Getting America back on track
Written by Don Burnard | | opinion@toledofreepress.comMany of the persons who have written in to express their displeasure with my outlook on things have asked me my thoughts on what needs to be done to get America back on track. Apparently, after having trashed or pooh-poohed some of my sources as egghead, socialist, know nothing, academics, etc.etc, they would rather have someone with a high school diploma make all the pertinent commentary, which would explain their great admiration for Glenn Beck. I did go to college, but did not graduate, and did do a four-year electrical apprenticeship, so if that’s good enough for you, here goes.
The first thing that I would like to see done in order to turn our country and “guvmint” around is simple. We need to take money out of politics. Under our current system, most of our elected officials pay much more attention to the special interests with the large campaign donations than they do to the needs of the electorate that put them in office. Instead of doing what is in the best interest of the average working stiff, they pay much more attention to the needs of the corporate donors who feel the need to bleed us dry of every last cent to support their obscene salaries.
For example, the insurance industry is currently spending $1.4 million A DAY to fight health insurance reform. The “too big to fail” banks, that WE the taxpayers bailed out, are planning on giving out up to $140 billion in bonuses to the same buttheads (oops, there I go name calling again!) who ruined our economy! They claim they have to need to do it to keep the best personnel. Maybe I’ve spent my working life in the wrong places, but I’ve never had a job where I got a bonus for screwing up on even a small level, let alone bringing the entire world economy to its knees. Anyone I ever knew who screwed up badly wasn’t able to leave their job and go get an even higher paying job because of the magnitude of their screw-ups either. I guess we’ve returned to Bizarro World. The answer to their problems is to remove all regulation and the market will correct itself, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll just have the taxpayers bail us out again. By the way, that’s corporate socialism for those of you keeping score.
Now I’ll be the first to admit that it isn’t only Republicans who are guilty of feeding at the corporate trough and selling us out for their own self-interests. How do we stop it? We need to take the incentive away from the politicians, i.e. the money. In an effort to remain in office, average politicians spend more than half of their time in office raising money for the next election. They barely finish getting elected before they have to start on the next fundraising cycle, and the easiest place to get large amounts of cash is from special interests that want something enacted to make them more profitable or to keep them from being shut down for some spurious practice. We need to have a national election reform movement that will put all of the money into a pool, where each politician will get a specific amount of money to run a campaign anonymously, with no strings attached. Everyone knows about the check-off box on your tax return where you can give a buck for a public pool for politicians. Now, if we have roughly 300 million people in this country, and we could check off say, $10 for each citizen in this country, that would raise a pool of roughly $30 billion dollars to draw from.
We have 535 congressional candidates, plus a presidential candidate, who would draw from that pool. That would give each senator and representative about $5.59 million to run a campaign on, and the same for each presidential candidate. If you couple that with a shortened election season, say like they have in most countries of three months or so, that should be plenty. I know, many of you have come to depend on the two or three years worth of TV ads, robocalls, and interest group ads to keep you fully informed, but for my money, I’d enjoy the silence.
This would make every politician cut his thoughts down to the more salient points, and spare us some of the more irritating moments that happen when politicians have too much time and money on their hands. This is actually being used in local elections in places like Oregon and Arizona. Check it out; it’s called Fair Elections. It would remove the corruption and allow us to not have the best government money can buy. Well, there you have it. That’s some semblance of what I’d like to see happen. The details would have to be worked out.
It’s a thought.
E-mail Don Burnard at letters@toledofreepress.com.
Dear Don, Maybe, just maybe, you could be the one radical liberal to explain to me, ” WHY, isn’t Toledo, a shining city by the Lake, gleaming with new job creations happening weekly, since it is your Team, that has run ( ruined ) it permanently “?! It seems as though you, Kapturd, and other fellow traveler-Demonrats, HATE PROFIT BIG TIME…Hmmm, Champion Spark Plug, could not make a profit here and moved to Iowa. Are you stating that you, Kapturd, and other radical Demonrats , could have RAN Champion Spark Plug, BETTER THAN THE EXECUTIVES THAT MANAGED IT ?! Not only Champion but, you folks could have made better economic decisions than the owners of hundreds of companies that SPLIT LITTLE DETROIT !? WOWEE, why didn’t YOU DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT BEFORE NOW … WITH ALL OF YOUR BRILLIANCE !!??
This comment was posted on November 6th, 2009 at 3:11 pmDear Mr. Burnard;
Thank you for offing some valuable ideas to ponder when it comes to trying to fix a broken federal government. I do agree that some thought and action needs to be taken when it comes campaign finance.
Ty Coon, thank you for continuing to post ignorant, irrational, rambling nonsense. You never fail to help frame the discussion between helpful and meaningless. Your cap lock button must LOVE you?
Respectfully,
Robert Russ
This comment was posted on November 6th, 2009 at 7:14 pmI do not nor ever have I claimed to be “Brilliant”. I have,however, been an observer of many years of politics in this area. I do not automatically agree with anyone just because they are a Democrat. Many times in the past I have worked for candidates that I thought were better candidates than those that were endorsed. I make up my mind by which candidate is most likely to best do the job and represent my interests. I have never voted for someone because of an endorsement. Having said that, I have always been very proud to vote for Marcy Kaptur, so I guess that will have to be one more subject where we will have to agree to disagree. I think she is one of the better legislators in the Congress, and if you are really a farmer, you should thank her too for what she has done over the years for area farmers.
