I am constantly hearing politicians state that we are leaving our children and grandchildren an enormous debt to deal with. They really don't care about future generations, they only care about the wealth and power they can accumulate for themselves. What we are leaving for the next group of Americans is, a once proud and great country, that has been destroyed and brought to it's knees by greed corruption and the inability to accomplish something that will benefit all Americans. The, "me", generation is leaving, an uneducated society, an infrastructure that is collapsing around us, corporations that do not make anything of value, prevalent greed, pollution, an inability to think, an attitude of defeatism, no sense of national pride, debt and, maybe worse of all, no leadership and direction on how to accomplish the big things we need, in order to regain our place in the world's economies. We sit and wring our collective hands, just as our leaders do, waiting for someone else to devise a solution. While we sit, China is fast becoming the dominate force around the world. We are losing the economic war and instead of attacking the source of this war, we fight between each other. The communists in China are accomplishing what the Soviet Union failed to do and they are doing it with our help. Yes, we are helping with our money, but more importantly we are helping them by forgetting how to accomplish anything. We have spent months arguing about whether we should pay for the money we have spent, instead of focusing on solutions to create good paying jobs. Raise the God Damn debt ceiling and then let's start putting America back to work.
Start by doing to China the same thing they do to us. Make it too expensive for companies to build in China and export to America. Give incentives to companies, who manufacture here and sell it at a decent profit, as long as they use American workers and pay them good wages and benefits. We could help these companies, by having health care that is not tied to our jobs. This would decrease the cost of benefits. Look at all trade agreements and if it does not benefit the American worker, we do not honor it. Give workers a real and fair opportunity to join unions and have collective bargaining. Give power and a voice back to workers, not to the corporations, that make huge profits off of our sweat and sacrifices. Look at regulation and make common sense approaches, to clean air and water. Make the regulations fit the industry and work for the good of American people, not to create loopholes for payoffs and corruption.
We have to start campaign finance reform that will get the corruption out of our political process. No more private money, period. We could have public money and each candidate will get the same amount to run for an office. They can learn to live within their means and budget money based in this way. If you are elected or work for a politician, you will not be able to work for lobbyist. We need people to lobby for a particular point of view, however, we need the loudest voice for the average American. For too long our voices have been the silent ones.
Tax reform will also have to be addressed. NO MORE LOOPHOLES!!!!! We should first eliminate the loopholes for everyone. Corporations and individuals. Then leave rates where they are for the time being and use the money, explicitly for paying off the national debt. Once the debt is paid off we will, first, build a surplus, then look at scaling back rates, however we will always leave a little something for savings.
The only changes to Social Security is to eliminate the cut off point for high wage earners. If you receive a paycheck you will pay SS tax on the entire amount you make per year. If we have to, in order to preserve future generation's Social Security, we will have small increases to our payroll taxes for this purpose. Remember once we pay off the debt taxes will go down, so this will be offset. I do not want to hear about taxing and spending, this is for average Americans. We can adjust the age to receive benefits as the life expectancy increases, however we will keep in mind what type of work someone does before we move their retirement ages back. If you are like me and spent most of your time in an office, and are in good health, the age can be pushed back a couple of years. If on the other hand, you worked as a coal miner that age can be brought forward. See, common sense and fairness. It would work.
We will look at education and infrastructure. We will examine our schools and start the process of changing them from a test taking environment to a place of learning. We will show our children and young people how to think and develop, instead of teaching for some achievement test. From early learning straight through college or technical school, we will spend what ever we need to once again become the highest educated people on the planet. we will leave no stone unturned until this is accomplished and maintained.
We need to place people in jobs that rebuild our roads, electrical grids, high speed rail, mass transit, schools, bridges, dams, energy systems and every other infrastructure project we can think of. We need to rebuild America. This will provide high paying jobs that will provide higher tax revenues, that will create more jobs to supply the new homes, cars, furniture, appliances, electronics and all other items we need for modern life.
What are the alternatives? We could continue this downward trend until we become an after thought in the world. We can abdicate our position to China and acknowledge that Communism is the way to lead. We can become a third world nation and look for handouts from other countries. You decide. This is my vision and it only scratches the surface of ideas I have. What is your vision. In the days to come I will talk about ways we can work to change our visions to reality. Until then, get pissed off about our current direction and decide to work toward a new and better America for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren.
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