2.Deny any additional funding for US Combat roles in Iraq. (This will require the often absent backbone and integrity, but I feel we can do it).-Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare-. Japanese proverb
3.Increase funding for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. They actually did facilitate an attack on our country. Osama Bin Laden is there, maybe.
4.Prohibit torture in any and all of its forms to include, the Presidents approved, Enhanced Interrogation Techniques?. "What we must face squarely is this: whenever we torture or mistreat prisoners, we are capitulating morally to the enemy-in fact, adopting the terrorist ethic that the end justifies the means." Rev. Kermit D. Johnson, Chaplain (Major General), U.S. Army (ret.)
5.Repeal The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005. (This law was written by the credit card and banking interest) It is a direct assault on the working poor and middle class in America.
6.Reduce the budget for the Office of Homeland Security by half, for starters. The creation of the Office of Homeland security was an ill-advised product of fear and panic.
7.Increase the CIA budget by 25%. Hunting criminal terrorist all over the world is their cup of tea. Let them do their job.
8.Reauthorize FISA court under its original language. It is possible that the FISA needs to be completely dissolved. It gave the President the opportunity he needed to circumvent the rights and liberties of the American people and the Rule of Law.
9.Legislatively limit, without prior congressional approval, the numbers of U.S. and foreign civilian contractors who can be hired through the utilization of U.S. Taxpayer monies in any conflict where U.S. forces are present. The President of the United States should not be permitted the use of American tax dollars to hire private armies not sanctioned by the United States Congress.
10.Prohibit the Department of Defense from contracting any private civilian security agencies for duty outside of the United States and its territories. (This would not include U.S. Federal civilian employee security organizations).
11.Demand the 30% reduction of U.S. Military forces currently stationed outside of the continental United States and its possessions. The President has decimated the Reserves and National Guard, by sending them to Iraq, while tens of thousands of American regular Army, Air force, Navy and Marine personnel are, without effective purpose, sitting in Asia, Europe and other far reaches of the earth.
12.Terminate future Military Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) decisions. This is a U.S. Congressional responsibility.
13. Provide a comprehensive Universal National Health Care program for all Americans. -Americas health care bureaucracy cost U.S. $399.4 billion, last year. National health insurance would save at least $286 billion annually just on paperwork, more than enough to cover all of the uninsured and to provide full prescription drug coverage for everyone in the U.S.-- from a Harvard Medical School study, January, 2004
-One out of three people in the United States under the age of 65 went without health insurance for all or part of the two-year period from 2002-2003.-- from Families USA report, June 2004
-It may be hard to understand why ?tort reform? is even on the national agenda at a time when insurance industry profits are booming, tort filings are declining, only 2 percent of injured people sue for compensation, punitive damages are rarely awarded, liability insurance costs for businesses are miniscule, medical malpractice insurance and claims are both less than 1 percent of all health care costs in America, and premium-gouging underwriting practices of the insurance industry have been widely exposed.- Center for Justice and Democracy, quoted in 6-21-04 NYT)
Despite claims by the insurance industry, there is no evidence that soaring malpractice premiums are the result of sharp increases in the amounts of money paid out for malpractice claims. And, tellingly, industry executives are careful not to say that the tort reforms sought by the Bush administration will result in premium reductions.-- NYT columnist Bob Herbert, 6-21-04
-The Bergen Record in NJ reported that an analysis of data showed that malpractice payments in New Jersey declined by 21% from 2001 to 2003, but malpractice insurance premiums surged over the same period.-
Florida legislative committee put insurance executives under oath in effort to get truth about malpractice costs. When questions of frivolous lawsuits arose, the chief executive of the Florida Medical Association told the panel, -I dont feel I have the information to say whether or not there are frivolous lawsuits in the state of Florida. -- NYT columnist Bob Herbert 6-25-04
-In 2000, 92% of soft money that went to the key members of Congress who make decisions about health care and financial matters came from huge insurance, banking and health care industry firms, and professional associations such as the AMA. The profits of the health insurance industries have reached an all-time high during the administration of George W. Bush.-- Vicente Navarro, Professor of Public Policy, Johns Hopkins University
We collected 100,000 signatures to place Health Care for All Oregon on the November 2002 ballot. However, the thousands of hours of volunteer labor could not counteract the $1.3 million spent on television ads and direct mail by insurance companies.-- Health Care for All- Oregon campaign manager
14.Empower the State governments to develop and manage Anti-poverty programs through federal funding. The state Governments are closer and more accountable to their constituents. State governments are more able to define and identify the scope of poverty in their respective states.
15. Strengthen Congressional oversight of The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Justice department. Under the President Bush, these agencies have become tools of the administration to the determent of us all.
16.Strengthen congressional oversight of the Internal Revenue Service.
17.Immediately suspend all federal subsidies to the oil and energy industries and revoke their tax breaks at the level equaling the same dollar amounts, including assets, being taken off shore each year. These Corporations are very able to take care of their own interest without government welfare.
18.Suspend any Corporation, convicted of defrauding the U.S. Government, from being awarded any U.S. Government contracts for ten consecutive years, without appeal. The current revolving door is an insult to all Americans who do an honest days work and live by the rules.
19.Secure the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada. Until the borders are reasonably secure, any discussion of immigration reform is meaningless.
20.Subsidize American agriculture through tax breaks. Recoup the tax breaks through a levy on foreign agricultural imports.
21.Restrict deficit spending to no more than one half of one percent of the GNP.
22.Fund stem cell research and its potential applications. Apply appropriate safe guards. Use common sense.
23.Fund the development of significant production water desalinization plants in Washington State, California, Texas, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey and New York State. Twenty years from now fresh water availability, through natural resources, will be diminished, partially through global warming, but primarily due to wasteful use of a natural resource. We should take small steps to face the inevitability.
24.Stop referring to the -War On Terror- when addressing our pursuit of the terrorist criminals who attacked us on 9/11. It is a dishonest label. Terrorism is a tactic. No army or country can war against a tactic. It's deliberately vague and non-definable in order to justify and permit perpetual war anywhere and under any circumstance. Tell the truth!
-A Politician thinks of the next election - a Statesman of the next generation-. - James Freeman Clarke
On the day that I am writing this the U.S. Congress is on leave for a week. In the meantime, our men and women continue to die in Iraq, the numbers of working poor Americans is increasing and tens of millions Americans cannot get medical treatment without going bankrupt. All this while The President and his supporters laugh all the way to the bank. The Democratic controlled House and Senate should commit to not taking any vacations until our combat soldiers are out of harms way.