Vision for America

 Have you ever heard anyone ask presidential candidates what their vision is for America?  Is their vision for America the vision what we should follow?  Whatever happened to government of, by and for The People?  I think it's been hijacked by the political parties who are defining for their members what that vision should be.  That's why I'll never join a political party again.

There's a scene in some movie or in the West Wing where it's said that democracy is hard and this is my take on that:  Democracy is hard because, as it says in our Constitution, it's for ALL the people, even though at the writing that simply wasn't the truth.  But, we've worked hard to get closer to the ideal that our democracy is for ALL.

So, the political parties are not democratic because they define ideologies that are only supported by their own members.  That's why our country is so divided now.  There's nothing in our Constitution about political parties or only serving some Americans, even though the reality, at the time was that large numbers of Americans were not served and not even considered Americans.

So, let me offer a vision for America that, as a little girl, I thought was what America is all about:

You're head a an American family, father or mother, with 2 to 6 children.  You're a "skilled laborer"; in other words, an artisan whether a mechanic, an electrician, a fire fighter, a farmer, a chef, a baker or some other work that requires having learned something and having skill and talent.  Maybe you're an artist or a musician.

You work full time meaning you work a lot.  In some cases, you work for a business or have your own.  In some cases, part of your work is finding customers for whatever you do.  In either case, you spend a lot of your week working trying to make enough money.  If you work in that way, you should be able to live in a decent place whether you rent or own.  You should be able to have a healthy diet.  You should have some free time to spend with your family and friends just enjoying yourself.  You should be able to go to the movies, or camping, or fishing, or to a local fair.  You should be able to afford transportation.  You should be able, over time to save for life improvements like a larger home, a newer car.  You should be able to meet most of your expenses because you've been working for them.

Our Constitution says "...promote the general welfare,..."; I think that means that in the case of catastrophe, whether for a single person, a family or a group of people, the government should be able to step in to help; isn't that one of the things our taxes are for?  So, if a town is flooded, something can be done to help.  That's why I'm OK with paying taxes.  Taxes are for street lights, curbs and gutters, sewer systems, public water, to pay police and fire, for parks, for libraries, for public schools, for paved roads and for reserves for disasters.  Don't you think?

Americans are all different.  I grew up in a very, very white Waspish town. (look it up; the meaning of WASP).  As a child, I was completely unaware that there was anyone different from me and my family members.  We didn't know (or so I thought) anyone different.  As I reach high school age, I began to be aware of some differences.  My father played golf with a man who was Jewish.  I had a couple of cousins who were Catholic.  There was  an elderly black man who attended the same church I attended and an adult man who had Downs Syndrome.  I had a classmate whose sibling had hydroencephalitis and died very young.  I had cousins who behaved, more or less like we did; but I also had cousins who were loud and obnoxious and destructive.  I had an uncle who was cruel to the point of being sadistic.  I found out about people who were thieves.  I grew up in a relatively happy household and I learned that there were people who were not happy.  I learned that people sometimes were in conflict with each other; think neighbors who have different ideas of what is acceptable noise.  

Conflict resolution is one of the things that government and laws are for: "...insure domestic tranquility,"; from local town government to our federal government.  Just think for a few minutes of all the people you know; especially the people you don't like or don't get along with.  Regardless of what you envision; I don't want to live in where I have to fight, every day, just to live.  I don't want to live in the "Old West".  Most of us have evolved beyond that kind of combative behavior.  We don't have to do battle constantly to be alive; we should all be able to walk down the street in peace and not be attacked for any reason.  It is absolutely possible to live peacefully with other people.  There is nothing in our Constitution that says that the government is for those whose party gets elected.  The concept of "majority rule" is outdated; it means that somebody is always out.  I don't believe, for one minute that's necessary.  I STRONGLY believe that we can all have most of what we want all at the same time without unnecessary conflict.  Some of us may need to evolve more but there are plenty of us who have lived most of our lives without doing battle with others.

