By Mid-afternoon Today
Note: Published in The Ellsworth American (edited slightly for length) September 15, 2022 under the title “Get on it.”
Here is a list of actions I think should be taken as soon as possible, maybe by mid-afternoon today.
REMOVE ALL TAXPAYER SUPPORT FOR POLITICAL PARTY ACTIVITIES. Among other things, that will mean not registering voters by party affiliation, not having parties choose their nominees through taxpayer funded primaries, and not allowing party nomination to qualify a candidate to be on the ballot. Political parties can keep their own voter lists, and conduct their own primaries if they want to. And all candidates will need to meet the same qualifications to appear on the ballot.
FEDERAL BUDGET: Establish that all members of a Congress failing to adopt a real annual budget by deadline will be ineligible for re-election. Gimmicks like continuing resolutions do not count.
Establish that all ELECTIONS will be majority-wins, with runoff elections when needed - no plurality or ranked-choice voting.
PROVIDE FULL MEDICAL CARE FOR ALL MEMBERS OF THE MILITARY SERVICES AND VETERANS, no questions asked and all questions answered. And, if they deploy outside the country, their immediate family members get full medical care too.
END PAYROLL TAXES "End Payroll Taxes" for both employees and employers (the so-called “employer contribution”). Fund Social Security and Medicare from general revenue, using the same justification - the benefit of the economy as a whole - used for bailing out banks and giving certain corporations tax breaks, to give two examples. The constituency of Social Security and Medicare recipients, plus employees and employers, is too big to fail.
Establish a RELATIVE MAXIMUM WAGE: In any business or corporation, no matter what size, no one’s compensation will exceed three times the lowest paid employee’s compensation. Compensation includes wages, benefits, stock options, bonuses. For this purpose, employees include everyone from CEOs and board members to subcontracted workers anywhere in the world. To borrow an investment firm’s ad slogan, the message from management to all personnel will be: “When you do better, we do better.”
Convert all STUDENT LOANS "Student Loans Proposal" - past, present, and future - to interest-free loans administered directly by the Department of Education. All payments ever made will be credited toward paying off the original borrowed principal (capitalized interest will be removed). All payments made in excess of the original principal will be refunded.
Commit to writing a VOTING RIGHTS AND PROCEDURES CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT "Voting Rights ..." spelling out the constitutional parameters within which states and municipalities may establish regulations.
Restore the original intent of the SECOND AMENDMENT by restoring well-regulated militias for the defense of the states and of the nation. Any citizen may bear any weapon of war (for example, an assault rifle, a Stinger missile, a Switchblade) if they are an active member of their state’s militia and trained and certified by the militia to use that weapon. All firearms and other weapons not designated as weapons of war (for example, handguns, hunting rifles) are not considered “arms” and are subject to federal, state, and local regulation.
Well, OK, these won’t be accomplished by mid-afternoon today. But they all describe approaches to important concerns candidates for office ought to be addressing right now. Let’s challenge them, and ourselves, to think and feel outside our conventional boxes.
