A Precatory Caveat…

      

     This list is not about some shot at perfection. It also isn’t politically based. There are many diseases afflicting the United States today that I leave out, such as but not limited to, the outlawing of ‘pork barrel’ ear-marking as a legislative practice, overhauling our primary and secondary public educational system to world competition levels (as if there was an upcoming Olympic event), replacing the IRS tax code with a uniform flat tax on individuals, corporations, trusts, and ecclesiasticals on their annual investment portfolio profits (but not true charities), de-legalizing the tax free take-home of war chest campaign funds for retiring legislators, annual drug testing for all federal employees as our tax dollars pay for their ‘best work effort,’ etc. These are ‘illnesses’ and are not critical to the survival of our body as a nation or our brain as a sane collective people.  That being said... 

Core Issue # 1: Outlawing the Practice of                  
          Lobbying

Legislators make more than an adequate salary to get by on.

The Supreme Court just recently removed limitations as to the amounts of money that special interest groups can contribute to political campaigns, limitations as put in place during and immediately after Teddy Roosevelt broke up the corporate monopolies one hundred years ago when the railroads, coal czars, steel magnets, oil barons, chemical giants, and auto tycoons were poised to control America rather than through our elected officials. This means that more... much more... lobbying money will be available to influence and control Congress.

Imagine for a moment if an elected official of the Executive Branch (President, Governor, Mayor, etc.) were to take a bribe to profit themselves, as they are individuals charged with enforcing the law... all the way down to the lowest level of this Branch, the police. They would certainly be indicted, impeached and possibly imprisoned. Imagine further, if a member of the Judicial Branch (Judges, Magistrates, etc.), one who is charged with interpreting the law, was to take the bribe... to have results go a predetermined way, they would likewise likely be indicted, charged and imprisoned. Why? Because the system must have faith in these two Branches.

However, if a member of the Legislative Branch (Senators and Representatives), one who makes the law, were to accept an envelope with a political contribution offered either after hearing how the elected official feels about a particular issue or just on the chance that the “favor” might be later repaid, this is called successful lobbying. When corporate interests get the nod over the interests of the constituents who elected individuals to the Legislative Branch, no real democracy can ever be appreciated. It is a cancer affecting our nation; the system is tainted. Allowing lobbying to control our legislative branch denies us the title of being a democracy. We are a “democracy-like nation.” One hundred and fifty years ago slavery made a mockery of the American concept of democracy because it wasn’t “real” democracy at all. The survival of the American dream demanded that it be corrected. It was Abraham Lincoln (the first elected GOP candidate) cancer issue. It wasn’t an easy fix.

At this point in our history, we must outlaw lobbying from our legislative branch on all levels and have our legislators answer only to those who they directly represent, vote for vote. If this line is crossed, as with the elected officials within the Executive and Judicial branches, legislative members must be subject to indictment and removed. Why? Because the system must have faith in all three Branches.

Core Issue # 2: The Strict Regulation of Vital Industries

Martha Stewart went to jail for a year because she sold stock after hearing what the future price might be. She accepted a tip from an insider. This is an example of regulation. There was accountability.

By contrast, examine what Wall Street brokerage houses did by promoting items that they knew in advance would fail, insured themselves against this in advance, and sold them as AAA rated securities. This is an example of lack of regulation. Where’s the accountability to the millions of American citizens who lost their homes, retirement savings, etc.? Ditto for the mortgage bankers.

When we gave private sector, the corporate side, billions of dollars as welfare-type bailouts, removed all key regulations which limited the opportunity to greed-gouge the middle class public, well, we see what prompted Teddy Roosevelt (a Party of Lincoln Republican) to break up the monopolies one hundred years ago and create corporate regulations. They had become collectively bigger than the American government. Roosevelt felt that it was the only way the American dream of free enterprise, indeed America itself could be saved. That was his cancer issue. It wasn’t an easy fix but it had to be done to assure fairness within free enterprise.

