Trickle Up Poverty (42 page)

18. Impose Tariffs on China: We must draw a line in the sand with regard to China in order to loosen their strangle hold on our economy by imposing a 20 percent tariff on all goods produced in China. That tariff should be raised by 5 percent each year that China refuses to revalue its currency.

19. Offer Health Savings Plans: Make health savings accounts the vehicle

of choice for “insuring” people’s medical needs. These accounts would be supplemented by smorgasbord high-deductible catastrophic health insurance policies sold by private insurance companies across state lines in open competition. By the same token, people who are injured or become ill with long-term conditions should not be allowed to be dropped by their insurance companies. Let the insurance companies and the market sort out how this comes about.

20. Institute a Flat Tax: This simplifies the complex tax code and the unfair practice of tax discrimination—since 47 percent of U.S. households pay no federal income tax!6 All Americans above the poverty level should pay the same percentage of income tax—a straight 15 percent across the board for individual earners.

21. Keep the Estate Tax at Zero: George Bush was right to eliminate the so-call “Death Tax”—the confiscatory practice of taxing the inheritance money passed from parents to children upon the parents’ death. In 2011, this tax will jump from 0 to 55 percent on estates with assets valued between $1 million to $10 million unless the Bush tax cuts are renewed.

22. Say “NO” to the VAT Tax: The Value Added Tax is a bad idea. This raises taxes disproportionately on those who can least afford it—the poor and the middle class. We don’t need more taxes, we need less government spending, waste, and fraud.

23. Reduce Pay and Pensions for Civil Servants: Why is New York City paying a $242,000 tax-free disability pension per year for a former fire chief?7 Why do almost two thousand House of Representative staffers take down six-figure incomes? How can forty-three of them soak the public for $172,500, which is “three times the median U.S. household income”8 in this down economy? This is an outrage and must be cut to reflect current economic realities.

24. Defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA): Traditional marriage is under attack. This basic building block of society must continue to be defined as a legal union between one man and one woman. President Obama wants to repeal DOMA, which was signed into law in 1996 by Bill Clinton. Don’t let Obama get away with that!

25. Encourage Child Bearing among Tax-Paying Citizens: Create a marriage incentive through lower taxes for married heterosexual couples and a tax credit for each child conceived and carried to birth. Increase the subsidies for each year the couple remains married.

26. Make Abortions Illegal: With the exception of the physical survival of the mother—to be determined by two licensed medical doctors. Require Norplant for all women on welfare of childbearing age. At the very least, prohibit taxpayer funded abortion through organizations such as Planned Parenthood.

27. End Affirmative Action: This leftist policy of giving special advantage to certain groups has no place in America. When people of all colors and ethnicities compete equally and to the best of their abilities, the best and most qualified will rise to the top. Studies demonstrate that giving certain groups of people a leg up in competing for positions and honors actually harms them more than it benefits and leads to reverse discrimination.9

28. Limit Welfare Benefits: Provide welfare benefits for no longer than three years. Require able-bodied recipients of welfare to volunteer fifteen hours per week in acts of community service. America will cease to exist if we continue to steal from the “makers” and give to the “takers.”

29. Voting Reform: Require a government-issued photo ID such as a driver’s license at the ballot box when voting. While this doesn’t provide proof of citizenship, it eliminates the ACORN-style fraud of registering dead people.

30. Boot the Czars: Require immediate Senate confirmation of each of Obama’s presidential appointments, and then end the practice of appointing czars who are not first vetted by Congress.

31. Put the Brakes on GM: Demand that General Motors and Chrysler be re-privatized and that they either stand or fall on their own, without further government intervention and without pretending that they’ve paid back the bailout money they’ve received. Demand restitution of the money the federal government confiscated from GM and Chrysler stockholders and gave to labor unions as part of the takeover. Require these two companies to sever all ties and fire all government-appointed officers as part of their return to the private sector.

32. Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act: This act instituted in 1933 required the separation of commercial and investment banks. Its repeal in

1999 was one of the key factors leading to the breakdown of the residential mortgage investment sector. Senators John McCain and Maria Cantwell are proposing to reinstate it. This needs to be done while also eliminating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

33. Re-instate the Wall Street “Uptick” Rule: We saw what happened when hedge fund raiders, according to one report, manipulated and rocked the stock market on May 6, 2010, causing a thousand-point drop before recovering.10 This is why we must end the practice of short selling. The “uptick rule” must be reinstated while putting into place trading curbs. Congress and the SEC should conduct hearings and pass new safeguards to prevent a future meltdown, although this may be just a Band-Aid that masks the crisis du jour. Wall Street firms hire some of the brightest young minds, hand them supercomputers, and then cut them loose on the exchanges. However, while they produce billions in revenue through their trading, they contribute nothing of material substance to our society. This pursuit of quick financial gain leads to artificial bubbles, inflated valuation of stocks, more crises and, in the end, the potential for widespread abuse—if not the end of the capitalist system, which enabled this country to become so great.

34. Privatize the Regulation of Wall Street: Since Congress is unlikely to look beyond the millions of campaign dollars flowing from Wall Street and enact comprehensive reform, we must privatize the regulation of the financial industry, rather than allow it to become further entangled in the corrupt web that the government oligarchy is quickly proving to be. That should include creating a private clearing house for the oversight of financial derivative debt instruments.

35. Encourage Risk Taking and Entrepreneurship: Reward those “makers” who provide the jobs that drive the economy. The unparalleled success of capitalism is built on risk taking by small businesses. Obama was right to temporarily eliminate fees charged to lenders who participate in the Small Business Administration loan program. This move should be made permanent while cutting unnecessary regulation that stifles entrepreneurial endeavors.

