WILL OBAMA REACH OUT TO US?
By Roger Fredinburg
December
3, 2008
NewsWithViews.com
The true irony in this election is that for the first time in 60 years, the President elect actually has a shot at making some memorable history.
Americans, like no time since FDR are ready for genuine change.
The American people would embrace any number of reforms right now. But I want to stick to what Mr. Obama promised and or insinuated throughout his campaign and help him reason out some of those themes from a man on the street point of reference.
Let's look first at our biggest problem as I see it, our regressive tax code.
Does Mr. Obama recognize the calamity caused by the power elite who use their official positions as elected and highly placed appointed public servants to alter the tax code for the benefit of some and to the detriment of others?
The taxing authorities (congress) are able to manipulate, alter and program into the taxing process exactly who are the winners and who are the losers by simply shifting the tax obligations from one sector of society to another.
President elect Obama, you did exactly this during the campaign. Dividing Americans into multiple tiers and creating an imaginary cast system.
You promise tax "cuts" to 95% of working Americans and promise to punish the successful and small business sector with higher minimum rates and increased capital gains taxes.
Why?
Is it because that's the way it's always been done?
Politicians come to power promising to use the tax code to appease their support base.
So I ask Mr. Obama to tell me where the change is?
Do you realize that a consumption tax equitably spreads the burden?
Aren't you the man who wants to even the playing field and spread the wealth around?
Well, it can be done, without embracing socialism, by doing what I recommend here. Install a consumption tax in place of individual taxes.
Mr. Obama has the political capital to rise up this instant and demand a fairer tax code, redesigned to stop playing one group of Americans off the other.
Uniting Americans: wasn't that the flap during the campaign?
Imagine a consumption tax that is hidden in the revenue churn of the overall GDP.
No more setting groups and individuals against each other. We need fair and adequate revenues, without direct taxation.
Just think about how wonderful it would be to eliminate personal tax forms, no filings, no intimidation, no policing, no audits or harassment of individual persons, ever.
Imagine a properly funded government that covers their liabilities.
No accountants, no wasted time and energy no more big money committed to trying to beat the tax code, or bribe congress to change it, no more corruption, tax avoidance etc.
Mr. Obama, we need a tax code that guts congress of this dangerous power that feeds political lunacy and an army of lobbyists.
It seems to me this idea is at the very core of what you claim to want repaired in the political body of the country.
For the first time in decades, we have a President elect who basically has a blank pallet and a huge opportunity to free America from tax bondage and modernize the revenue collection system for the benefit of all.
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No loopholes, no "special deals" everybody pays according to their ability through spending in the economy.
Next, we need an honest debate regarding the concept of central banking.
My favorite Dead President is Andrew Jackson. I won't bore the readers with a long biographical tale, but he understood the dangers of the central bank and fought them off. He challenged and beat back the Robber Barons and for a time the antics of the money changers was controlled and we were a much better nation for it.
As dangerous as it is to suggest, we must end the Federal Reserve, repeal the act that created it and return to real fiscal budgeting. Annual balanced budgets, debt free money, honest money, backed up with real substance, possibly even gold again.
Mr. Obama. You are uniquely positioned in history to actually fix it.
The real questions are, are you ready for change? Do you have the guts? Do you really care?
Next we need to confront the lies and deceptions in the radical environmental movement. (Sorry but your pal Al Gore is 180 degrees off the mark).
The cost of living in America is directly affected by the false science, phony studies and outright lies told by the environmental extremists I call "Eco-Bullies."
They fight all exploration and development of every kind of natural resource. Causing the cost of food, oil, electrical power, bare land and building products to skyrocket in price.
They file lawsuits against every timber deal, every salvage sale and sue anyone who attempts to develop virtually anything these days. It's ridiculous.
They are committed to shutting everything down and blocking all natural resource development, including farming operations, oil drilling, power plant construction, refineries, etc. They oppose multiple use plans and basically want all human beings terminated.