The difficult thing about democracy is that, because we're all different, the government, all levels of government have to understand that it must attempt to satisfy the needs of ALL Americans.  It will fail because there are so many of us and we're so different, but it must try to be for ALL of us.  That doesn't mean that it's responsible for making all of us happy but it must provide certain basics that make our lives decent; that includes a vision of what a decent life is; certainly infrastructure, laws, defense, education and OPTIONS.

Choice is one of the key components of peace; I think.  That's my vision for America:  People living their lives in RELATIVE comfort and peace with a shared government as backup when things go wrong.  The Citizen is the center of it all and we are, each and everyone of us, a Citizen.

Notes on a Variety of Subjects

Immigration:

• We need a constant influx of workers.
• Immigrants should probably be sponsored by employers or individuals, including family members who have specific responsibilities; the idea is integration and assimilation..  Bringing in masses of people who bring their problematic cultural and social habits with them is not a positive thing.

Exile:

We currently do not have laws, regulations or options to permanently exile someone from the United States.  I think we need that option.

Citizens United/Corporate Citizens:

This was a huge mistake and has to be reversed.  I don't have the time, at the moment, to explain why it's such a problem but it has to be reversed.  Corporations are NOT benefactors; they are beneficiaries.  They have to be controlled.  The Citizen is the unit of greatest importance in this country and that is an individual person; not a corporation.

Taxes - revised

The purpose of taxes, as I've always seen it, is to pool public funds to serve ALL the American people.  This includes defense, enforcement of federal laws, federal projects like interstate highways, social programs that help Americans of all ages, railroad infrastructure; a pause here to define infrastructure.

Infrastructure:

There has been some debate about what constitutes infrastructure; this is my opinion:  Instructure includes all the things that All Americans need to function and live in the current, modern world; what's needed to get and hold a job, to get from place to another, to communicate with our families and people we interact with, etc.  So, for me, infrastructure includes:

the physical aspects of highways; railroads; bridges; telecommunications infrastructure including satellites; some aspects of public transportation; some aspects of ports, airports and other aspects of domestic, interstate and international transportation; safety measures; assistance with funding of shared infrastructure; all of the physical needs of providing defense like physical military bases, housing, vehicles, etc.; funding assistance for public schools of all levels; and more.

Infrastructure  is a large and expensive aspect of our lives.  These are things that all Americans use if not daily, at least from time to time.  They cannot be provided in any other way than to collect funds from everyone and provide what's needed wherever it's needed.

So we have several budget categories but first revenues:  if you visit the U.S. Treasury web site, you'll the sources of revenues for our government.  The top 2 amounts are individual income taxes and social security/Medicare taxes.  What isn't entirely clear from the Treasury's web site is whether the $ numbers of revenue are projected or actual revenues and that matters.  We know what the various revenues should be but they often do not come in as expected and there is often a shortfall as in municipal governments.  That is why there is are fiscal years for all levels of government and fiscal years vary among the various levels of government and must be adjusted for transactions between them.  It's why most municipal governments base their budgets on actual revenue receipts from two years previously; to base government spending on projected revenues is definitely "living on a prayer".

Our federal budget is huge because there are over 342 million people living in the United States.  We all want various things and certain things are expected like roads to drive on and electricity for our lives and water and the Internet, etc.  It all costs money.  Thus taxes.

Minimum Tax

So, my first proposal is a minimum tax for ALL Americans that MUST be paid.  Think of it as tithing; payments to support religions or governments.  The word tithe means 1/10, one tenth.  So, my first tax proposal is that everyone living in the United States be taxed a minimum of 10% of their income whether citizens or not because they use and benefit from the myriad expenditures of our various governments.  If someone has no income, they pay $0; if someone earns only $2, 400 a yr their minimum tax is $240 that year; if some makes $1.6 million dollars a year, their minimum tax that year is $160,000.  This is a minimum tax, everybody pays it, there are no deductions from it.  There may be higher tax rates for various citizens for various reasons and there may be deductions but the minimum tax is the minimum that can be paid.  And, in case it escaped your attention, I said everyone living in the United States, citizen or not.  And, in case you are unaware, non-citizens, whether legal or not, already pay taxes and many serve in the military; I've known some.  