Strong regulation needs to framework the essential components affecting our way of life against the unbridled greed standing behind the ploy of “too big to be allowed to fail.” Such an abuse of our system of capitalism brings back to life the thought-to-be dead predictions of Marx and Engels, that the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the middle class gets eliminated in the process, a concept that we as Americans find repugnant.

Core Issue #3:  Understanding the Social vs. Private Concept in Our System

If we are to move forward as a people into the 21^st century, we all have to be on the same page as to what is reality.

The root rationale of this matter is exactly what the American way of life is now and traditionally has been. Our form of government began on a merger of two concepts of a theory of what democracy meant, to wit: a social democracy and a capitalistic democracy. It was then Jeffersonian democracy vs. Hamiltonian democracy. Both vied for dominancy. It has always been a blend and not a balance of the two. It fact, we have nearly always been, to one degree or another, more of a social democracy than a capitalistic democracy in our complexion as a nation. At least eighty-five percent of our life is based on some form of social democracy. Our army, navy, police and fire departments, courts, state universities, public high schools, road commissions, local, State and Federal government, the National and State Parks, interstate highway systems, tunnels, bridges, river administrations, the space program, libraries, museums, zoos, city transportation services, etc., etc., are all non-private ‘owned by all of us’ examples of social democracy which are paid for by we, the people. We are not “communists,” those who forfeit our individual identities, we are socialists as well as capitalists and we have been all along.

As to the social issue of the day, health care indeed is a focal point. But note that there were dooms-day screams when the future cost of “who’s going to pay” ushered in Social Security during the second Franklin Roosevelt administration. Again, when Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare, the hysteria was of like kind. It is also important to remember something else. It took about eight years for both Social Security and Medicare to iron out the zingers and make it viable. The same will be true for health care.

As to the social argument, a basic level of health care is an absolute necessity for the American public, for folks like you and me who get up each day, pay our taxes and go to work. “But what about those who refuse, pretend that they can’t, or just will not work?” “What about the drug culture that leeches off of the public and thwart assistance to get off of drugs and commit crime every day, and what about the illegal aliens who wrongfully do not come as legal refugees or immigrants seeking a legitimate dream as the majority do.” Well, no problemo! We are a legal “democracy-like” nation (not a true democracy as just mentioned), and as such we as people cannot let people die in the streets. For those who work, pay taxes, abide by the law, educated ourselves and our children with a sense of tomorrow’s good... we have hospitals! However, as to those who show up with health matters and who do not play by rules, we have free of charge rescue stations such as we see on Lansing’s Michigan Avenue and basic care providers as we see at the Ingham County Health Department. “But who pays for this less than traditional hospital level attention?” We do, in a way. For all those who get the enormous lifetime benefit at near giveaway interest rates for Federal Defense type loans for educational assistance. We can no longer afford the pleasure of the never spoken thank you. Perhaps, for every fifty thousand dollars of loans for med school, dent school, law school, etc., education, let there be a choice. it can either be paid back for years at a more realistic interest rate to the taxpayer who generously provided the assistance, or in the alternative, be paid back by doing one year, at a rate of perhaps $50,000 a year for every $50,000 of federal assistance loan monies forgiveness to doctors by working in the basic level health facilities for however long it may take. The same applies, of course, to dentists, lawyers, or any other profession that our assistance provided to the graduate.

Core Issue #4: The Complete Overhaul of the Welfare System

The vast majority of people who are on Welfare don’t like it. They want to get off.  

To the minority who want to stay on it, forever if possible and by any means because it’s easy free money, this is what needs addressing. Today many Americans rightfully have a hard time identifying with government that ignores hard issues. Nearly all Americans are frustrated by it and are justifiably cynical by a system so obviously broken. People are not tired of helping others. People are tired of helping those that can work but refuse to and those that take pride in scamming the government. There is no God given right involved.

To a Thomas Paine democratic (small “d”), such as try to reflect, I realize that I am treading on an issue that invites words of heartlessness, non-Christian, and devoid of compassion for the less fortunate. But this issue is absolutely a cancer to the American Dream and it cannot be ignored because it grows and erodes the positive feeling that we all need to have in our nation, and especially with regard to what we are to leave to our children. It demands conviction as strong as Teddy Roosevelt’s, as Franklin Roosevelt’s, as Abraham Lincoln’s were to the crisis’ of their times. It needs to be dismantled and re-built, not again politically whitewashed.

