Presidential Write-In Candidacy 2008

It took a very long time for America to get into the trouble it is in today. And it will not be fixed overnight. But if we don't start doing something about it, and I don't mean the "band-aide" fixes over the last several decades we have been doing, it will soon be too late.

The problem with all the "work" the government has done to make America better is that it has been done by tackling symptoms and not the actual ills. A long time ago, some politician decided that by going after designer issues, they could gain short term approval from the American people enough to win the next election. No one has looked long and hard down the road with the best interest of the citizens of this country in mind; its always been about concern with the next vote or the next election or the next contest or the next PAC check.

So here is what I would do if I were running for President. (Which I would do as a write-in candidate.)

First, since I would not be beholden to any special interest group or to anyone in government, I would take a "no holds barred" approach. I would let Congress know that they were on notice. I would set up a website that anyone in America could go check and list what each member of Congress voted on, what "pork" they inserted into bills, what special interest group they received donations from and who was giving them PAC money. In a speech before Congress righht after in the Inauguration, I would remind them sternly that the American public put them into office to make sure they had a voice in Washington and as the most senior elected official, I would take it as my duty to see that every Senator and Representative was held to the highest standards in this duty.

Then I would tackle the Supreme Court. I would address them and remind them that their job was to apply the Constitution to the cases they hear and not legislate from the bench. Legislation is the job of the Congress; interpreting the law is their job. And if they continue to legislate from the bench, or simply ignore the Constitution altogether in making their decisions, I would remove them from the bench, charging them with failure to do the job they were appointed to do and seriously jeopardizing the liberties of the American people.

I would let lobbyist and special interest groups know they were being put on notice. Gone would be the days of "wining and dining" law makers to get what they want. I would consider this to be interfering with the government and government officials. I would have them arrested for this and add charges of bribery and treason against the American people.

As for the problems of this country, I would go for the jugular. I would go to the root problems instead of the surface symptoms. The way this country has been going about doing things has become so far removed from reality, it needs a radical kick in the proverbial butt.

I would institute a new Federal Prison program. All new Federal prisons would be built in remote areas, underground. The land above the prison would be used for farming and power generation. The prisoners would be responsible for maintaining the farms as this will be their food supplies, and the power generation as this will be their only means of getting power. Any extras, such as cable television and higher education will be the sole responsibility of the prisoners or any bleeding heart special interest group that wants to cough up the money out of their own pockets. No longer will taxpayer money be spent on such luxuries when the average American can't afford these things for themselves. I'll be darned if someone who has decided to operate outside of society and its laws of conduct will have a better existence than the hard working citizens of this country. By no means will it be cruel, but they will know that it is punishment for their crimes.

Immigration laws will be adhered to. Plain and simple. There is no need to make new laws when the ones on the books are not being followed. It is, and will always be, a crime to enter the United States illegally. Come in legally and act like a responsible citizen of the US, like most all immigrants have in the past, and you will be welcome. Come in illegally and you will be booted out. If you are already here illegally, you will be told to leave and come back in through the proper channels. If you have children born here, you will be given a ninety day grace period to apply for citizenship. After which time, if you have not done so, you will be told to leave. Children and all. This is only fair to those who have done the right thing for the past two hundred years. I will insist that both the Immigration Department and the Office of Homeland Security have on my desk a comprehensive plan in the first six months to overhaul and implement a more efficient immigration plan. And if you are a criminal coming from your country of origin (not political, as this is a separate issue), then you will not get into the United States. Period. If the country of origin decides to show their butt and refuse to cooperate, than all immigration from that country will be stopped until they do. If you are coming from a nation that supports, organizes, allows to exist in their borders any terrorist organization, you will undergo serious scrutiny and not be allowed to enter the US until cleared by Homeland Security.

In conjunction with the new immigration policies, I will push to make industry aware that use of illegal immigrants over US citizens or those allowed to legally work in this country will be a felony. If a business cannot sustain itself by providing proper pay and benefits (such as healthcare, to be discussed later), it should not be in business. I will get the Labor Department to institute a database to match Americans who are looking for work, with businesses who need workers. No longer will anyone be able to use the lame lie that they hire immigrants because Americans don't want to do the job. The truth is that Americans will do what is necessary to put food on the family table and a roof over the family's heads, so long as it is fair pay for work rendered. I will instruct the Small Business Administration to show any business who says they can't operate without illegals how to utilize programs already available (and thus paid for) to continue their business. Any future violations by such businesses that have already been warned once will result in criminal proceedings.

