Hello all,
So my brother called me this evening and recommended I check out a website for a lesser known political party, www.newamericanindependent.com. I checked it out and like a majority of what they believe in and stand for. I just may ask to join them and we'll see where things go from there. I'll definately keep you all posted...
I have been in a school for the past few weeks and have also been having some very deep and good discussions/debates with many of my classmates. They have told me that they would post some of the questions that were brought up in our talks (hence my not posting in a few days...still waiting...). I figured I'd mention one of the topics that was brought up this past week, that being military service. Many of those I spoke with were prior military with a few non-prior service, so I was able to talk to both sides of the coin.
Where do I stand on the military? I think it's the best in the world and I would continue to make it so. Cutting back on National Defense is not always the brightest thing to do. Granted, we outspent the USSR during the cold war and ended up building a larger defense. But after we won the cold war, we looked at our forces and saw they were too big. I personally think we downsized too much however. Two ways of thinking were predominant, with neither apparently communicating with each other. The first was since we had such large forces, and not nearly as much of threats anymore, it seemed logical to downsize all of our military force. The second was since we had such large forces, it seemed logical to extend the roles of the military and demand more of them. Unfortunately, both happened. This has pushed our military men and women to extremes. Nobody I've talked to has said the military has it easy. And now we're stretching our forces very thin in countries that we shouldn't be in, all so the oil industry and the weapons manufacturers can make money at the expense of our soldiers lives, their families, and our own defense capability. My solutions to make it better? I'm glad you asked...
Let's start with the military payscale. Under my idea, the first four years of military service will pay next to nothing (bear with me on this one). Then at the five year point, each individual has a decision to make. To stay in or not. If they stay in, then the pay increase will be equivalent to today's paycharts for the military. This will reward those who decide to make a career out of the military. What about those others who decide to get out? Well, Here's my idea: Free college for those personnel. A year for a year payback, meaning if someone is in for two years, then they get two years of college (years one and two). Three for three and Four for four. There are some stipulations to make it not such a blow to our economic situation or to the rich. First, the candidate must get out with an honorable discharge. A full honorable discharge. In today's military, it is common to see someone get out with what's called an "other-than-honorable" discharge, which means they messed up, but not bad enough to get the punishment of a dishonorable discharge. Also, it would be limited to a community college for the first two years and a state college for the third and fourth years. This would still give the prestigious universities the ability to think themselves better than the rest and would give the upper class a place to go away from commoners. Sorry, my sarcasm sometimes gets the better of me. So now, you're probably saying to yourself a couple of questions. Let me guess...
1. That would be a lot of money, so how are we going to pay for the tuition?! First of all, that's why we would pay less of a salary for the first four years. Basically, what we would be paying in basic pay would be going to tuition instead. Even if it costs the government a little more for this venture, it will only better the country by providing college schooling to anyone willing to serve. We could become the best educated nation once again!
2. There will be a lot of military members, so where could we possibly find enough jobs for them to do? Part of the military cutbacks in the 90's eliminated a lot of miltary jobs. But they didn't go away, they just started getting paid from another pocket in Uncle Sam's pants. Civilians are now doing a lot of the jobs that military used to do. Here's an example... When my submarine would pull in from an underway, we required crane services. Civilians operate the cranes. They get ludicrous amounts of money to do what anyone in the military could be trained to do. Jobs are out there, we just need to reinstate them. Again, this would save money and achieve my goal of strengthening our military and educating our population.
Okay, I've been rambling for quite some time now and It's late at night. Not sure if I explained everything properly and clearly. If not, let me know and I'll try again. Until the next time, peace.
Rich
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Dan's question
Hello again and welcome to my post. Thanks for taking the time to visit and again, I welcome any and all questions or comments. I'd like to give a shout out to "Dan" for asking the first question on my blogsite. His question is:
What is your take on the current budget situation, and what are some ideas that you would propose to help eliminate the debt? ie. taxes
A very good question, Dan. And one that seems very difficult to answer if you ask today's politicians. I think they make taxes seem a tough bronco to tame because for them to help out the common hard-working American with the amount of taxes we pay, our government and big business would not be able to take advantage of tax breaks and loopholes that only benefit the fat cats of our country. I also think that our government spends itself into a deficit every year for a couple of reasons that I'll discuss at a later time. To answer your question, however, I fully believe in three things that would help with both the budget and our Federal taxes.