Looking only at the recent past, between 1965-2000 welfare spending cost taxpayers $8.29 trillion (in constant 2000 dollars). By contrast, the cost to the United States of fighting World War II was $3.3 trillion (expressed in 2000 dollars). It is estimated that by the end of 2010 that figure in today’s dollars will be roughly $12 trillion.

Although welfare (with small “w”) began very early in our American history, it was always viewed as a temporary assistance measure. Briefly government stepped in with measures such as veterans pensions (followed by the Civil War) and to deal with disasters and emergencies, but largely it was administered by religious and civic organizations. What happened?

In 1932 the Great Depression had not subsided and the “Emergency Relief Act” was passes into law. Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) largely dealt with money to the unemployed and it ceased operations at the end of 1935. It had given $3.1 billion dollars and helped over 20 million people. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration was terminated in 1935, and its work was taken over by the WPA, a public work agency for out-of-work citizens, and by the Social Security Board to help people who could not work because of numerous reasons including injury and the death of the family wage earner. But before the Federal Emergency Relief Administration ended, it instituted the Civil Works Administration (CWA) as a $400 million short-term measure to get people to work, and also put $500 million into state-run relief projects. Money was spent on soup kitchens, blankets, employment schemes, and nurseries. The Social Security Bill was passes on June 17, 1935, and it included direct relief (cash, food stamps, etc.), and changes for unemployment insurance. In 1940 the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was established. “Relief” was meant to be a temporary emergency measure. It never envisioned the permanent expectancy of perpetual welfare. Unemployment compensation and AFDC (originally Aid to Dependent Children) are two of the original programs that still exist today. But that’s the tip of the ice berg.

It is not a myth that, literally, there are five or more generations of families that have lived in and believe there is a legal expectancy to receive a Federal and/or State check each month. Although the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it implies the effort to move forward, to “struggle to get out from under.” We cheat the shiftless and the otherwise ‘can’t get motivated’ individual of the satisfaction of achievement, personal pride of accomplishment by perpetually paying for low self esteem. By funding those that are happy to live this way is the same as supplying heroin. There will never be any hope, and hopelessness breeds violence. There needs to be a focus on attitude, of course. The failure to solve otherwise simple problems of day to day life beginning with getting out of bed to look for work, the postponement of gratification (doing your homework first), etc., need to be understood and seriously addressed, perhaps by mandatory personal life skills training being required.  After all, fellow citizens are funding existence each month, and maybe, from national family member to family member, we have a right to intervene with some not-too-difficult rules.

The reality of this is that as a people we need to require annual "qualification" by a medical professional/registered social worker for anyone who feels the need to further request the necessity of assistance.  Helping those in temporary need is a social obligation for all of us to appreciate, just as basic health care is, but there is no right to receive when others pay their taxes and act responsibly. 

Core Issue #5: Dismantling Our Notion of Empire

I come from a strongly military minded family. My father was a drill inspector and in service for 32 years. I have an understanding about readiness and having strong adequate defensive posture that is within reasonable terms and not antiquated.

That being said, and understanding that our indebtedness makes us more of a portfolio item to other nuclear nations who own more of America each day via underwriting our business as usual existence, one question comes before all others: Do we need such a massive presence given the cold war is dead and buried for more than two decades now?

According to current military spending in the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2009, $965 billion dollars, includes Dept. of Defense ($653 billion), the military portion from other departments ($150 billion), and an additional $162 billion to supplement the Budget’s $38 billion for the “war on terror.” Roughly $200 billion of this is spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  Note: Past military amounts such as veterans’ benefits ($484 billion) are not included in this figure.

 

What about the remaining half trillion dollars each year?