I would get together the wonderful scientists at NASA, leaders in industry and fiction writers from various genres in a conference to determine what is the best way to wean us off of oil dependency. Emphasis will be on better batteries and energy efficient power generation that will not have anything to do with fossil fuels. In the meantime, I would call for the drilling of domestic wells and the extraction of oil from shale. While these ventures were being set up, I would release the strategic oil reserves for sale to the American public until the new wells and extraction sites were up and running. I would also insist Iraq "refund" some of the bill we re paying for keeping their country going while it tries to set up its government. Since they are expected to get a $70 Billion windfall from oil exports, they will definitely be able to give us oil at a substantially reduced rate ($40 a barrel sounds reasonable to me). Since there is enough oil waiting to be tapped or extracted to last this country 400 years (that would be an estimated 4 trillion barrels), we should never have to depend on foreign oil again. s a stop-gape measure, I would suspend all federal taxes on gas at the pumps for period of six months. I would also urge state and local officials to follow, also for a period of six months.

Growing corn for fuel was a mistake, so long as other farmers are still getting paid not to grow anything. Both practices will be stopped, as this has increased the cost of everything from grain for feed to meat and breads. And led to food shortages throughout the world, as well as higher grocery costs, at a time when Americans are having trouble affording basic staples.

I consider the original mission of our troops in Iraq to have been successful. They went in, deposed a tyrant who posed a serious threat to the United States and his own citizens, and nullified any threat of weapons of mass destruction. I applaud our men and women in the armed services. As always, they performed admirably. I consider the new mission to be getting our troops out of Iraq while assisting the new government in getting on its feet. This assistance is not open ended, as the first part of the new mission, bringing our troops home in a safe and orderly fashion, will be of the highest priority. I will not make a sudden withdrawal, as any military commander worth their salt will tell you, this is a dangerous prospect. But I will also not leave them linger. And I will definitely not be leaving any military presence in that country. For one thing, all muslim nations consider anyone not muslim living in their country a fair target for murder. Our men and women are not targets. End of story.

As for our military around the world, I will be reducing, if not removing them altogether, from countries around the world. I will also be taking our money and the money of our service people with us. If the world has such little regard for us, they can also do without our financial aide in the form of payments for military bases and expenses our service people incur, which goes directly into their economy. I would use the returning forces to bolster internal security, patrolling borders and making our cities and states safe.

Speaking of financial aide, I will cut off any monies and support being sent to countries that sponsor, or look the other way concerning, terrorist. And I will introduce through Congress a law making any future monies the US sends to foreign countries (other than for humanitarian efforts) subject to repayment. It will thus be a crime to "forgive" debt owed to this country, as past Presidents have done in the name of political expediency.

On the domestic side, we have a number of serious woes. First being the economy. Part of the problem with the mortgage crisis and the sub-prime failure has its roots deeper in the financial problems of the average American. For one, credit card companies vigorously seek out new clients, whether they are a good candidate for credit or not. Then, without warning, suddenly increases in your percentage rate, often with little or no explanation as to why. This would stop. It would be consider criminal and punishable by the fullest extent of our Federal courts. I would call for full regulation of the credit industry, fixing the interest rate to just a few points above prime. These CEOs will no longer get fat on the backs of hard working Americans.

The UN does not belong in the United States. They would have my four year term to find a new host country. They are already way behind in their payments to us for any leniency beyond that.

Until China can stop killing our pets and poisoning our children, all trade will be suspended with them. And any country that does not have fair trade with the United States, i.e. they buy as much from us as we do them, they can peddle their wares elsewhere. If this calls for the suspension of NAFTA, so be it. And any American company that moves its operations from the US to a cheaper third world country, will find its tax liabilities to be much greater.

The tax system will be scrapped, to be replaced by a much fairer system, where the burden of paying for the government will be equally shared. In simplifying the tax system, we can reduce the IRS by at least half. (Those folks displaced will be given the option of re-education and assistance with looking for work. See the aforementioned assistance for employers seeking employees in the immigration section.).

No more $400 hammers and $700 toilet seats. This is pretty self explanatory. Companies will no longer "get rich" supplying these items to the government. We can go to Sears or Home Depot for our needs.

Jobs will have an equal pay system. Any company paying someone differently for any reason other than experience and performance will be considered in violation of the Equal Employment Act and be subject to serious penalties.