The first is to reduce the amount of money that D.C. spends. This is not done by reducing military costs or by taking away Social Security or Welfare (much more on welfare in the future!), but rather by reducing the amount of items that the Federal government meddles in that could be handled at a State or local community level. We don't need FEMA for disaters that occur in our country. When handled at a federal level, it becomes way too corrupt and the finances go into the black holes (fat cat pockets) while FEMA actually makes the situation worse. This could and should be handled at a State level. This is what we have a National Guard for in each state. The National Guard is not here to go overseas. They are here to protect and help here, in our country. If the States had a plan for emergencies, then they would make their planning specific for the disaters that occur in their state. This could only make response better and the chances of funding slipping through the cracks would be minimized. There are several other programs that could be cut and placed in the hands of the States. I will get into those at a later date however.
The second is to change the way we pay taxes... it is currently set up in an unfair way (no matter who you ask). My biggest complaint is that not everyone pays taxes. We have so many people that either are illegal immigrants (which is what our country was founded by) or people who find the loopholes to pay much less in taxes than they should be required to pay. I would get rid of the entire way we currently pay our Federal taxes and redo them in the following way: A National sales tax. If we were to tax every purchase that is non essential (I don't think things like milk and bread or baby formula should be taxed), then we benefit in the fact that everyone is paying taxes. Illegal immigrants, current taxpayers, and tourists alike will all be paying to help run the country. This also makes it fair in the way that the more money you make, the more you end up spending, so there still will be a scale in place to where the poor end up paying less than the rich when you look at the numbers. I would, of course, have to get some statistical analysts to crunch the numbers and come up with what would be a feasable percentage for the tax, but I can't imagine it would be much with how much spending we do as a nation every year.
Lastly, to help with the deficit, I would create trade tariffs that currently do not exist. This promotes two things. One reason is that it makes money for the Government and therefore would keep the amount that each of us is taxed to a minimum. The other reason is to make American made products more competitive, thereby creating jobs for our country instead of losing jobs to third world countries and such. The reason we don't have enough tariffs in place now is because it benefits big business and we all know that our public servants would rather work for the better of the fat cats who slide them money under the table than to work for those who they were meant to represent.
I hope, Dan, that i have answered your question adequately. If not, just let me know and I'll try to clarify more.
That's enough for now. Please keep the questions coming so we can maybe make a difference in 2012. Thanks, and to everyone, good day.
Rich
What is your take on the current budget situation, and what are some ideas that you would propose to help eliminate the debt? ie. taxes
A very good question, Dan. And one that seems very difficult to answer if you ask today's politicians. I think they make taxes seem a tough bronco to tame because for them to help out the common hard-working American with the amount of taxes we pay, our government and big business would not be able to take advantage of tax breaks and loopholes that only benefit the fat cats of our country. I also think that our government spends itself into a deficit every year for a couple of reasons that I'll discuss at a later time. To answer your question, however, I fully believe in three things that would help with both the budget and our Federal taxes.
The first is to reduce the amount of money that D.C. spends. This is not done by reducing military costs or by taking away Social Security or Welfare (much more on welfare in the future!), but rather by reducing the amount of items that the Federal government meddles in that could be handled at a State or local community level. We don't need FEMA for disaters that occur in our country. When handled at a federal level, it becomes way too corrupt and the finances go into the black holes (fat cat pockets) while FEMA actually makes the situation worse. This could and should be handled at a State level. This is what we have a National Guard for in each state. The National Guard is not here to go overseas. They are here to protect and help here, in our country. If the States had a plan for emergencies, then they would make their planning specific for the disaters that occur in their state. This could only make response better and the chances of funding slipping through the cracks would be minimized. There are several other programs that could be cut and placed in the hands of the States. I will get into those at a later date however.
