Old Rant: MoTheR (See other blog if interested.  Not many people have been.)

MoTheR Political Party Manifesto

We need to start a new political party.  The Tea Party is too radical.  Basically, it is a far right conservative party, incapable of compromise even in the best interests of the country.  Their only best interests seem to be the best interests they support, apparently.  The far left of the Democratic Party wants to increase government size and make rules about everything from smoking and fat content in your food to who can get married and who has to pay for all that.  No thanks to both, and no thanks to the political parties that spawned them.  The Coffee Party might work, but they are so quiet as to be unheard. We need a party who will stand up for America, for all its citizens, and very VOCALLY.  We need a party to make tough choices, to represent the majority of Americans who want government to be unbiased, and to make the best decisions it can. 

               

We all have had someone who looked out for us, made the best decisions on the information available at the time, protected us as best as possible, and she did it within budget (except during emergencies).  Well, that was your mother.  The MoTheR (Middle of THE Road) Political Party would like to take on that responsibility for all Americans.

MoTheRs (members in the mother of all political parties) want to show the world that Americans aren’t dolts.  We want our kids educated to compete successfully in a global economy.  We want to be reasonably safe, from domestic and foreign threats.  We want immigrants, legal and illegal, treated fairly.  We want to allow some guns, but not assault weapons or Saturday Night Specials; some abortions, but not as birth control.  We want a reasonable, easily calculated, fair income tax, not an employment act for accountants.  We want reasonably priced medical care, not unnecessary wealth for insurance companies, lawyers, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and doctors.  We want the rhetoric, bad feelings, and general nastiness of political infighting to cease.  We want politicians who put country first, individual Americans second, their own re-elections, wealth, and the desires of lobbyists last.  We want the budget balanced, unless there is a bona fide emergency.  We want the shell games with Social Security and Medicare to stop.  We want people who exploit loop-holes to accumulate tremendous wealth, while jeopardizing the economy and the security of the country, held accountable for those actions.  Jobs would be nice, too, but these things have to be fixed so the country will function again.  A functioning economy depends on a functioning government.

Basically, we’re ticked off and SOMEONE needs a spanking!!  NOT a time out!

I realize this will draw flak from the left as being too conservative and from those on the right as being too liberal.  As long as everyone is willing to act like adults and talk about their differences, I don’t mind.  Surely we can find some common ground.  This country was founded on compromise, some very bad, like slavery, some good like three branches of government. 

The right to bear arms compromise:  Every American has the right to bear arms – a front-loaded flintlock.  That’s just a joke.  But there is a basis for compromise here.  Every American has the right to hunt for food and/or to defend himself.  So every sane, adult, non-criminal American should be allowed to own a registered single shot rifle and a registered pistol, if they desire.  If they want to own more than that, say two pistols, two rifles, a pistol and two rifles, or military grade weapons, they would be taxed for increasing the danger in the neighborhood.  The tax on an AK-47 would be stupendous, in order to help pay for police protection for everyone else.

How long will it be before we have reasonable control of immigration?  It’s pretty simple; make it illegal and difficult to enter the country without permission.  ENFORCE that rule.  That takes care of half the problem, future illegal immigrants.  Deport them.  The illegal immigrants who are here, who pay taxes, who have had children born in this country, who are living with illegal parents and were born in this country, deserve some consideration.  When they arrived the law was not being enforced, or if it was enforced it was being enforced arbitrarily.  Not their fault.  Every one speeds when no one enforces that law either.  Give them a break.  Give them 5 years to pay some restitution or do public service; make them citizens if they pass the test, learn English, and aren’t criminals.  Then move on with life.

Taxes are a problem.  They shouldn’t be.  Obviously, we live in a great country, but there is no such thing as a free lunch.  We have to pay to someone to protect our freedoms and for the various other services government provides.  Just as obviously, the rich can afford to pay more in taxes, to a certain extent.  Above a certain level, taxes become burdensome and counter-productive.  The same is true for corporation taxes.  If everyone pays their fair share, then the burden is lower for everyone.  The last guy to find a loophole supports everyone who found one first.  That’s unfair.  If you don’t want everyone hiding their money off-shore, make taxes fair.  The poor pay the least, if anything.  The rich pay the most, but not more than 30%.  Get rid of the loopholes.  I once read an article where someone asked the question, “Wouldn’t you like your tax return to fit on the back of a post card?”  Hell, yes.  10% of $35,000 is $3500.  30% of $1,000,000 is $300,000.  That’s simple math.  Corporate returns should be as easy and as predictable.  The public, Congress, corporations, individuals, and IRS wouldn’t have to spend millions figuring out what people owe or interpreting arcane rules.  Once you know their income, you know their tax.