The welfare system will have an expiration date. No more generations of welfare recipients. Education will be key to weaning Americans from this unhealthy system.

Gone will be this stupid, and completely unfounded, belief in the separation of church and state. The Constitution says Congress will neither establish nor impede religion. It doesn't say that government and religion should be separate. To do so infringes on the freedom of people to express their faith simply because they are a government official or employed by a government entity. If someone wants to pray in Congress or in school, they will be allowed. If some six year old who is asked to draw their hero draws a picture of Jesus, he/she will not be expelled. Our schools and institutions have suffered greatly over the past several decades by being forced to secular behavior and not given any moral direction. Just look to the shootings in our schools and the corruption of our government and industry officials as samples of this practice these past few decades of exclusion. Since there has been no moral direction, there has been no teaching of consequences for our actions.

Either enforce capital punishment or do away with it. I will push for the American people to choose one or the other. If a sentencing of the death penalty is not enforced, criminals will not fear it. If we allow it, we should go through with it. If we are going to be squeamish about it, do away with it completely. It does no good to have a punishment we are not going to enforce. And sentencing should not be an ala carte affair. It should not be 15 to 25 years, or maybe less if you're really really good. If it is for ten years then it is for ten years. If it is for life, it should be for life. The criminal element sees the weakness in this system and fears nothing from it. So what if they get caught, they'll be out in no time to commit more crimes. I would also encourage states to follow suit with the Federal Prison program mentioned earlier.

Healthcare should be affordable and available to all Americans. Not socialized healthcare but responsible and responsive healthcare. But the problem will not be solved by throwing money t it. It will not be solved by socializing medicine. The root cause of the problems with the high cost of healthcare fall into two categories. Greed from the pharmaceutical companies and greed form the trial lawyers. In order to bring healthcare back into the realm of affordable, we need to curb the money lust of lawyers who sue for multi-million dollar lawsuits (thus making it harder for doctors to afford to actually be doctors, while pocketing fair chunk of the settlement for themselves). And we need to put a lid on the money drug companies make from Americans. The same drug they sell in another country, such as Canada, costs ten times as much here. Only because they can. I will get Congress to address and act upon this problem. nd I will clean house at the FDA. Too many stupid drugs are being passed and others held up. DO we really need another erectile dysfunction medication while an affordable AIDS drug or cancer medication lies awaiting approval? And before they cry foul, I remind the drug companies and the FDA of the recent spat of drugs approved that have proved harmful after the fact.

Kyoto can take a flying leap. The science that is used by Gore and his alarmist compatriots is flawed. I merely point to a few things that fly in the face of their predictions. The sun has been cooling the past eleven years, with sunspot activity hardly even notable this year. The major gas they include is carbon dioxide. This is what plants need. And plants provide oxygen, which we need. Carbon dioxide keeps heat in the atmosphere. And if the sun is going to cool much more, we will need this heat to survive. Also, NASA has had evidence since 2001 of other bodies going through warming or other severe climate change. Mars. Pluto. Titan. We should definitely reduce pollution and clean up our planet, but being alarmist and reactionary to a planetary cycle we are still not 100% certain of is ridiculous.

By implementing all these changes, I believe I can not only help Americans ease off this recession / depression we seem to be headed for, but I am certain I can cause an economic stimulus to help America grow again.

America has serious problems; ones that cannot be given a bandage to the symptoms while ignoring the root causes. The current crop of politicians will continue to work through sound bites and fear mongering and negative campaigning, all the while saying they are more qualified than their lessor opponents. The truth is that there are only three qualifications per the Constitution for President of the United States.

You must be over 35 years of age. You must be a natural born citizen of the United States. you must have lived in the United States for the past 14 years.

Those are the qualifications for the office. Beyond that, the voters of this country need to hear what a candidate is going to do to fix the problems. What they don't need is rhetoric followed by attacks on their opponents. And despite what you may be told, it is not a Republican or Democrat issue. Most Americans, if you'll be truthful with yourselves, have beliefs ranging from conservative to liberal, depending on the issue. So no one party is going to conform to all your needs, so long as that is the campaign platform they are running on. Americans should not have to choose the "lesser of two evils" when voting for President. They should have a choice that doesn't pander to their most base fear. America needs real choice come this November. And if I can inspire someone to be that choice, I will have done my civic duty. I would run, have even looked into what I need to do to register. But my family does not want its privacy invaded, so I must respect their wishes.