A political "what if" scenario

presluc said:

WHAT WOULD BE YOUR FIRST ACT.
IN SHORT WHAT WOULD BE THE CHANGES IF ANY IN AMERICA

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hazlnut said:

Ban lobbyists from DC.

Election Reform--money is not free speech. A corporation is not a person.

Fund FBI white collar crime unit.

Fund SEC investigations unit.

Fund IRS high tax bracket auditing unit.

Roll back taxes to Clinton era.

Reform Tax Code, remove all loopholes, subsidies, and credits.

Extend insider trading laws to cover the U.S. Congress.

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AdamT said:

* Immediately pass laws requiring absolute transparency in campaign donations for amounts over $400, to apply also to super PAC donations (a temporary measure, i.e....;

* Pass a constitutional amendment mandating that all federal elections will be paid for solely through public funds. Funds will be allocated equally to candidates who submit a threshold number of signatures;

* Institute single-payer health care;

* Make the tax code far more progressive and eliminate loopholes. There should be at least 10 tax brackets;

* Treat all capital gains as regular income;

* Vastly decrease the size of the Dept. of Homeland Security. It's only role should be to insure effective communication between the CIA, FBI, Justice, INS and other intlligence/law enforcemnet agencies;

* Break up large banks and increase leverage requirements (eliminate too big to fail);

* Implement regulations to hold credit rating agencies accountable (regular audits) and eliminate the system whereby they are compensated by the party being rated;

* Regulate derivatives trading to insure (or at least increase) transparency;

* Create an expanded guest worker program to provide sufficient legal low income labor for agriculture and other industries commonly populated with illegal immigrants; expand visas for professionals and scientists;

* Implement a carbon tax to address AGW and use the proceeds for alternative energy research and investment.

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haymarket said:

If I were US President with support from Congress and the people here is what I would do

1) get a Constitutional Amendment passed to reverse Citizens United

2) tax all income regardless of the source according to the same tax schedules and all income earners would see a 5% increase in their tax bite - those who now pay zero would pay 5% with all others going up 5% points.

4) half of all the additional money collected would be used to pay down the debt

3) pop the cap on Social Security contribution levels beyond the $110 today with a freeze on todays maximum benefit levels

4) cut at least $300 billion from military spending

5) invest in rebuilding the crumbling American infrastructure

6) impose tariffs on foreign made goods coming into America to make it more worthwhile for companies to keep jobs here and not outsource to foreign nations

7) work closely with companies to keep jobs in America the way the German government and companies work together

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AdamT said:

* Immediately pass laws requiring absolute transparency in campaign donations for amounts over $400, to apply also to super PAC donations (a temporary measure, i.e....;

* Pass a constitutional amendment mandating that all federal elections will be paid for solely through public funds. Funds will be allocated equally to candidates who submit a threshold number of signatures;

* Institute single-payer health care;

* Make the tax code far more progressive and eliminate loopholes. There should be at least 10 tax brackets;

* Treat all capital gains as regular income;

* Vastly decrease the size of the Dept. of Homeland Security. It's only role should be to insure effective communication between the CIA, FBI, Justice, INS and other intlligence/law enforcemnet agencies;

* Break up large banks and increase leverage requirements (eliminate too big to fail);

* Implement regulations to hold credit rating agencies accountable (regular audits) and eliminate the system whereby they are compensated by the party being rated;

* Regulate derivatives trading to insure (or at least increase) transparency;

* Create an expanded guest worker program to provide sufficient legal low income labor for agriculture and other industries commonly populated with illegal immigrants; expand visas for professionals and scientists;

* Implement a carbon tax to address AGW and use the proceeds for alternative energy research and investment.

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presluc said:

A good response, sir.

It seems that all candidates response to this question is shall we say limited.eace

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conservativeguy said:

WE ARE BROKE AND BECOMING MORE INSOLVENT BY THE HOUR.......WE DON'T HAVE TIME TO DITHER ON THE STUPID CRAP LIKE WHINING ABOUT ELECTION FINANCING OR HELPING GAY'S THAT WANT TO TELL EVERYONE THEY ARE MARRIED.

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AdamT said:

Nothing significant will be accomplished, including your insane list, if election reform is not done FIRST. Entrenched interests will always pay to ensure that.

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conservativeguy said:

I would shutdown the Dept of Education. I would gut the DOE, EPA, State Department, HUD, Dept of Transportation, etc. I would cut federal workers salaries by 25% across the board and put them on an individually funded 401k program. I would clawback the obscene pension payments ALREADY being paid to formerly overpaid, underworked federal employees. I would outsource the operations of all National Parks. The military would undergo a massive improvement in its procurement systems and policies. I would discontinue all funding of stupid **** art grants and every other artsy fartsy grant program. The EEOC would be dis-banned and the states would be told to police their own companies. I would pass a Constitutional amendment that limited the federal government spending to 14% of GDP and included a balanced budget provision. Only upon a super majority vote of 80% could congress spend more than 14% of GDP in the time of a declared war.

