1. US forces out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Immediately! Shift the funds saved to reconstruction aid for those two countries and to veterans benefits, with any extra savings going to help fund education in poor school districts in the US.
2. Slash military spending by closing most or all overseas military bases, by dramatically reducing nuclear forces to near zero, by reducing the number of men and women in uniform, and by closing bases in the US. Savings should go to shoring up the Social Security and Medicare Trust Fund.
3. Open up the secret intelligence budget, currently running at over $40 billion a year, and cut it, for starters, by half. Savings should also go to the Social Security and Medicare Trust Fund. (Along the way, ban all spying on Americans, and revive the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in full as originally written.)
5. Join the Kyoto Treaty, and pledge to immediately begin a campaign to reduce US carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050 or better, 2030. Establish a crash national research program to develop carbon-free energy sources, and provide funding for households to convert to passive geo-thermal heating and cooling systems. Funds can come from the unused $350-billion portion of the Paulson/Bernacke Wall Street bailout fund. (Talk about a job-creation program, not to mention a big whack at imported oil!)
6. Pass the Employer Free Choice Act, requiring employers to recognize a labor union wherever a majority of the workers have signed cards saying they want a union, and requiring those employers to negotiate and reach an initial contract agreement within 90 days, or under mandatory mediation.
7. Reassert the Constitutionally mandated authority of Congress by rescinding all Bush/Cheney-era signing statements and executive orders and declaring them, by Presidental declaration and by Joint Resolution of the Congress, to have been invalid and unconstitutional.
8. Order the US Justice Department to investigate the actions of the prior administration and, where crimes are discovered, to prosecute offenders, up to and including the former president, to the full extent of the law. This would include obstruction of justice, abuse of power, commission of war crimes, conspiracy, fraud, bribery, war profiteering and criminal negligence.
9. Appoint Ralph Nader as new chairman of the Federal Communications
Commission, with a powerful mandate take the necessary steps to restore
competition and fairness to the nation’s media. (My pet proposal: Establish a government loan fund to allow workers at failing newspapers to buy their publications from the owners and to operate them as employee-owned enterprises, on a tax-free basis.)
10. Enact a national health care program that provides health insurance for every person in America. My choice here would be a single-payer system—essentially an expansion of Medicare to cover everyone, funded by progressive taxation. Failing that, a system in which the government has an insurance program operating in competition with the private sector, should eventually lead to a single-payer plan. One idea: dispatch a public-citizen commission to Canada to study the Canadian health system and report back to Congress and the White House in 90 days.
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DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net
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