Improving America

Let's stop waving the Stars and Stripes for a minute and think about ways we can make America better. Here are some things I'd like to see, though I never will.

1. Outlaw spending money on political campaigns. Anyone guilty of buying a tv or radio or print advertisement is disqualified from that race. Replace political advertising with intelligent discussions on tv. The candidates would be invited to appear on channels devoted to politics, for one on one interviews or for small discussions involving a moderator and two candidates.

In this way, we take the money out of the election process. No candidate would have to worry about running out of money for his campaign. No candidate would have to make promises to campaign contributors. Politics would no longer be Survival of the Richest (or of the biggest whore).

Advertisements are propaganda. They are one sided. We don't need them. Televised discussions will show the public how the candidates think, what they plan to do. That's what we need.

If many voters ignore the discussions and don't bother to vote, that's fine. I'd rather have an election decided by a small number of interested and analytical citizens than by a horde of apathetic dummies who like or dislike somebody's mustache.

This would strike a blow against the "special interest" lobbyists who throw so much money around to buy our candidates. I'm talking about lobbyists like the powerful pharmaceutical industry that contributes so much money to politicians to buy them outright, like they have bought our current president, who has refused to negotiate to lower the price of prescription drugs because he won't bite the hand that feeds him, therefore condemning us to ever-increasing and horribly inflated health insurance premiums and hospital costs. I consider this sort of thing "treason" against the American people, and I think it is extremely important to keep whores out of the White House.

2. Place upper limits on wealth accumulation and annual earnings. It is not ok with me that CEOs skim 100 million dollars off the gross receipts of any company and walk away with it. It's just too damn much, and it obviously affects prices that I have to pay. The money they take is coming from us, ultimately.

I am not a dyed in the wool, all or nothing capitalist who believes that everyone is entitled to whatever he can grab. I have no patience with greedy misers. I'm not insisting on any particular number, but a number should be chosen. America's salary cap. Nobody gets more than 20 million in any one year. Or nobody gets more than 5 million, or 1 million, or whatever number is decided on. It would sure bring baseball ticket prices down, and that's a good thing. It would bring lots of prices down. I really don't care how many homeruns you hit. Enough is enough. As long as the salary cap is at least six figures I will never come anywhere near it.

I'd do the same for total wealth accumulation. I'd place an upper limit on how much any one person can own. The way things are going, the day will come when 16 people own the whole world and everything in it. My limit would be low enough to catch Donald Trump in its net. He's too rich. Don't tell me about encouraging entrepreneurial spirit. Screw it. If you have accumulated 20 million or 40 million or whatever number is picked - you win, good for you, you get a big gold lollipop, but you're done, you can't have anymore. We take the excess away from you. Tough shit. We need it for the elderly, for college tuition for qualified students, for good works of our own choosing, not for charities you pick in order to get tax deductions and pay no taxes at all.

3. I'd replace social security with a much better system of retirement savings. I'd make it the law of the land that every American employer must contribute a dime to every employee's IRA for every dollar paid in salary. He'd get a tax break for it, and IRAs would be set up for every American worker to receive this money, out of the reach of sticky fingered Uncle Sam. That's better than taking out 6% of the employee's wages, and adding that same amount again from the company, and sending it to Uncle Sam to steal and waste, leaving nothing for the employee when he retires. Call it the national American 10% pension plan. If that had been done for you from the beginning, you'd be a rich old retiree some day.

4. Immediately begin going full speed ahead on stem cell research. One day, and it will come too soon, you will get heart disease, cancer, or some other deadly disease. If it's cancer, you may be treated with chemotherapy that destroys healthy tissue as well as contaminated tissue and wrecks your immune system. Either it will work or it won't. If it works, you'll have to keep getting tested for the rest of your life, and hope that the second and third round of chemotherapy will work as well as the first. But stem cell therapy works differently. It replaces damaged cells with perfect new cells. It can be a permanent cure. It can add many healthy and fun years to your life, and maybe with luck you will just die in your sleep at age 115. It's a beautiful thing.

Then along comes this absolute moron, this superstitious fool, this idiot bush who asks terrorists to "bring it on" and sends jet fighters across the Atlantic Ocean on 911 to defend us against attacks in New York City and Washington and then goes and hides in a silo. This turd puts the brakes on stem cell research. It is probably a much more important issue than the war in Iraq, because it will directly impact your life when you are sick.

If you don't like my ideas, please don't share your comments with me. I like them. You can go write your own blog. I'm here to write MY ideas, not yours. Anyway, I always think that people who don't appreciate my ideas are morons, and I'd rather not hear from them.