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First, we would like to congratulate you on your historic victory. You face incredible challenges. At the same time, you have the unprecedented opportunity to bring about changes we have needed for a long time. I know there are those who will advise you to go slowly and govern “from the center.” On the other hand, most real change in any administration gets done in the first 100 days – the “honeymoon” period. Seldom has a new President had the mandate for change that you have been given. And never in our history have we needed real change like we need it now. So please act resolutely, boldly, and quickly to bring about the changes you know this country is yearning for.
You are absolutely correct that the first order of business is the financial crisis facing all of us. You are also correct in seeing that throwing money at the top in hopes of it “trickling down” is not the solution – never was and never will be. Recovery will come from providing security and prosperity to working Americans, who will then feel free to spend, fueling the economy from the bottom up. We are with you 100% on that.
You have also correctly pointed out that one-time bailout checks are not the answer. Financial security and prosperity only come from regular paychecks you can count on and freedom from the fear of catastrophic medical expenses. The major causes of personal bankruptcy are medical expenses and job loss. The fear of these two are therefore the reason for loss of consumer confidence. Therefore the way to instill confidence and resurrect the economy is to alleviate these two fears.
JOBS:
We applaud your emphasis on providing jobs by repairing our nation's crumbling infrastructure and building a new green energy system. A vibrant economy comes from full employment and decent paychecks. The goal must be a nation in which every family can be supported by one wage earner, with one job paying a living wage. Of course this cannot be achieved overnight. But it can and must be brought about quickly. Productivity in this country has doubled over and over again since the 1950s. Yet wages are a fraction of what they were then! In real terms, family income is about where it was in the 1950s, but the number of hours worked per family has tripled! This means that real wages per hour worked are roughly a third of what they were in the 1950s. If workers today got the same portion of the wealth they create with their labor as we did who entered the work force in the 1950s, they could support their families with one job … working two days a week! Instead, that wealth has been pumped to the top – to executives and investors. While the ratio between CEO pay and worker pay used to be 20 to 1, it is now over 600 to 1. Talk about redistribution of wealth! You have been criticized for wanting to “spread the wealth.” But you're right! We need to undo some of the enormous concentration of wealth that has made the gap between rich and poor bigger than it has ever been since the robber barons of the 19 th century. We MUST tax the profits of the corporations and wealthy enough to provide paychecks to working Americans through an FDR-style jobs program … and we must do it quickly. The irony is that by stimulating the economy from the bottom up, the end result will be more profits and prosperity for the wealthy. If they can't understand that, you must proceed without them. We the people are behind you all the way.
HEALTH CARE :
Here again, you are absolutely correct in insisting on the need for universal health care. Those with no insurance or inadequate insurance tend to put off seeing a doctor with medical problems when they could be nipped in the bud. Instead they wind up in the emergency room with an illness out of control. Emergency room care is the most expensive kind of care, and the added burden of those costs falls on the rest of us. As you have pointed out, the total cost of medical care will be reduced substantially if everyone has access to affordable care, including preventive care.
Like you, Bill and Hillary Clinton recognized this in 1992 and had a mandate to fix the system. That they failed, I feel, is because they tried to include the insurance companies in the mix, and wound up with a complex nightmare of a system that was mercifully voted down. As a conservative, I believe that the only fiscally-responsible way to provide health care is to eliminate the profit, overhead, red tape, and interference between doctor and patient of the insurance companies by kicking them out of health care altogether with a single-payer national health system. Now, I know you couldn't say that during the campaign. (Only my old friend Dennis Kucinich had the chutzpah to openly challenge the insurance companies.) But the campaign is over, and you won. Most of your supporters are in favor of a single-payer system. It is not just an idea from the left wing of the Democratic Party. My organization (The Patriots) of 23,000 includes both conservatives and liberals of all political parties, and a great many independents. And we are nearly unanimous in favor of single payer. It can be achieved by a gradual expansion of Me dicare to include all ages and all types of care. The first step is to include pre-natal care and infants up to age five.Then include all those over 55. Include prescription drugs, scrapping the crazy Part D (for Disaster), and negotiating for lower prices. Greatly reduce the 20% copay. Gradually include everyone, and expand it to include dental care, eye care, and long-term care. Sooner or later, we MUST join the rest of the civilized world and make health care a right. This would not only free working Americans from the fear of catastrophic medical costs, it would eliminate the health care burden on American corporations, making them more competitive in world markets. Please consider Single Payer seriously, and take the first step in your first 100 days. We the people will support you.
