I haven't written a wish list in years. When I was a child, (Opie and I are the same age) and the world was in black and white, except for the second half of Wizard of Oz, my parents always made me write my lists. When I got in trouble at school, which was frequent, I got conversant at writing lists on a chalkboard. Transitting to keyboard, bored and ready to chalk up another Christmas to the past as fast as Republicans lie, I thought about Mr. Incoming.
This will be the last Christmas the Obama family has before fishbowl life begins. It's going to be tough on the four of them , entering a veritable maelstrom of urgent itsallgoingtohellRIGHTNOW situations, one after another. It's not going to let up for years.
But hopefully he'll find time to look over my Christmas list and bang that out while Saving the World for Democracy.
Follow me over the jump. Don't look back, that was only worth reading once, if that.
Obama's To Do List
Obviously thing are going down hill faster than most folks realize. The downward spiral resembles 1930, only this time it's faster. Unlike 1930, we owe the world for everything we have, our factories have been dismantled and shipped overseas along with our best jobs. You know the litany, but suffice to say this time, there's very little to fall back on.
Of course our electeds will do things willy-nilly, half assed and half hearted, primarily to suit Wealth and if it happens to benefit the teeming masses it'll be by proxy. They don't understand that when Obama said "Time for a change", us Socialist cowboys took him at his word.
Now I realize he hasn't had a lot of time on the job, but then again, there's a lot of Congress Critters that have been on the dole for decades and haven't done squat for the citizenry. So, in good humor, here's a few deadly serious suggestions that reflect the times and actions that will discomfit the top tier, but get the country chugging along in fairly quick order.
I'm sure all the following proposals will be weighed and acted upon in short order. (snark) But also realize that a hungry, homeless populace is deadly for governments, so it's better not to visit that sort of circumstance to our populace. We're already taken over factories, squatted in foreclosed homes and by golly, we're just getting started.
Who was it that said 'You ain't seen nothin' yet!"
Anyway to the subject at hand.
- Rescind the bank bail out. Why? The financial institutions recieving our taxpayer, (Chinese) dollars are doing what they do. They're buying banks, giving out bonuses and generally having a good time. One thing they aren't doing is loaning product.
Suck it back into the Treasury. Think it can't be done? Ahem, we're talking about the Treasury, Dad of the IRS. 335 B would be back in the coffers by noon tomorrow if that's what they were directed to do. Make it so, oh, and by the way, nullify those guarantees for the so called cash for trash and the rest of the paper junk. Shred it, use it for the New Year's Day parade maybe.
See, we're going to need that money for worthwhile things to put folks to work, go Green and all that hoopla.
- Mr. O, we're going to need some folding money to enact some goals down the list. We just don't want to borrow anymore from overseas. What's a President to do? Well partner, you're the Commander in Chief, and by law you get to make a lot of decisions all by yourself concerning our Armed Forces, especially those overseas.
Now at last count, we had some 735 military outposts around the world, from little sniff and you'll miss it outposts right up to 50,000 man garrisons in Korea, huge bases in Germany and Japan. And of course there's those little matters of Iraq and Afganistan.
Time to close up shop. Just can't afford to be World Cop anymore. We need the cash back home that we're wasting there protecting overseas corporate interests along with the jobs that used to be here. Yes, you'll be voiding a few 99 year leases, but all in all the world will be relieved to see us go home.
Now that's some major savings! Let's use those savings to do some good for once, OK?
- Health care for a year aka Medicare expansion. Yes, it's (gasp!) SINGLE PAYER! Lordy, Murka's gone socialist, next there'll be Commissars wearing hammers and sickles. (I live in the South, Mr O.and a lot of us are well, challenged, look at our Senators, you get the drift).
Trial period one year, Medicare picks up the tab for citizen health, dental and vision care. No charge to you the customer. At the end of that year, let's see what it really costs compared to Blue Cross, Aetna and the other for profit organized crime syndicates and prepare to adjust tax schedules accordingly. Let's just see how many Doubting Thomases clamor for the return of those no payola HMOs with 20% deductables, depending on the lunar phase of course.