Revisions:

Clearly, if someone makes less than they can live on, they should NOT be paying taxes.  The poverty line, I believe, is not rational.  We need to divide the country into cost of living regions.  It's obvious, for example, that living in Manhattan costs more than living in upstate New York.  It costs less to live in rural areas than urban area.  It costs more to live in coastal areas than inland areas.  Economists have to determine cost of living regions and taxes for people in those areas have to reflect their ability to pay taxes.  Plus taxes are the means to shift the focus of public services to those areas that don't produce enough revenues to provide adequate services, like public transportation.  So, it would be determined, by region, what it should cost an average person to have adequate housing, food, transportation, etc. and it should be generous, not poorhouse living.  Nobody with incomes below those regional costs of living would be expected to pay even the minimum tax.  But, everyone else would and there would also be a wealth tax.  And, since there would be minimum taxes that are not reduced by deductions and accounting tricks and categories of tax payers (religions) that haven't existed before, there should be plenty of revenues.

Sensible relief

The other tax proposal I have is that American citizens before the age of majority and seniors, would be free from income tax, including the minimum tax.  This means that young people who are intelligent and resourceful who make money before they're able to vote are free from taxes.  This means that they can make money to use for whatever legal purposes including savings for education, training, their own homes and vehicles, etc.  There would be a number of regulations and safeguards to ensure that this is legitimate personal income.

In addition, seniors, after a designated age, would be free from taxes.

A lot of study and changes in the designations of senior and age of majority would have to change.  For instance, they say that the brain develops and ages in various stages.  Should that be the determinant of how we designate how citizens are viewed for various legal matters including taxation?  That would have to be determined.

Finally, not-for-profit designations would be restored.  A not-for-profit used to have several tax designations including the familiar 501 (c)(3).  According to Wikipedia, there are 29 categories of the 501 (c) nonprofits in the U.S.  While many are very small, volunteer-operated organizations that do a variety of community work, some are vast, national organizations with enormous budgets and revenues.  When I first began grant writing, all libraries were 501(c)(3)s as were most foundations.  One of the rules of foundations is that they were required to spend 85% of their annual revenues in payments for public programs of various kinds.  There was also a rule about executive compensation.  That all disappeared and large foundations have been found to collect funds for charities that never see the money and foundation executives have been found to be paid huge salaries.  All that needs to be reviewed and revised.

One type of nonprofit is a religious entity:  a church, a synagogue, a mosque, etc.  They have been tax free from the beginning, I believe.  Things change.  I know of one church that wielded so much influence that it changed the traffic pattern in my neighborhood for the benefit of its congregation.  That is unacceptable.  I knew of another group of churches whose influence affected the zoning in a neighborhood where I used to live so that housing was eliminated so they could have a joint parking area.  Also unacceptable.  In view of such influence, and because they use publicly funded infrastructure and services just as much as the residents of the surrounding neighborhood, I feel very strongly that religious entities MUST be taxed the minimum tax.

The business of government is very large, very diverse and very complex.  As citizens our educational system should include, again, Civics classes throughout high school including some of the details of government funding and taxation.

Enough of this for now.

Accountability

We've been taught and we often read that our democracy is of, by and for the American people, but it isn't; certainly not now. And, it's gradually become less and less that over decades. 

If you've attended local municipal council meetings, you begin to understand why these intentions have evolved into something different over time.

Even at the local level, town councils represent the residents of the town and vote on what happens in the town; individual taxpayers don't vote on laws and policies.  Nobody represents me; I can tell you that.  My choices vary hugely depending on the particular issue.  While I am generally politically liberal, I am very conservative about some things.  If you think about it, it would take forever for anything to get done if everybody voted.  Elected officials would do well to be quite middle-of-the-road in voting on anything but they aren't.  In fact, like most homo sapiens, they are self-serving and want to remain in their positions so vote accordingly.  Thus the reason for term limits; to prevent individuals from remaining in office too long against the interests of the whole.

But, there are ways to keep our various levels of government responsive to the citizenry; term limits is only one way.  

