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COMMON SENSE, WHAT A UNIQUE CONCEPT [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-08-01
The Clarity of Common Sense, the Brevity of Guido Sarducci = Problems Solved
The USA has a few problems in the twilight of our democracy; perhaps a look at these will cause the next generation to wake the hell up before the bottom falls out.
Budget deficit of $32T, is high even by Boomer crappy standards.
Reverse the ill-fated Trump tax cut which is giving away $2T per year to the 1% crowd.
Reduce EVERY federal budget by 1 0% per year, every year until balanced
every year until balanced Reduce every federal salary over $125k by 10% per year, with every elected official salary reduced by 15% . Country first; not wallet first.
Country first; not wallet first. Raise retirement age to 69 & collect SS funds on first $500K earned.
2) Guns- Good Lord, do something about the murders of the month problem.
Licensing and background check for every gun sold, crazies need not apply.You can’t drive a car without license and registration, not exactly rocket science.
Ban AR 15 type weapons of war or get drafted into military to use them. Already there are over 10,000,000 assault weapons in then USA, more than any 3rd world nations has.
No one with any confirmed mental health history is allowed to possess any gun at any time for any reason. Red flag them out of the home.
3) Education- we spend more per student (by far) than any other country with our results about 29th or 30th in the world.
Reduce administration expense and start with the amount of and salaries of, excessive superintendents, assistants, and hangers on.
Have teachers teach, raise their value, remove if not effective each year. And by the way eliminate two meals per day for kids. Parents: ‘news alert” if you have kids you have to feed them too.
Address the excessive costs of college (2nd greatest price increase since 1960’s) by reducing administrative costs (seeing a pattern here, aren’t we); encouraging apprenticeships/trade schools, etc We don’t need more philosophy majors quite yet.
4) Healthcare- largest increase in expense and no results to show for it since’60’s.
18% of our GNP goes to healthcare/pharma, with results somewhere between 29th & 30th. Next highest country (Netherlands is at 13%) Country with best result (Japan) spends about 8%. What’s wrong with this picture people????
34 of 35 industrialized countries have some type of government based, single payer system, all with better results at lower cost. Can you say insurance PACs; can you say “non-profit”/pay no taxes hospitals with overpaid administration?
Our most efficient segment of healthcare is (wait for it) Medicare and it would be even more efficient if both Pharma and medical devices were under this program
Pharma costs in USA are roughly 50% MORE than any other country in the world. 200 countries can literally say, we beat the USA in drug cost. Once again politicians/ PACS and bribery drive our drug costs. Last election Mitch McConnell alone got over $350,000 from Pharma, seems they made a good deal for themselves.
Lastly, health insurance is the biggest Ponzi game going. We would be better off by banning all health insurance and let the doctors, hospitals and others reduce pricing to get our business or go broke, patients need to ‘shop’ and not be sheep to excessive/outrageous/outlandish pricing.
5) Elected Officials- money has corrupted the 535 elected federal officials to only care about getting re-elected and not caring about the country. It’s not party first, it’s not me first, it is supposed to ‘country first’.
Reduce salaries by the above mentioned 15% until budget balanced and deficits reduced.
Ban elected officials from becoming “lobbyists” upon leaving office for TEN years. Formerly 4% of elected went on to become lobbyists; now it is 60% with a waiting list to increase their wealth tenfold. ‘Those who made the bad rules now benefit the most.
Term limits for all to discourage constant reelection fundraising. Two terms for Congressmen; one term for Senators; and a one time FIVE Year term for Presidents/VP to stop the 24/7/365 fundraising to get reelected.
One ten year term for Supreme Court justices and certainly a good ethics clause as well.
Summary: America “is not “ exceptional with results like we have seen. “What can I do for my country” has been replaced with “ I got mine, to hell with everyone else”. Read the history of the world and you will see most dynasties/ empires/ rulers last about 200 to 300 years before crumbling. Pay attention, the clock is ticking!
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