The second is to change the way we pay taxes... it is currently set up in an unfair way (no matter who you ask). My biggest complaint is that not everyone pays taxes. We have so many people that either are illegal immigrants (which is what our country was founded by) or people who find the loopholes to pay much less in taxes than they should be required to pay. I would get rid of the entire way we currently pay our Federal taxes and redo them in the following way: A National sales tax. If we were to tax every purchase that is non essential (I don't think things like milk and bread or baby formula should be taxed), then we benefit in the fact that everyone is paying taxes. Illegal immigrants, current taxpayers, and tourists alike will all be paying to help run the country. This also makes it fair in the way that the more money you make, the more you end up spending, so there still will be a scale in place to where the poor end up paying less than the rich when you look at the numbers. I would, of course, have to get some statistical analysts to crunch the numbers and come up with what would be a feasable percentage for the tax, but I can't imagine it would be much with how much spending we do as a nation every year.
Lastly, to help with the deficit, I would create trade tariffs that currently do not exist. This promotes two things. One reason is that it makes money for the Government and therefore would keep the amount that each of us is taxed to a minimum. The other reason is to make American made products more competitive, thereby creating jobs for our country instead of losing jobs to third world countries and such. The reason we don't have enough tariffs in place now is because it benefits big business and we all know that our public servants would rather work for the better of the fat cats who slide them money under the table than to work for those who they were meant to represent.
I hope, Dan, that i have answered your question adequately. If not, just let me know and I'll try to clarify more.
That's enough for now. Please keep the questions coming so we can maybe make a difference in 2012. Thanks, and to everyone, good day.
Rich
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Welcome to the Throwback Party!!
Hey, I've got a crazy idea...
How about if we elect a Presidential candidate who can actually represent the people of the United States of America? What if we, as free citizens who have the ability to do research and vote logically, actually get out there and ensure that corruption is put to an end in government?
It is my goal to provide everyone with an option that can accomplish the above. I am trying to be a candidate for 2012 (due to my age and funds) that has nothing to hide. I have no dark secrets to cover up. In fact, I welcome any and all investigations into my past. I grew up from nothing, very poor in a New Jersey town. I have also spent 11 years in the military and am now working as a regular joe, getting my hands dirty in the oilfields across America. I am happily married to my beautiful wife of thirteen years (whom I've known since High School), and we have 3 beautiful children. I will delve into all of that stuff as time goes by, as well as my position on things, but please ask any questions you wish. I will answer all questions honestly, whether the answer will be popular or not. It is not my goal to be 15 different people to appeal to everyone, but rather just be myself and see if that's enough to get the job done. No topic will be off limits to me, although it may take me a while to respond due to having to mull over the question and discussing it with my immediate campaign support group.
I look forward to sharing my views and ideas with everyone as well as hearing from you all. God bless.
Rich
How about if we elect a Presidential candidate who can actually represent the people of the United States of America? What if we, as free citizens who have the ability to do research and vote logically, actually get out there and ensure that corruption is put to an end in government?
It is my goal to provide everyone with an option that can accomplish the above. I am trying to be a candidate for 2012 (due to my age and funds) that has nothing to hide. I have no dark secrets to cover up. In fact, I welcome any and all investigations into my past. I grew up from nothing, very poor in a New Jersey town. I have also spent 11 years in the military and am now working as a regular joe, getting my hands dirty in the oilfields across America. I am happily married to my beautiful wife of thirteen years (whom I've known since High School), and we have 3 beautiful children. I will delve into all of that stuff as time goes by, as well as my position on things, but please ask any questions you wish. I will answer all questions honestly, whether the answer will be popular or not. It is not my goal to be 15 different people to appeal to everyone, but rather just be myself and see if that's enough to get the job done. No topic will be off limits to me, although it may take me a while to respond due to having to mull over the question and discussing it with my immediate campaign support group.
I look forward to sharing my views and ideas with everyone as well as hearing from you all. God bless.
Rich
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