Limiting the influence, power and control of the parties is another.  Political parties are not mentioned in the Constitution and have no legal basis of operations.  Their function is to define a political stance, philosophy and future and nominate candidates to carry out that aim.  That's all they should do, but they have taken over elections and in raising money for campaigns, they have brought seriously intense interference and control by individuals who are not interested in democracy but only their own benefits.

One of the ways to control the money in politics is to control elections and political campaigns.  

Some of you think government controls too much.  Stop.  Look around.  Most of you who think this also don't like how most people around you live.  You complain all the time about the minutiae of your neighbors' lives as if it actually affects you other than offending your ridiculous sensibilities.  Some of you are just complainers; I'm so sorry that your life is so easily affected.  Anyway, you really want government to control things that have real impact on your life; to keep your neighbors from actually screwing up your life.  Elections are one of those things.

Look around again.  Quite honestly, many Americans would be in favor of slavery as long as they were the slave owner, not the slave.  We all want something for nothing and free labor would make everything easier and cheaper and we can't have too much of what we want, can we?

Look, I'll be honest with you.  I'm in the 95th percentile on IQ tests.  That means that, theoretically, I'm smarter than 95% of the population.  Read that carefully.  It means that I sometimes have little in common with my neighbors, have little interest in their opinions and know that many of their opinions are based on nothing, erroneous thinking, etc.  However, I believe in Our Constitution and respect the rights of every American even if I think they're stupid in many ways.  They have a life and have the right to live it, so have I.

So we have laws and principles.  We don't all agree on what they should be, even those who believe they are religiously superior who are usually deluding themselves.

In any case, I began writing about accountability because our reps are not, in most cases, accountable to us and we're at fault for that.  Being a Citizen should be an active thing, not just a word we throw around.  Our reps should know us, be a little nervous to be hearing from us and should hear from us frequently.  I recommend contacting your reps immediately after every election and introducing yourself and telling your rep that you will be in touch on matters of interest to you; then, do that, contact them frequently.  Keep up with what they're voting on, in your name, and tell them how you want them to vote.

But, on the policy level there are some things that need to change:  

• Contacting our reps should be simple and easy; right now it isn't necessarily that.
• Lobbyists are monied private interests that don't necessarily align with our interests and often don't, our reps web sites should have daily reports of meetings with lobbyists, discussion points and time spent.
• Each elected official sits on a number of committees that decide national policy affecting everyone, therefore, everyone in the country should be able to contact that official regardless of whether or not they are in their election district.
• If enough of an elected officials' constituents are unhappy with their work, it should be easier to get rid of them and replacement them.
• Elections are state run and should remain so and political parties should not be running them.  Voting districts should be geographical or by population, not by party.  One of my library boards was once asked the party of a proposed new board member.  That is completely unacceptable and irrelevant to the work of a local board.  Political parties are out of control.

Citizens United as a term is a LIE.  It has nothing to do with citizens.  It should never have been allowed to be law; it's powerful monied interests controlling our government.  It has to be repealed.  It says that corporations are citizens and have the right to donate whatever they want to political campaigns.  WRONG.  Here's why.  Yes, corporations are made up of Americans each of whom has the right to vote and to donate to political campaigns.  Designating a corporation as a citizen, gives that corporation, it's board members, additional influence in any election.  So, your bank and your supermarket chain and the manufacturer of your car who you can be sure have vastly more money than you, can contribute to a campaign and get favors from elected officials that you can't.  SEE?

Then, there's this little FCC regulation:  "Pursuant to Section 611 of the Communications Act, local franchising authorities may require cable operators to set aside channels for public, educational, or governmental ("PEG") use."  So what is all the campaign money spent on?  The most expensive media is TV and radio.  Tightening this regulation a bit by removing the "may" or changing it to "must" would relieve some of the need for money since public access means free access.  Also, controlling the content and volume of political campaign advertising, etc. would help.  And, the media will cover the campaigns anyway.  Part of the problem, of course, is that everyone involved thinks much too highly of their monetary value and there are far too many involved.  Just a few thoughts about this sticky subject.

So, I'm fond of regulation.  My expectations of my fellow Americans is that most won't behave well unless they have to. You're free to disagree but look around... look in the mirror.

More on accountability at some point under the theme of responsibilities and consequences.