It's estimated that the eco-bullies cost the average American household over $15,000.00 per year.
I realize that we need good environmental hygiene. But, I ask, at what cost?
None of us wants to choke on brown air or sit around in piles of trash and toxins.
We need to force a modicum of restraint on the courts to stop simply placating these eco-bully groups and force them to cough up legitimate peer reviewed science and use reason and common sense to guide us.
If we don't stop the Eco-Bully movement, which is primarily based on lies, we are doomed.
They need to be required to do economic impact studies to determine the costs to the communities they harm. Then we must demand that they put up bonds and/or repay the public for the economic wreckage they leave in their wake.
If we rewrite the "Endangered Species Act" to include humans as part of nature, this problem would resolve itself almost instantly.
So let's do it, in the name of change, of course.
Higher Education should be available and virtually free in today's high tech world.
There is no reason why all major universities can't make use of web-cams, archives and internet distribution to make the best education America has to offer available to all, and for pennies a day.
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Imagine financially challenged students attending Ivy League schools and getting e-degrees and spending only a few dollars a month, which would go to the schools.
Imagine Harvard business school with 12 million online students shelling out 25 bucks a course.
You think Harvard could cash in or what?
For public education, let's phase out the failed post John Dewey model and replace it with private Web based and TV based home schools.
Allow the private sector to put forth competitive curriculum and allow parents to steer their children into educational opportunities that will be tailored to the child's skills, interests, and abilities.
I can see educational formats that lean toward business, law, science and math, medicine etc.
Imagine how much better future Doctors will be who spent 10 or 12 years in primary school planning and preparing for a medical career.
Then spend their college years interning at a clinic or Doctors office while med schooling on the web. I'll bet they would be far better more experienced Doctors. Of course they would miss all that drunken lunacy that is part of campus life. Oh well!
You promised change Mr. Obama, I say let's have some change.
Drug crime generally, and substance abuse is a huge and avoidable taxpayer expense.
It's time we realized that we lack the will to win the war on drugs.
Decriminalize simple possession and personal use.
Let's stop jamming the courts and filling the prisons with non violent criminals and instead break the backs of the crime syndicates who traffic those drugs to our children by taking the profit out of it.
Put all the saved resources into blocking the cross-border traffic and cleaning up the carnage.
The money we save by shuttering all those prisons and downsizing the criminal justice system by about 80% will leave lots of cash on the table to find vaccines and real treatments and ultimately eradicate the demand.
Regarding foreign affairs?
Our founders said it best. Avoid entanglements!
If we have no legitimate constitutional reason for getting involved, lets not!
We can be friends, allies, and even the loyal opposition, but we don't need to play world policeman.
If our failure in Korea, Vietnam and now the Gulf haven't made that point, we are destined to be our own destroyers.
Finally, government and bureaucracy must be downsized and modernized.
There are many competent software firms who can construct programs that would retire vast elements of manual paper shuffling that we currently rely upon at the federal level.
I know the public employee unions get hemorrhoids every time I bring this up. But, it's time to modernize and downsize the federal government bureaucracy.
Most jobs are paper pushing numbered forms with established rules. The modern age can radically reduce the manpower requirements and I imagine cut the federal payroll in half at least.
Again, you speak of change, I agree we need change and have offered up some options I hope will be considered.
Good luck to President-elect Obama.
I am from that Christian right people talk so much about. And, I am reaching across that wide aisle to our soon to be new President.
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I'll be watching to see if he is truly reaching back.
Because I honestly believe, that if Mr. Obama doesn't embrace ideas like those I offer here, or take equally drastic steps to change the direction we are headed in, he will likely be our last elected leader.
I'm is also VP of Media at efoodsdirect.com. It is my belief that current global food shortages and rising food costs can be easily addressed with a simple bulk food storage plan for your family. Click on this link and order your storable foods.
God Bless America!
� 2008 Roger Fredinburg - All Rights Reserve
