PLATFORM

Economics & Jobs

Broadband
Our economic future is a digital one. Business will lead the way to a more universal access; government should make all possible effort to help make that happen for the entire nation ASAP.

Infrastructure
Broadband is the newest part of our infrastructure but virtually every other part has been ignored, underfunded, and allowed to decay for most of the last 70 years. Several other nations have surpassed us because we became complacent. It’s past time to rebuild America! This task provides your jobs and opportunities. Let’s do it!

Immigration & Entrepreneurs
America’s young people are taught, ”go get a good job.”  We need to revamp our own education and teach our kids to go take some risk! Start a business! Try something new.  Immigrants are risk takers, and the immigrant population has always served to help America build out of our economic downturns. If we want our communities to be revived, we need to welcome and encourage our immigrants. World-wide, we are in the middle of the biggest mass migration since WWII. America has the space, the need and the culture that can welcome these new immigrants, provide them a path into this country and to full participation as future citizens.

Energy
Old energy is simply not going away. We need ALL our energy resources but the growing field of energy development, alternative uses, etc. is changing. We must support and encourage these improvements more consistently rather than continuing to allow the old energy lobby to abuse resources and take subsidies while milking their old sunk coast in outdated systems.  Alternative energy and conservation mean growth, jobs, and entrepreneurial opportunities.

Gas Prices
Be honest! The price of oil is set by the international trading markets.  That determines when industry decides to drill more. The price of gas at our pumps is set by the industry markets which continues to rake in record profits. The current prices are not closely linked to oil prices, supply, or inflation. There are millions of acres already leased and not being drilled. Current gasoline prices are simply price gouging by the industry. Congress or POTUS can sometimes tweak these markets with short term actions that influence pricing; they do not control or set the market prices

Inflation vs Cost of Goods
Inflation has been our economic strategy, set by the Federal Reserve for decades. It has been on the edge of out of control for years. The Federal Reserve NOT congress or POTUS attempts to manage our currency, inflation, jobs growth and the overall economy. They have been inflating for years for fear of a deflationary spiral. The FED wants and prefers inflation.  Price inflation or Cost of Goods has recently taken off because of Federal Reserve policy. It has been exasperated by significant price gouging. Current increases in interest rates are the FEDs attempt to prepare for the next, expected, economic downturn. We must also prepare ourselves.  Congress must prepare to address a great many economic issues likely to arise with a vengeance at the next cyclical slowdown.

Retirements and Workforce
The boomers are retiring! This alone is the most significant shift in our workforce. It’s not the kids, who want a life and value in exchange for their labors. Every generation accuses the younger generation of laziness. That is simply wrong. We have a demographic shift causing much of our current turmoil. Job demand is up! Wages are up! unemployment is at new lows; these are not the typical signs of an economy struggling and yet we struggle because these times are different from those pasts which we tend to reference. Going forward will require significant adjustments to our retirement systems and the social safety net. The world offers us several tested models to consider. We must work together to protect and preserve this nation from an economic battle which impact could rival any battle of war.

Human Scale
We should look more and more towards distributed, smaller scale businesses and those which serve to reinvest in our local communities.

Clean & Green
Equals Growth and opportunity.  These are not “cost” to be minimized. These are investments that will make our own futures better. These are for us, our children, our communities, and our world!

Corporations
Corporations are a fictional creation of law, designed to facilitate business risk, group efforts in business and protect the individual from excessive risk.  Corporations are not people!  Citizens United must be overturned or corrected legislatively. Real people can organize and unite for political advocacy but participants in a large corporation rarely have real input or chive regarding the political inclinations of those corporations.  Likewise Corporations , being fictional in nature, lack the depth of diverse motivational forces of real people.  The singular focus of corporations combined with their economic power give them oversized influence in the affairs of real people, the affairs of government.  If we are to allow corporations to exist at all we must also rein in their power and influence else the trolls will rule the bridge.

 Monopolies and Free Markets
Markets owned and controlled by massive corporate entities are far from the free market with the invisible hand that guides and corrects it.  All of our markets are regulated, that’s how markets function successfully.  Too big to fail should be replaced with Too Big To Tolerate!

Rights & Responsibilities

Democracy vs Republic
Ours is a democratic republic. In this form of government, we recognize the rights and voices of the minority as well as the majority. The minority is not intended to rule but their-needs and their rights are to be protected by the representative government. 

Term limits
Our is intended to be a government of the people. The public has spoken and been ignored. It is time to implement congressional term limits and move away from career, congressional elitism.

Voting
Automatic, universal voter registration should be implemented ASAP

Voting security
More needs to be done to assure our citizens and the world that our voting systems are and will remain safe, secure, and trustworthy!

ERA
We have a historic ideal of equality but also a historic reality of falling short far too often. America has always been great because of our ideals and because we continue to strive toward a better perfection and implementation of those ideals. Pay equity continues to be one of those fields where we can do better. It is long past time we passed the ERA

Equality for All
The many and diverse minority members of our communities do not seek special status. That is a misnomer. They seek the equality that our ideas promise. Sometimes that means we must first publicly recognize our own shortcomings. Let’s make it right!

Speech
Freedom of speech, like all rights, carries responsibilities. Truth is not just an opinion. Media has an obligation to serve the public truthfully. Free speech does not guarantee a platform to every idiot with a big mouth and a soap opera mentality.

 Education
We have debated the need and the public agreed that mass education is a national priority. We have adjusted from the very basics of education at minimal levels to recognizing a full high school education is the newest minimum. We have learned that an early start serves every child better. Now we see a growing need for still more and I believe it is time we included at least two years of college or carrier perpetration for our youth. This debate goes on. Meanwhile it is time we removed the excess burdens, testing and reporting requirements from our teachers and LET TEACHERS TEACH!

Student Debt
Debt can be restructured as well as forgiven. We have been practicing usury against our youngest generation. That economic burden hurts the entire national economy.

Guns
The second amendment is clear and has been made even more clear by Supreme Court rulings in recent years. An examination of world affairs should also teach us the wisdom of the second amendment. But this right also Imposes grave responsibilities which we have come to take too lightly. The right to bear arms does not mean a right to intimidate or threaten others. The right to bear is not a freedom to shoot indiscriminately.  We need to invest much more in weapons safety and responsibilities.  Today the debate continues about guns, but ARMs are not only guns and soon enough there will be entirely new generations of ARMs to consider.

Health care
Most of the world nations have already determined that healthcare should be treated as a granted right.  There are many successful models we can learn and choose from. Healthcare cost is currently one of the worse economic issues for most families. Obama Care was a small start with many compromises. It provided more access and helped slow cost growth that was already occurring.  American needs a universal and single payer system but it also still needs access to private insurances. The funds to pay for such a system might be labeled as taxes but those taxes are a substitute for excess premiums and charges that are bankrupting American families. Providers will continue to be private or corporate.

Reproductive Health Care
The government should get out of our homes, our bedrooms, and our family planning conversations. This is one of the most personal decisions that we can make. All persons should have access to reproductive healthcare and yes, to abortions. Government does not have the right, should not have the right to make those decisions for the private citizen.

Preparing for a Better Future

Trust
Congress should focus on building trust and cooperation. Anyone who fails to acknowledge that need is not fit to serve in government. To win without cooperation and compromise within the government is to risk losing the nation.  The greatest good and satisfaction comes from cooperation.

Truth
Government leaders should be held to a higher standard of truth, not the lessor standards we find today.

Ethics
Government leader should be held to high ethical standards

Future
Our future depends upon the trust and cooperation of leaders and citizens.  We are one nation of many peoples.  Working together we CAN do better!