My stand on the issues

Now that the Presidential Race is entering the exciting final phase, all 35 of my supporters have been urging me to declare my policies so voters will know exactly where I stand on the issues.

As I see it, our biggest problem is to eliminate the so-called ”gridlock” in Washington.  Basically, that means getting rid of Republicans.  Since Obama was elected, Republican have steadfastly refused to participate in the governing process and have been the obstinate “party-of-no” obstructionists for the last seven and a half years.  In addition to defeating Republican congresspeople, I propose another measure that applies to both parties--impose term limits on all members of Congress so they can’t stick around long enough to become corrupt, lazy and power drunk.

I would also reinstate the draft.  That would mean a lot more Americans will have a stake in the military adventures conjured up by our politicians.  If the sons and daughters of the well-to do Americans and politicians were obligated to do military service perhaps we would be a little more thoughtful about pulling the trigger.  The politicos in Washington  would not  get off the hook for sending kids off to get killed for stupid reasons. It would also show how phony those “patriots”are who strut around Wal-Mart in camos and play with assault rifles on the weekend but  never wore a real uniform.

It's time for us to eliminate the electoral college.  Most people have no ideas what it is nor how it works and if we were  a real democracy we would strictly adhere to a one-person-one-vote system so the elected President truly reflects the will of the majority of people.  While we are on election reform I would introduce a bill that Congressional districts would be drawn by independent non-partisan commissions so the Republicans could not rig them in their favor.

Healthcare for all Americans should be a right and not a commodity.  My plan would establish a single payer Medicare system for all Americans and get the private insurers out of the health insurance business.  From personal experience I can assure you the private insurers could not care less about your health.  They just want to make money.  If ALL the premiums now paid by employers, individuals with private insurance and Medicare participants were paid into a single payer system it could easily be paid for.  Of course, the private insurers and drug companies would not reap enormous profits and bilk the American people with astronomical  drug and medical procedure prices.

While we are talking about social benefits, Social Security in my program works just fine.  The Republican line about running out of funding is scare talk and the idea of privatizing it is madness.  The depletion of funds over the years has been because both parties in Congress have pulled money out of the Social Security Trust Fund for other stuff and patched  it up with IOUs (read debt).  My policy is that Congress would never, never, ever, be able to take money from the Social Security fund for any other reason and that the current individual 6.2 per cent payroll tax would not have a salary cap.  Now, the tax is paid up to $118,500 meaning the really wealthy stop contributing to the fund on anything they make above that.  Why? They can certainly afford to continue  paying the 6.2 per cent without any hardship.

And now we come to infrastructure.  All my opponents agree we need to do something about that.  It would be a great benefit to the country—roads, bridges, airports, trains, etc—and employ many thousands of people, but how do we pay for it?  Easy.  The federal excise tax on gasoline has not been raised for over 20 years.  When gasoline prices went up to $4.00 per gallon to insure oil company profits, people still paid it, so to take a bigger tax chunk to benefit the country—and maybe reduce oil company profits a little bit—seems like a good idea to me.

And finally, I would eliminate tax exempt status for churches.  That would not be a burden to individual tax payers and would contribute more  money to benefit the country as a whole.  Anyone who thinks churches do not engage in political activity is either stupid or delusional.   You have probably heard of the so-called “mega churches” whose pastors live in multimillion dollar homes and have private jets.

So, there you have my concrete proposals to Make American Sane Again.  I hope Alf and I can count on your vote.

Note:  Regarding how I feel about immigration, see my deportation story below.