36. Institute Tort Reform: Tort reform must be instituted for medical malpractice to curb frivolous lawsuits by the Briefcase Mafia and stop out-of-control awards for damages. Medical liability should be capped at

$250,000 per claim. This has worked in California, where it was introduced in 1978. If passed, tort reform legislation will reduce the legal industry’s inordinate influence in raising medical costs.

37. Run the Country Like a Business, Not an Empire: We cannot blame President Obama for the entire economic morass we are in. However, as any homeowner knows, if you have $100,000 in debt at the end of the year you don’t eliminate that $100,000 debt by incurring $300,000 additional debt, which your children will have to pay for. Instead, you pay down that debt by cutting unnecessary expenses. Maybe you have fewer vacations, drive one car rather than two, and eat out less often. That’s known as belt-tightening—a simple principle bureaucrats can’t seem to grasp. As such, we must stop them from further federal bailouts and “stimulus” packages altogether.

Getting Back to Basics

In truth, this is just a place to start. Much more can and should be done. It’s no secret, for example, that the secular humanism—the insistence that human beings are the center of the universe and the final arbiters of right and wrong—is the religion of choice for libs. It’s a spin-off from Marxism, developed by godless communists to justify a self-centered view of the world, one where the State is God. However, if you read through the documents upon which this country was founded, and if you read the writings of the founding fathers, you’ll realize that the real basis of our existence as a nation is a contract with the Judeo-Christian God. It’s time that we renew that contract.

Here’s how Benjamin Franklin put it in a speech during the Constitutional Convention on June 28, 1787:

In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard; and they were graciously answered. All of us, who were engaged in the struggle, must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we

now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need its assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, That God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? 11

It’s time that we begin to revisit and reestablish the religious and moral principles that flow from the Old and New Testaments of the Bible and from the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—principles that have enabled us to become the great nation we are today. No, I’m not suggesting we turn America into a theocracy. Rather, this means that we would do well to put our religious beliefs into practice in such a way that we cleanse our national soul of the immoral and degrading cultural practices that have done our country such enormous harm.

This is not something that can take place exclusively through legislation, although there are legislative initiatives that can help it take root and succeed. Primarily, though, it is something that each of us must begin to do in our own homes and lives. It’s time to make a concerted effort to bring God back into the public discourse, not for the purpose of establishing a religious state but for the purpose of re-centering our nation, of re-alerting ourselves and our fellow Americans to what is right.

As I said at the outset of this book, this isn’t a picnic.

It’s a showdown.

The question remains: Whose vision of America will win the day?

Barack Hussein Obama, the reverse Robin Hood, who takes from the middle class and gives to the rich, is causing an economic poverty, as well as a poverty of the body, mind, and spirit. His radical, hard-left agenda and Marxist-Leninist worldview is impoverishing how we think, feel, and view ourselves as a people while robbing our personal freedoms and bankrupting our clout as the leader of the world.

We can and must do better.

One Day After Eating Chinese Food

The other day while working on this book, I took a break for some fresh air and a bite to eat. I’m walking along the streets of San Fransicko looking at the shops and the people milling about in the sunshine. I decide to stop in at the Chinese restaurant that I love to hate. You know how it is. You get used to certain routines and this is one of them for me. It’s where I get my grease fix. I’ve been going for years, even though the owners don’t know my name.

They just glare at me until I order.

So, I fill up on the chicken and broccoli with the pot stickers. Now I’ve got enough indigestion to last me for the rest of the week. Back outside, I’m moving along the sidewalk just minding my own business. I turn the corner and head toward North Beach, past the playground with kids having a ball and the steak house with the bad food. A few blocks later, I see a black man sitting at a card table with an Asian lady passing out literature. What caught my eye was the huge homemade sign: “IMPEACH OBAMA.”

I’m thinking, this I gotta see.

I stop and talk and read the pamphlets. They didn’t know who I was or what my political positions were. I asked them, “What’s this about?” They said they were running a Democrat against Nancy Pelosi for Congress. The black man vehemently opposed Obama’s policies. He called Obama and the Democrats in Congress a “pack of complete frauds” and offered his ideas of what must be done to fix things in Washington.

As I walked away, I thought about the simplicity and beauty of what I had just experienced. Sure, I may disagree with him on some of his solutions. But I identified with him on a basic level. We’re both Americans. We both know the system is broken. We both love our country. And, like him, I’m one man who exercises my freedom of expression every day, giving voice to my ideas of how to fix the system. His platform was a card table on the street corner. My platform happens to be behind a microphone and in the pages of my books.

All of us have a platform.

All of us must speak out wherever that platform may be.

For you, that might be the PTA, a civic group, a gathering of home-school parents, the water cooler at work, or standing with the Tea Party movement. You don’t have to be a “professional speaker,” a political wonk, or a candidate running for office to make a difference. Each of us has a voice. I say, use it or lose it. What’s more, you don’t have to address all the solutions that I’ve proposed. This isn’t an all-or-nothing strategy. Pick one or two that resonates with you.

But whatever you do, fight for the country while there’s time to save it.

Frankly, I’ve been engaged in this fight for years.

While I wouldn’t take credit for sparking the Tea Party movement, we must not forget there have been others, including myself, who were involved in conservative rallies for many years. I held mass gatherings of discontented conservatives and independents dating back to 1996. That’s when I started The Paul Revere Society and hosted five compassionate conservative conventions in the late 1990s. I held a “Name ‘em and Shame ‘em” event in the 2000. In 2003, in my New York Times bestseller, The Enemy Within, I concluded by calling for a conservative revolution. And then, in 2004, I rallied conservatives at the Concord Pavilion in California.