Middlemen add to the cost of services, the more middlemen the higher the cost.  Health care has more middlemen than almost any other service.  The real cost of health care isn’t the care, it’s the payoffs to everyone who wants a cut.  It is obvious to me that a certain amount of healthcare should be available to everyone for free, paid for from our taxes.  Preventive care early at low cost, decreases the horrendous expense to the nation when people come down with terrible diseases that should have been prevented.   Preventive medicine includes vaccinations and other care, i.e. pre-natal care, information on diet, smoking, and other wellness programs to help maintain good health.  If people choose to smoke or to be obese, then they should pay more for health care.  And they should pay it before they need more care than those who don’t smoke or weigh 300 pounds.  Accidents and non-preventable illnesses can’t be predicted, but the risk can be spread out over the entire population.  We should move to an insurance model where the companies are forced to insure large blocks of individuals, in which the demographics are equivalent.  Each block might include 100,000 people, with approximately the same number of women as men, children as older folks, the same percentage of different ethnicities, etc.  That way the risk for each block would be comparable.  Insurance companies would all have to provide the same benefits; then they would have to compete in the market place.  This would force them to be efficient, translation: less expensive.

Term limits don’t work.  Why get rid of a politician who is good just because he’s been in the job a certain number of years?  We should, however level the playing field for challengers of all parties.  Incumbents have a decided advantage.  We can’t do anything about the fact that they were successful in getting elected, but we can limit the other advantages.  Gerrymandering should be disallowed.  In addition, no politician should be allowed to run for office while in office.  That means a politician can only be in Congress or President every other term.  It also means, he’d have to spend every other term in the real world working for a living, looking for a job, or looking for health insurance like the rest of us.  The period of campaigning should be limited.  In this day of instant interconnectivity, who needs more than 30 days to get his message across?  The message can be anything the politician likes, but everyone should have a monetary limit to what can be spent in his name for that month.  If the politician wants to spend his time raking his opponent over the coals with his limited funds, then so be it.  With only limited exposure and finances, he would likely spend them on more pertinent  information.

Education is a disaster to some extent.  The problem, as I see it, is this: there is little competition.  And this takes place in a country that was founded and is run on a competitive basis. Capitalism is the ultimate competition.   No child fails in school any more.  Until they are injected into the real world, our children don’t compete!  No wonder the country is a mess.  Everyone is looking for their trophy, and they haven’t done anything to deserve one.  Every soccer team player gets a trophy.  Every child is promoted to the next grade.  No one loses!  Education should be free, but it should be a serious competition.  The best students should go on; the rest should not.  They should go to vocational schools or into the work force.  That doesn’t mean they should be abandoned.  If they think they were inappropriately treated, if they mature, if they want to continue their education, then they can study on their own or with tutors, and they can retake the exams.  If they do well and make it into the group that moves on, then they may rejoin those in school.  We need engineers, scientists, doctors, entrepreneurs, astronauts.  We also need technicians, nurses, mothers, and fathers.  We also need carpenters, brick masons, and laborers in a viable economy.  No one should feel badly if they are doing the best they can do given their talents.  But, the smartest need to advance the furthest, regardless of their parents’ means.  Who wants to relegate the next Einstein to changing tires or promote the next Forrest Gump until he becomes a brain surgeon?

Basic research drives the economy.  The Apollo era poured billions of dollars into the economy.  The benefits of that research and of other basic research into computers, electronics, and cancer research are just now being derived by the population as a whole.  We need to continue funding basic research.  We need goals: more space exploration, more oil and gas-free energy production, better control over power distribution, medical  and biological research, etc.  Research keeps people employed today AND in the future.

Obviously, I can’t produce the MoTheR Party by myself.  I’m no politician.  I’m not even diplomatic.  I am naïve.  And I’m getting ready to retire.  If you agree with the above logic, then mail this blog to all your friends.  Maybe we’ll find someone who is young, energetic, idealistic, brave, diplomatic, and smart enough to pull this off.  Hopefully, it will happen in my lifetime.