We maintain an American empire in some ways not dissimilar to the British Empire which came before us and to which we apparently replaced in terms of naval and an overall military presence. Including Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States presently has, according to the Pentagon’s own list, 865 military bases in 63 foreign countries. In total, there are 255,065 US military personnel deployed worldwide. We presently have 237 military bases in Germany alone! It’s been sixty five years since the Nazis went down for the count and there are no signs of regrouping; Russia seemingly can’t run a military exercise without a submarine exploding or a missile mistakenly blowing up an apartment house. Today Russia’s defensive concerns are largely the same as ours. The worldwide total of U.S. military personnel in 2005, including those based domestically, was 1,840,062, supported by an additional 473,306 Defense Department civil service employees and 203,328 local hires. The Pentagon is now recognized as the world’s largest land occupier, occupying 29,819,492 acres... just overseas! These bases do not come cheap. Excluding U.S. bases in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States spends about $102 billion a year to run its overseas bases.

There are two dimensions which are necessary to view our rising debt. The first is borrowing and the knowledge that for every dollar that our government spends we only take in sixty-one cents, the rest coming from China, India etc., buying our treasury bonds, to wit: owning a bigger piece of our country each day. The second is the interest that we pay each year on that debt from the sale of Treasury Bonds. Last year this amounted to just under $400 billion dollars, and the debt grows because of the increased borrowing to pay for our expenditures.

The USS Gerald R. Ford, the proposed next class of aircraft carrier, according to a 2009 report said that the Ford would cost $14 billion including research and development, and the actual cost of the carrier itself would be $9 billion but we can expect this to go up before completion. Construction began a few years ago. There are active plans to build at least 2 more! Why, please, is this necessary given what we have?

It should be noted that the U.S. Navy presently has ten Nimitz Class ‘super carriers’ on active duty, dozens more support carriers, a massive ‘mothball’ fleet larger than the total navy of any other in the world, and six active fleets either at home or deployed all over the world.  It has and maintains 286 warships on its active roster. Does the Taliban even have a navy other than speedboats with explosives?  Does Iran pose a naval threat beyond coastal patrol boats?   Presently we have twelve active main super carriers (one not a Nimitz Class), as well as better than three dozen secondary active carriers for assault and support. How about nuclear submarines? The U.S. Navy presently had 78 active submarines of all classes.  Exactly what threat of such a caliber are we protecting ourselves from... why such an enormous number with no Soviet Union?  China has one aircraft carrier ...they bought it from Ukraine and converted it into a hotel/shopping mall!  Russia has one ...an aging auxiliary type designated as an “aircraft carrying cruiser,” called Admiral Kuznetsov, (originally named Riga, renamed Leonid Brezhnev, and then Tbilisi).

About planes... when will enough be enough? Not counting B-2 bombers, support fighters, assault fighters, or any other of the six thousand plus active warplanes, in the last fifteen years we have build 2,682 dog-fighting type, plane to plane, fighters that are in active service ranging from the F-15 to the F-22.  The estimated cost of an F-22 in 2007 was $137.7 million per plane. To date, 91 have been delivered and 183 more are being built. The next plane, the F-35-C now in production, was estimated per unit cost at $64 million when the plane was approved in 2003 but that cost per plane figure today is considerably higher, the first plane to be delivered in 2011. 

 

Do we expect to dog fight the Taliban fighters? Does Russia pose any threat at all, or does China?  Why the unilateral arms race? Who exactly are we competing against?   Did someone not tell me that this an Olympic event?

Radical intervention is often required in matters involving drug addiction, alcohol abuse, gambling disorders, and the like. Presently, our national priorities are fashioned by yesterday’s posture and we haven’t seriously had to change the music that goes with it. We have a military habit that needs to be fed and there’s no serious end in sight.

There is no question that this would likely not be the addiction that it is if our legislative officials had asked their constituents beforehand instead saying hello to the appreciation offered by defense industry lobbyists. We are bankrupting ourselves by this addiction as in reality our country becomes the property of those that buy our debt each day of the week. I don’t wish to be presumptuous but doesn’t “cyberspace defense,” which could shut down life as we know it, make more sense given the world today? Again, radical intervention is often required in a matter of addiction as this thinking is indeed a cancer to our nation.

richard williams

williamston, mi

April 28, 2010