Questions to Trump the Trumpless

With the first votes ready to be cast Monday in the Iowa caucuses, how much do we really know about the positions of the Republican candidates. Sure, we know they all want to repeal Obamacare and undo virtually everything he has accomplished. But specifics are sorely lacking, at least to my general knowledge and perhaps to yours as well. So, with The Donald not on the stage Thursday night (at least as I write this), here are some specific questions I’d like to see asked to and answered by the Republican contenders (some might remember that I posed similar questions last September):

1. Should worker health and safety be protected by OSHA? If not by OSHA what recourse would workers have under your administration?
2. Which cabinet departments and government agencies would you eliminate? Would you replace any of their functions?
3. Do you believe in a federal minimum wage? If yes, what level should it be at? Should it be pegged to rise with inflation? 
4. Do you believe in the Social Security system? At what age should workers be entitled to collect social security? How would you protect its solvency?
5. In a global economy what incentives would you favor to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States?
6. Should the federal government own any land, such as national parks or wildlife refuges? If not, how should the government dispose of that land?
7. Are there any Defense Department programs you would eliminate?
8. After scrapping the Affordable Care Act, would you replace it with a different form of health insurance available to all Americans? Are there any aspects of the Affordable Care Act that you would retain? 
9. How would you replace the non abortion-related health care provided by Planned Parenthood if you defunded it?
10. Does the federal government have any obligation—legal or moral—to help its less fortunate citizens?
11. Should there be any restrictions on voter registration such as producing a valid ID or driver’s license?
12. Should medical marijuana be legalized in all states?
13. Should marijuana for general use be legalized?
14. Do you support stem cell research? Would you impose any restrictions?
15. Would you build a wall along the border with Mexico?
16. Would you restrict immigration from any country, region or religion?
17. Should the federal government have any role in education?
18. Is there a need for campaign funding reform?
19. Do you favor any form of regulation for Wall Street, banks and the financial sector?
20. What is your plan for rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure?
21. Does ISIS or any Islamic fundamentalist group pose an existential threat to the United States?
22. What and from whom is the greatest threat to our country?
23. Are you in favor of the Trans Pacific Partnership trade pact as currently negotiated? If not, what changes would you want?
24. Do you believe in “personhood,” the concept that an embryo has the same rights as a fully born person, such as the right of inheritance and the right to sue for damages if injured in an accident?

I am under little illusion that any of these questions will be aired but at least you know what I would want Megyn Kelly and her Fox News cohorts to ask. 

Pay-As-You-Go-Government

With the debt ceiling crisis behind us, at least for now, perhaps it is time to consider a really radical idea to set the nation’s budget—pay-as-you-go government. You’d be taxed (sorry, I couldn’t avoid the word) only for those programs you want or use.

For sure there would have to be some universally subsidized programs. Everyone would have to pay for national defense. But only so far as our national borders go. Any troops sent overseas would be paid for just by those willing to shell out for shells on the front lines of our war on terror.

You might think the Federal Highway System is another universal program, but you’d be only partially right. Since so much of our food is trucked on our interstate highways, you’d have to pay your fair share for their upkeep. Perhaps those in the Government Accounting Office can come up with a more equitable plan, but for now I would assess people based on their weight. For those hefty souls who would pay more than us skinny folks there’s added incentive to lose those pounds.

The rest of the cost of building and maintaining roads would come from fees based on usage. All vehicles would be equipped with E-Z Pass-type tags to monitor road use and charge accordingly. Since not everyone has a vehicle, small chips would be implanted under our skins to process passengers—even babies— who otherwise would be freeloading rides (to prevent scofflaws from purposely and knowingly covering their chips as they pass through sensors, chips would be randomly implanted in our bodies. You’d pay a premium to have this done while under anesthesia. Right-to-lifers would agree to have chips implanted in their fetuses).

If you haven’t been mugged lately, not had a fire in your home, or didn’t need emergency medical care, perhaps you’d be willing to cut back on these essential services. No problem. Your ID would be on record so police, fire and EMT personnel would know there’s no rush should you ever call.

If you’re a couch potato with no intention of ever visiting a national park, maybe you’d prefer to skip a tax to upkeep Yosemite, Yellowstone, Acadia, the Everglades, and the Statue of Liberty, et al. Of course, you couldn’t deduct the full cost of the Parks Department as you do derive some benefit from trees that regenerate the air we all breathe. I’m sure scientists can compute how much new oxygen is placed back in the atmosphere by public trees. From there it’s simple arithmetic to figure out each person’s share.

Maybe you’d like to stop funding stem cell research? Okay, but be prepared to forgo any benefits or treatments for yourself and three generations of your immediate family that may result from scientific breakthroughs.

Not happy with Medicare? Opt out. Just be sure you’ve socked away enough money to pay for medical bills in your old age.

Perhaps you think social security is a socialist scheme? Drop out, but don’t expect the government to support you in retirement.

Government is just too involved in people’s lives, in telling business how to run companies, some believe. Who needs OSHA if you don’t work in a mine or a chemical treatment or meat processing plant, or a data processing center where repetitive motions result in carpal tunnel syndrome? Big Business wouldn’t hurt its workers, would it?

Do we really need a Product Safety Commission looking over every manufacturer’s shoulders? What’s a few baby heads stuck between slats of a crib in a nation of 300-million, anyway? Do we really believe suppliers would harm their customers, just to earn a few more dollars of profit?

With some old-fashioned Yankee ingenuity we can devise a federalist system that goes beyond returning power to the states. It will give power back to the people, just as the Framers of the Constitution envisioned. Have faith in the people. They are, after all, the ones who elected our current Congress. And see what a good job it already has done.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President

It’s Barack Obama’s 50th birthday Thursday. I can’t think of too many cheerful Democrats eager to wish him many happy returns.

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to rationalize reasons to support his re-election. He’s forsaken much of his 2008 platform and progressive positions.

It will be hard to show up at the polls in November 2012. That is, until one contemplates the gang of right-wing politicians who not only want to reside in the White House but also want to take the country back to a time when we cared more about individual selves than our fellow citizens, when private business could run roughshod over workers, when it took muckrakers like Upton Sinclair to shame government into regulating industries, when our country threw up an almost impenetrable wall against foreign involvement, when bankers and Wall Street moguls could play with America’s solvency without fear of being held to account.

Yes, Barack Obama will be the lesser of two evils. But that is no way to fire up the troops for what will be a grueling campaign.

I get sick thinking of the prospects of Democrats and rational independents sitting out the election, thereby allowing the country to enter a dark age when our next leader might be someone who does not believe in evolution, who does not recognize the threat of global warming, who does not see the value of stem cell research, who does not respect the rights of all Americans, who does not understand the banner of states rights is shorthand for discrimination, who does not appreciate inequality is bred when 25% of our households possess 87% of the nation’s wealth, who does not comprehend that without compassionate reform to social security and Medicare our aging population will not live golden years but rather rust-filled ones, who doesn’t accept that the Christian thing for the richest country on Earth is to provide affordable universal health care.

Barack Obama today called once more for tax increases on the rich and industry so we don’t just “balance the budget on the backs of the very people who have borne the brunt of the recession.”

It all sounds so righteous. So good. If only he followed through. If only he drew a line in the sand that wouldn’t be washed away by the next wave of Republican and Tea Party demands.

Okay. Enough wishing. The next election for president and control of Congress and the Senate will be a referendum on which way the country wants to go—toward a tough, but enlightened future, or toward a dark passage back in time. Sitting out the election is not an option.