I'd say we'd probably join the rest of the world in which healthcare is a right, not a luxury.
- I hear so much about education, how everybody needs to have a degree. I'm beginning to believe it, seeing how many fog a mirror jobs are requiring them now. So fine, let's educate in a BIG WAY. How about trying this for a year? Free university education, including books at any state institution.To qualify, have ambition and a 3.0 average.
If it's that important, then let's educate without indebtedness. At the end of the year, let's have Republicans try to explain to their constituents why this is a bad idea and why the program should be scrapped.
- Mr. O, I understand you're goingto create a lot of infrastructure jobs, green jobs and national service jobs. That's great, let's get started. But unless the pay is just extraordinary, younger working couples have a little problem.
Priced day care lately? They want HOW much? Uh, that's for a week or a month?
For a year, let's implement no cost day care benefits for working Americans. They still drop the kids off at the same place, it's just that the bill goes to the Uncle, yes, good old Uncle Sam. Works great in Europe. I can't wait to see the reasoning for discontinuing Universal Childcare whan the year's out.
- Minimum wage. While you're on honeymoon, do something nice for the nation that overwhelmingly loves you. Demand a doubling of the minimum wage and index it for future inflation. That way Congress doesn't get to revisit the issue long after it's time for a raise and dole out a pittance. Let's all live in the real world for a change!
- On the peripheral here. The Big Three need lot's of money. I think GM wants 15B. According to the reports, their actual net worth is 4B. Just buy GM for the 4B. We'll open the factories back up and produce some plug ins and hybrids and electrified short lines and just have a great time doing what GM refused to do on it's own.
- Trade. Appoint Dennis Kucinich to be our trade czar. He's really quite bright and he'll be so busy you won't see him until your second post election party. He'll be in charge of organizing world currency and tariff parity, scrapping corporate handouts like NAFTA, CAFTA, et al and bringing jobs back home where they came from.
He might mortally piss off the folks in Asia, oh well. But maybe Mexico and South America would start liking us again.
- Mr. President Elect, when algore speaks, listen. Yes, he IS boring and likes to hear himself talk, that's a given. Thing is, he knows to the comma what he's talking about and he's got 220 scientists in the next room, if you don't believe him. The modern version of the Scopes Monkey Trial needs to end, we've got some smokestacks to plug, c'est tu?
- Usury laws. I know this one 's on everyone's mind, right? Let's encourage the folks on Capitol Hill to cap the lending rates of any business lender from pawn shop to Chase Manhatten. Tie the rate to the overnight plus 5% maybe, but with a lot of folks sinking, the last thing they need to encounter is 30% or even 15% interest. That's a lotta vig to a day worker. Let's keep the least fortuneate at heart, even if it unemploys the guys down at the car title loan joint.
- Lucy, we got some 'vestigatin' to do! We've just turned out of office a metric ton of evil doers, duplicious dirty crooks. The world, as well as a majority of your constituents don't expect these folks of recent past to go unpunished for war crimes, Constitutional crimes, (wiretapping) and malfeasance of office. Mr. O, they can't just go Scot free, wouldn't be right. And, like it or not, we need to start at the top. You'll need to be all surprises on this one. I don't know if you know, but rumor has it Dubya's bought a ranch in Paraguay. And that country does NOT have an extradition treaty with America. Let's not let him live too long in his eight thousand square foot abode there in Dallas. And no, I don't mind if he has a designer orange jumpsuit for everyday wear, (for life!)
So AFTER you get all these good works past the Rs in Congress and the Senate, THEN fire up the dragline and pull in everyone from the past administration. Don't worry about Republicans reading this letter and bein' wise. That's why I put this on Dkos. Someone on your staff will see this and copy you.
Merry Christmas to you and the kids and yes, I got your card, thanks!