On the economic side I would erase 99% of the tax code. I would drop cap gains to zero. I would allow every multinational corporation to repatriate every dollar of foreign earned profits tax free. I would throw away earned income tax credits. I would make everyone that earned a dollar of income to pay some level of taxes, even if it was 1% at the lowest level. I would freeze SS benefits and tell people to start saving for themselves. I would privatize medicare.

WE ARE BROKE AND BECOMING MORE INSOLVENT BY THE HOUR.......WE DON'T HAVE TIME TO DITHER ON THE STUPID CRAP LIKE WHINING ABOUT ELECTION FINANCING OR HELPING GAY'S THAT WANT TO TELL EVERYONE THEY ARE MARRIED.

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AlanF said:

Thank You!
Have to wonder why something as sacred as protecting the rights of the citizens/people they "serve" creates such a "cat got your tongue" dynamic. Where are all the modern day Patrick Henrys?

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conservativeguy said:

You worry about US companies contributing to campaigns yet you have no problerm with BO raising $400,000,000 from sources nobody can validate as being US citizens. Why is it you think campaign contributions OVER $400 should be transparent and those that are under are accepted without hesitation? Don't answer, I already know why.

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presluc said:

In todays political race for the president and other political seats there has been a lot of debate on what should be done to fix America's economy.
Hell, some say there's nothing wrong with America's economy.

However I am an independent voter I choose no party line to walk.

So I would ask a question of the left and the right parties since the next election pretty much depends on one of these.
A question it seems that has not been ask.

To the left party Obama and the rest.

If you had the support of every American , and every politican in Washington as well as every politician in all the states of America.
After the speches and after the party's over it would be time to lead America.
Maybe, President Obama by the time the 2012 election is over you will be strong and divelope the nerve, to step up.

WHAT WOULD BE YOUR FIRST ACT.
IN SHORT WHAT WOULD BE THE CHANGES IF ANY IN AMERICA
Are you going to just keep making speeches or perhaps another health care bill , or perhaps another extention for whatever and keep printing money America doesn't have?
Let the next generation worry about the debt

To the right I would ask if you had the support of all of the politicians in America and every state politican as well as every American.
After the speeches the congradulations the pat on the back and the partys over and it's time to lead America to earn your pay.
WHAT WOULD BE YOUR FIRST ACT
WHAT CHANGES WOULD AMERICANS ADAPT TO IF ANY
more tax cuts for the rich, cuting taxes ,free trade less regulations, more imports less exports
cut the minimum wage maybe., cut the government in half, cut pork spending in half.
Budget cuts across the board, cut medicare, medicade. cut education spending.

Keep printing money.
Let the next generation worry about the debt


So you partyliners out there left or right do you have an answer eace

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AdamT said:

Leaving aside your bizarre, unsupported assertion, my proposal is that all federal elections should be 100% publicly funded. No more questions about who is paying off who for what.

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poweRob said:

I could nearly be a single issue candidate supporter if this was their issue.

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AdamT said:

So could I. What a shame that Buddy Roemer has gotten virtually no news coverage or GOP support. That's pretty much his single issue.

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AdamT said:

Leaving aside your bizarre, unsupported assertion, my proposal is that all federal elections should be 100% publicly funded. No more questions about who is paying off who for what.

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Pointy said:

If President Obama wins a second term, one of the most meaningful and useful pieces of Legislation he could propose is to institute a program of Literacy for all those being taught in America.

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teamosil said:

The main changes we need to institute IMO are:

1) Tax all investment income and inheritance income over $1m as normal income

2) Create a new top tax bracket starting at $1m/year at 45%

3) Eliminate corporate personhood- no corporate first amendment rights, apply limitations to how much money corporations can dump on elections, etc (would req. constitutional amendment or replacing a conservative supreme court justice with a liberal or moderate one). It's gotten totally out of control. For example, there was recently a supreme court case where the court found that the states could not prohibit pharmaceutical companies from selling your personal medical records to other companies because it violated the pharmaceutical company's free speech rights... I mean, come on.

4) Increase the anti-trust monitoring of the corporate world, especially the financial sector. The market is not functioning properly in many areas. Companies are no longer competing for customers over price and are no longer competing for employees with salaries. That is why our middle class is dying more than anything else. In a lot of cases, this is because the market is too concentrated. You have many major markets where there are only 3 or 4 serious players who appear to have made a tacit agreement to keep prices high or salaries low or both. Capitalism requires those sorts of logjams to be broken up when they form.

5) Reduce military spending. Not too rapidly or too drastically, but say a 25% reduction over the next 10 years.

6) Sort out all the civil rights issues related to terrorism. We need detainees managed under the rule of law in a more transparent fashion, we need to curtail the government's power to spy on people domestically without warrants, etc.

7) Re-join, and strive to lead, the international legal community- pay our back UN dues, submit to the jurisdiction of the ICC, sign Kyoto, etc.

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