This comment was posted on November 7th, 2009 at 11:09 amCitizens United v. Federal Election Commission being heard once more by the Supreme Court, and then another attempt to work around the ruling(s), will come, and then another and then another, all while we twist and spin at each other.
“Anyone I ever knew who screwed up badly wasn’t able to leave their job and go get an even higher paying job because of the magnitude of their screw-ups either. I guess we’ve returned to Bizarro World.”
Not a Bizarro World, it is the free market at work, and hands off to regulation, we don’t need no stinking regulation, every thing is just fine, isn’t?
This comment was posted on November 8th, 2009 at 11:19 amDear Robert Russ, You are blind to the COMPLETE ruination Demonrats have committed here in Little Detroit, and are about to do to all of AmeriKa. In fact, you apparently are ignorant to what Demonrats have done to Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, any city Demonrats have held majority rule over. They are all Hell’s Outhouse, if you haven’t noticed! ” Rambling nonsense” ? Site one with PROOF !! Personal attacks by folks who are blind to facts, and support the “socialization of AmeriKa,” are a penny a million ! My presumption is that YOU, are merely a radical leftist who supports $600 toilet seats, 25 MILLION ILLEGAL ALIENS, Medicare/ Medicaid $13 TRILLION IN DEBT,S.S. in DEBT, and our very BRAVE VETERAN’S , who have SURGICAL BACKLOADS to the tune of 144,000 WAITING FOR SURGERY, from the GOVERNMENT RAN V.A. !!?? Supporting Don, with his inane/odious ideas is like supporting Kapturd, Finkenstine, Chavez, Castro, and the Chicago community organizer…thanks alot Robert, I’m certain YOU are very PROUD of voting for pols who call our VETERANS…TERRORISTS and NAZI-LIKE , so many Demonrats did when G.W. , was Prez. NOW, post to someone WHO CARES !! Hey, you’re not a Bancroft High School,, sociology major, are you? You sure sound like ONE…
This comment was posted on November 9th, 2009 at 11:36 amA BIG P.S. to Don & Robert, why can’t a radical leftist ( or two of them) EVER answer a very, VERY simple question put to THEM ? ie. Why , isn’t Toledo, the City it once was? Answer that simple question PLEASE !! Since you DO NOT even attempt to and, PROBABLY CANNOT, you both RECEDE into DEFAULT , within the confines of this debate. Don, proclaims BRILLIANCE with a litany of “solvable solutions”( all losers ECONOMICALLY ),and then DENIES the historical FAILURE of these ‘solutions’ ! Robert, hits the LOW ROAD and name calls and, offers nothing anywhere near an answer to the debate but, inflicts himself into it anyway. So, what are we to conclude from these two NOT answering a simple question and ad hominem attacks?! ANSWER: they learned well from Machiavelli, Goebbels ,Kapturd, and B.O…. attack the messenger and , AND, lie repeatedly so that the lie eventually becomes the ‘truth’…great students learn from GREAT teachers…and T-Town, IS A SHINING CITY BY THE LAKE…yeah RIGHT ! GAME, SET, AND MATCH to meeeeeeee…
This comment was posted on November 9th, 2009 at 12:58 pmTwo, much easier questions for Donald and Robert above to ponder and answer … both ,obvious B.O. sycophants and unionized robots. 1) If OBAMASCARE: is so GREAT, BEAUITFUL,and INEXPENSIVE ,… why do fines, handcuffs ,no choice, and PRISON…come along with it ?! Sounds PERFECTLY FASCIST to me ! What say you two?! 2) Why, did 3 S.E.I.U. union thugs beat Kenneth Gladney( and many others ), so horrifically, he was hospitalized after attending an OBAMASCARE meeting !? Here you have an ailing black man, diabetic, weighing 130 lbs., and is recovering from leukemia, GET THE TAR KICKED OUT OF HIM by 3 white racists / overweight union thugs calling him a “nigger”. Was this in response to B.O., telling OBAMASCARE supporters to ‘hit back twice as hard’ when confronting opponents of this MADNESS ? These two simple questions to you two, offers a chance for you BOTH ,to redeem yourselves with the TRUTH !! So, PLEASE, answer these simple questions NOT involving complex issues like economics, history ,and of course MATHEMATICS. Be sensible now…B.O., is monitoring ALL opponents web sites , no doubt to pursue further criminal charges for those opposing this anarchist’s LUNACY !!
This comment was posted on November 9th, 2009 at 3:42 pm“It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.”
William G. McAdoo
Lawyer and Politician
This comment was posted on November 9th, 2009 at 5:14 pm(1863-1941)
“Everytime you think, ya weaken the nation!”
Moe Howard (June 19, 1897 – May 4, 1975) was an American comedian best known as the leader of the Three Stooges
This comment was posted on November 9th, 2009 at 10:39 pmDear Donald, Your non-sequitur and lack of originality was anticipated. I was taken back a bit by you siting McAdoo though…here you sight a Demonrat , who was a legendary BRIBE TAKER, who also as Sec. of the Treasury, closed the N.Y. Stock Exchange, so that his Demonrat attorney friends could manipulate the market for their own benefit ! Shades of S. Isenberg and R. McCluskey here in Little Detroit. At this point , I find ZERO challenge in debating you ( name calling arguing-your view ) since you divert and obfuscate the discussion. In the future, if we should ever discuss/ debate the never ending issue between MAN and WOMAN, I trust that you will quote the PRE-EMINENT authority on that topic…Ted Bundy !! THAT, I would expect !
This comment was posted on November 10th, 2009 at 10:54 am