FOREIGN AND MILITARY POLICY
One of the major reasons so many of us supported you is that you had the judgment to be against the Iraq war from the beginning. You understood that it was a corporate war having nothing to do with our national security, and that it was predicated on a pack of lies. We applaud your desire to end our involvement in Iraq as quickly as possible. Opposing demands for “victory” ring hollow. You can't “win” an occupation.
A great many of us are military. Our Advisory Board includes generals and admirals from all the services. We include combat veterans from all the wars from World War II to the present. And we plead with you to reconsider your characterization of Afghanistan as a war of necessity which requires expansion. We consider the war in Afghanistan as just as unnecessary and wrong as that in Iraq. Let me try to explain why.
The reason given for the invasion of Afghanistan was that they were harboring Osama bin Laden who (they said) was behind 9/11. But the Taliban leaders of Afghanistan offered to give us Osama bin Laden for trial if we had evidence against him. We ignored that offer because (1) we had no evidence linking bin Laden to 9/11 (and we still don't) and (2) the attack on Afghanistan had been planned BEFORE 9/11 because the Taliban had refused to let Unocal build a gas pipeline through their country. The truth is that the entire “War on Terror” is phony.
If you had been President in 2001, 9/11 would not have happened. (I can give you dozens of reasons why that is true, but they are beyond the scope of this brief letter.) But if something like that HAD happened on your watch, you would have led an international police investigation to determine those responsible and bring them to justice. If your investigation determined that Osama bin Laden were guilty, you would have used diplomacy to secure his extradition and trial. You would not have given the perpetrators of this horrendous crime the honor and prestige bestowed upon them by declaring it an “act of war.” You would not have used this crime as an excuse for an unprovoked attack upon a sovereign nation (Afghanistan). And of course you certainly would not have used it as an excuse to attack another sovereign nation (Iraq) which did not have the slightest connection with the crime.
Well, now you ARE the President, and you have the opportunity to restore the honor and dignity of the United States by repudiating the war crimes perpetrated by the Bush Administration, ending the carnage, and bringing home what's left of our troops while they are still alive – from both Iraq AND Afghanistan. You can then do what should have been done in 2001 – conduct a truly independent investigation of the crimes of 9/11 to determine responsibility (something the Kean-Hamilton-Zelikow Commission was not tasked with doing). Then if Osama bin Laden turns out to be among the guilty parties, you can use diplomacy with Afghanistan and Pakistan to secure his extradition for trial in the International Court of Justice or in the United States. That's what you would have done if you had been President in 2001, so why not do it in 2009?
Never think that one man can not make all the difference in the world. Ask yourself what would have happened if George W. Bush had been President at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis! Scary, isn't it? Fortunately for the whole world, John F. Kennedy was President then. We weren't so fortunate in September, 2001. The wrong man being in the oval office at that time led to the deaths of about 3,000 people on September 11, 2001 , the deaths of about 5,000 of America's finest in two unnecessary wars, and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis and Afghans. It has also led to the loss of our civil liberties through the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, Presidential Directives 20 and 51, and other atrocities which I am confident you can reverse. Finally, it led to the wasting of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on wars which Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has proven will ultimately cost at least three trillion dollars – a figure which includes the cost of caring for the resultant disabled veterans for the rest of their lives.
So in a real way, we have come full circle. The wars which you can now end have played a major role in doubling our national debt and bringing on the financial crisis which is your top worry at the moment. Thus, by ending the disastrous occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, you can make a major step toward solving the financial crisis and freeing up funds for your initiatives to provide Americans with the jobs and health care they need. You have given us hope, and we look to you for bold leadership. The Patriots have long demanded a government which follows the Constitution, honors the truth, and serves the people. With your leadership, we can achieve such a government. Yes, we can!
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