Top Ten Priorities

[SuperScout]

As a matter of curiosity, I'd like to solicit your list of the Top Ten Priorities that should be addressed nationally for the next four years. Actually, this list doesn't have to be in any particular order, just some issues that are vital to you. OK, I'll start it off:

1. Keeping America safe - absent this condition, all other items on the wish list are mute.

2. Social Security reforms - without major changes, this entitlement program is down the tubes in a couple of decades; I favor partial privatization, with reasonable constraints.

3. Reasonable pay/benefit increases for our Armed Forces - after all, who's doing the hard work?

4. Elimination of tax dollars for National Public Radio, National Endowment for the Arts, and other programs that compete in the marketplace, but are subsidized by us taxpayers.

5. Top-to-Bottom restructuring of the DAV - trying to maintain VA hospitals that are hundreds of years old, and are not serving major population clusters, is an example of abject waste. Orient more toward community-clinics where the Vets live, and increase assets.

6. Complete funding for Concurrent receipt program.

7. Implementation of a national voter registration program that will eliminate fraud, duplicate or triplicate registrations, and provide an accurate data base. This ID card might even be tied in to a national ID card, an idea which doesn't offend me in the slightest degree.

8. Enforcement of existing immigration laws, with adequate assets to insure their enforcement. See #7, as part of the solution.

9. Total revamping of the Internal Revenue Code. Re-qualification of all 501(c)[3] and other tax-dodging organizations, with sever restrictions on what types of organizations are granted tax-exempt status, if any.

10. Instituting English as the official language of the United States of America. Immediately cease and desist printing any governmental documents, publications, etc, in any language except English.

[Keith_Hixson]

Most of my congregation is upper poor or lower middle income folks. I also fall into that catagory. My wife and I spend over 6500 a year for medical services and get very little in return. Yet not to be covered would be a total disaster. My belief is we as a nation must realize that our health care system is a total disaster for those of us who are in that category. The price of medicine is unrealistic, the price of anything medical is outrages and we need figure out why. That's on my list.

Keith

[Andy]

It's probably not a Federal issue, or at least I can see lots of people yelling States Rights, but I would love to see a national voting system. Use one kind of machine so we would never hear about people saying, "The arrows weren't clear, it wasn't my fault I voted for the wrong candidate". I'd like to see a system with a paper trail, for example an optical scan ballot. That could go a long way toward complains about the outcome. Also, absentee votes should be counted, starting at 12:01 AM on election day, not a week later.

I'd also like to see Bush nominate judges that might lean a bit to the right but are generally main stream. Members of the Massachusetts high court and people who want to overturn the 13th Amendment need not apply.

Stay healthy,
Andy

[Keith_Hixson]

Andy,

Get out of Mass. before its to late. When God rains judgement down on America it'll begin in Massachusettes. You and Annette are just to nice to get judged along with the majority of folks in Massachusettes who can't think for themselves.



Keith

[reconeil]

All good, sensible and worthy suggestions since undoubtedly what the overwhelmingly vast majority of The American Citizenry would much prefer,...INSTEAD of what are most always politically dictated policies for appeasing foreign minorities, both here and abroad.

A good case in point being your: "Social Security Reforms", which would be the easiest to rectify if merely changed back to the way FDR initially intended the: "NEVER TO BE TAXED" Social Security System being, at its inception.

1. There actually would still be a Social Security FUND, and same would no longer be lumped-together and/or mixed in with The General Fund (similarly as all taxes, tariffs and revenues),...such as President Johnson and Democrats changed to suit "Their" quite generous (WITH OUR MONIES) political needs.

2. If going back as intended, no longer would an equally contributed to (50/50 Employer and Employee) National Old Age Retirement Package be shared with and dispensed to foreigners NEVER HAVING PAID A DIME INTO THE SYSTEM,...as President Jimmy Carter and Democrats so decreed be done.

3. No longer would all F.I.C.A. monies earned be taxable and payments received after retiremend be taxable,...if Democrat Vice President Gore hadn't cast the deciding vote in The U.S. Senate TO DO JUST THAT. Didn't seem mattering that Social Security was: "NEVER TO BE TAXED"(as per FDR).

And besides, since Democrats have been fixing Social Security most every year from The Johnson Days to date, and Senator Patrick Daniel Moynihan and Democrats once fixed it to: "The Year 2025",...why-the-hell does "It" still need fixin anyway? Was Moynihan a duplicitous and untrustworthy liar ALSO? Sure seems so.

Want to REALLY FIX The Social Security System?
Then, just take it back and away from The Political Mismanagers or Misusers of same, and return it to those having paid every dime into it and/or The People, and all annuities to be once again used SOLELY for retirements of those having paid into The System,...just like any other 401K Plans. Don't believe The People would be asking too much of any such retirement package trustees? Does anyone?

Neil

[SuperScout]

If you spend $6500 per year on medical services, doesn't your health improve, and what value would you put on that? If I spent a like amount on health related matters, and my health didn't improve, I'd switch doctors, medicines, and underwear labels, 'cause what I was doing wasn't working.

Seriously, I agree that medical costs are a major factor in some folks budgets, and improvements in our system are needed. One of the initiatives proposed by the President may make a significant difference for you and some of your flock, that being the development of community based health clinics. There are some other proposals that, if enacted, will provide major changes and improvements, such as medical savings accounts and employee pooling. The last thing I want the government to do is be more actively involved in delivering health services ala the decrepit system of England or other socialist experiments gone awry.

And your advice to Andy was right on target!

Believe it or not, taxing Social Security benefits, one of those wondrous gifts brought to you by the Democrat party, had a deleterious effect on the cost of goods and services, medical benefits being one of them. Not to overstate the obvious, but every time a tax is added in the system, the cost of living goes up; people on fixed or the lower income folks are impacted most adversely. I for one could never understand the logic of taxing a person twice on the money one has already earned.

[Seascamp]

I?m not sure fire and brimstone or a Noah style inundation will come down upon Massachusetts anytime soon. But with all the apparent ?Red County? restlessness happening, it could be that the ?Blue? center of gravity may be shifting elsewhere. This movement will probably cause a shift in local magnetic north, plus cause slight earth tremors in the eastern part of the commonwealth resulting in the dislodgement and falling ceiling tiles in some courthouses.
But beyond all that, I think it will be OK, maybe. At least the book odds look reasonable enough for the most daring to take a chance. But the ?Big Dig? is leaking water now so sumpin may be up; possibly impacting the book odds and that has to be a consideration as well, eh. So maybe boat-building skills may come in handy, we?ll see.
Plus we have this deal where Sen.Teddy almost, almost said something that wasn't nasty or rude about Bush so that near miss is an omen of something or another for sure. But exactly what that omen could mean is not known as yet, but possibly a cause to consider being afraid, very afraid. :cd:

Scamp