. How do we win? Expand and modernize and nationalize transportation, energy production and communication in public bond financed corporations funded by the new social security investment funds along with private capital. Run them like rural electric cooperatives with returns benefiting public accounts and private investors.
The government should be investing heavily in modernizing the rail systems, if necessary reclaim through condemnation the railroad right of ways that have been abandoned and use the current interstate highway infrastructure to build high-speed rail service for both passengers and freight across the country. Put in spur lines to every community. It is the cheapest, fastest and most fuel-efficient way to move people and goods. The rest of the world knows it and we got behind being sidetracked by cars. Give the contracts to American auto and defense companies to build the next generation of equipment and rails on a competitive bid basis.
Contract with companies to install free wi-fi everywhere in America, make it interactive with mobile phones, sit back and watch technology boom, the same with the airways and bandwidths. Open a certain percentage to citizen media and supply the technology and equipment for citizen use and watch the corporate media change. This would also give small businesses the opportunity to advertise and trade nationally and internationally directly with consumers instead of through corporate middlemen.
Supply state and national funding only for land use that promotes energy, environmental and people friendly growth in building and infrastructure development. Regulate energy for efficiency, conservation and environmental cleanliness. Discontinue the moon and Mars missions and the anti ballistic missile plans to help pay for it and redirect research efforts. NASA should become internationalized and concentrate on missions that focus on solving energy problems and improving the human condition for everyone.
5. Invest in Education. Universal education through college or trade school for every American with the opportunity to return to school to upgrade skills for free. Education is the core of democracy and the key to human freedom, to deny it to anyone is to sentence them to economic and political slavery. We pay for it by restoring tax cuts and the estate tax. Education is the biggest subsidy we provide to businesses, why are we charging someone for something that is primarily used to profit someone else.
We need to pay teachers well, give them more planning time and less time testing and filling out irrelevant paperwork. We need to give teachers more power to innovate, they will and they will improve the system if we let them. We need to have fewer students in a classroom, smaller schools and upgrades in what we think education is all about. We need to have more teachers and fewer lawyers.
6. Democratize the Electoral Process. Pass verifiable paper trail voting, ban laws making it difficult for third parties to get on the ballot, have a national holiday on voting day, have instant runoff elections, allow public financing only, over a limited time period and do away with the electoral college. Last but certainly not least don’t allow people to move from government into lobbying for at least five years after they have completed service. Don’t allow lobbyists to move into government service at all.
7. Mandatory Public Service. Do away with every branch of the military except a beefed up Coast Guard and a missile service. We have over 20,000 nuclear weapons that can wipe any country in the world off from the map and put us into a nuclear winter that may destroy civilization itself. Have universal training for every man and woman for two years after completion of high school. They would learn both defense and disaster management skills. Young people would gain national pride, tolerance, cooperation, and work skills.
Professional National Guard officers, police officers, firemen and EMS personnel would serve as leaders for these forces. After their two years of service they would be part of a national guard that would defend the country in case of invasion using their knowledge of the terrain and guerilla tactics to bog an enemy down forever. It worked in the Revolutionary War and has worked against us every since (including Viet Nam and Iraq). Any country invading us would have to deal with a sniper rifle in every closet and this would end all of this idiotic argument about the 2nd Amendment.
The same people trained in disaster relief could be mobilized during hurricanes, forest fires, earthquakes and other national disasters. A portion could seek foreign service in a revitalized Peace Corps that would help to restore our image abroad and give people the opportunity to become part of the international community.
Pay for it by reducing the National War budget of one half trillion dollars a year on expensive high tech equipment that doesn’t work half the time, goes unused most of the time and is the biggest welfare subsidy for corporations going. It also is an ineffective approach in a world where no country can afford war. The costs of destruction and economic isolation are too high.
8. End the Idiotic War on Drugs. We have spent 500 billion dollars for no gain. Decriminalize drugs. Allow them to be sold legally through doctors for addicts. Regulate marijuana use like alcohol. Most people know that marijuana is much less destructive than alcohol and is only a gateway drug because users have to come in to contact with people who sell harder drugs to obtain it.
Drug addiction treatment is cheaper and more effective than enforcement and incarceration, takes the profit out of trafficking and releases resources for better use. Along with this effort should come treatment and rehabilitation for non-violent offenders in prison to reduce the prison population and restore people to society. It is illogical, discriminatory and expensive. We have a per capita incarceration rate that rivals North Korea and other oppressive states; it is insane and needs to end.
9. Preserve the Environment. All the polls show Americans cherish clean air, clean water, wild things and wild places. They understand not only is every life endangered by ravishing nature, the spiritual quality of life is diminished when we don’t honor our place on this small planet.
10. Reform Corporate Law. Polls show that the one thing people trust almost as little as politicians are corporations. Require that corporations charge the full price for their products, not privatize profits while passing the costs to the taxpayer. Take away corporate rights as people. Hold corporate boards and officers criminally liable for their malicious actions. Revoke their charter for fiscal and community negligence or deceit.
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