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Now, we all know that there is not a chance that I will be elected president. I guess I have as much of a chance as poor Bernie Sanders has with this current and corrupt Democratic Party. In his case this writer has even changed my political affiliation from Green Party to Bernie’s just to vote for him in the upcoming Florida primary. Of course, anyone with even a remote understanding of our Two Party/One Party political system knows that the other half of this equation, the Republicans, are even 10X worse. Thus, the bold ideas must come from elsewhere… so why not here?

First off, with the plethora of important issues facing we working stiffs, I must limit myself to a few basic, but vastly crucial issues. Please indulge me a bit if possible:

Flat Surtax Mega millionaires 50% of all income over $ 1,000,000 a year. That means that for the initial one million dollars of income people pay at our current rate of 37% ( of course this is before the accountants sharpen their pencils). For any income over that there would be a Flat 50% surtax with NO deductions. You earned $ 10 million last year, you get to keep $ 4.5 million plus whatever you earned after the initial 37% top rate you paid at. The good news for we working stiffs is that ALL those extra funds goes into our treasury to be used to fund the multitude of safety nets the 99+ % of us so badly need. Just imagine hundreds of billions of dollars set aside for better infrastructure upgrades on our roads and bridges, even high speed rail like they have in other major industrialized countries. With such an influx of funds we could jumpstart a viable Medicare for All AND Dental Care for All without having the private insurance predators involved. We could actually see our great library system funded better with longer hours, more services and lots and lots of new books. With all the many increases in anxiety related problems felt by millions upon millions of working stiffs, imagine having FREE counseling offices throughout our towns and cities for anyone who cannot handle the stresses caused by living under this ‘ dog eat dog’ empire.

Major Cuts in Military Spending beginning with a 25% immediate cut. If you do the math and realize that the most recent bi partisan Congress’s increase in military spending that experts like William Hartung say will cost YOU the taxpayer over ONE TRILLION DOLLARS this year… something is ghastly wrong! Folks, we have NOT been in a declared war since WW2! This Military Industrial Empire, the one that Eisenhower warned us of in January of 1961, is on steroids! We need to close the approximate 1000 overseas bases, end ALL occupations and return our brave military personnel home. We can then use our slew of domestic bases to house them, which will bring lots of income to the towns they are located in ( Duh, they call that economic stimulus). More importantly, the savings of around $ 250 billion would once again go for a myriad of needed projects to give working stiffs a better life. This quarter of a trillion dollars could be refunded to the states and their cities and towns by what each locality actually paid out to Uncle Sam in way of federal taxes, personal AND corporate. My city here of around 65k people would see a return of funds of well over $ 100 million. Imagine what my town could do with that. Perhaps use some of it to lower property taxes, helping our homeowners. Maybe the town could use eminent domain to buy up commercial rental properties and rental housing, run them nonprofit and give a break to the Mom and Pop storeowners and residential tenants. The options are endless.

Non Profit Community Run Mortgage Banks- This empire has always had a feudalistic system of Absentee Landlords. The word itself was taken from that system whereupon the ‘ Lords of the manor’ owned all the land and rented parcels out to their serfs; Thus the term ‘ Land Lord’. As with the agrarian South of our nation when poor farmers had to ‘ Sharecrop’ to survive, whereupon a major portion of what they grew was given to the landlord as rent. Today, especially after the Subprime mortgage scam and housing bubble burst in 2008, tens of millions of former homeowners have been foreclosed or ‘short sold’ out of their homes and into rentals, sometimes in the same house they once owned! The local community, with financial aid from Uncle Sam ( after parts 1 and 2 of my platform become law) local Non Profit mortgage banks could be established. Imagine having a mortgage that only charges a half a point plus overhead costs. Translated: instead of whatever the current 30 year rate is now, the new mortgage rates would be 1 to 1.5%. That would mean that over a hundred million working stiffs who now pay high rental rates would be actually paying a mere fraction of that each month to own their home! With so many new home buyers there would be a great need for new construction, remodels and millions of supplies to complete the work. Plus, more working stiffs needed to do the work as well. You want economic stimulus… you’ll see it!

Rather than go on and on with so many other great ideas to level the playing field and introduce what successful socialist programs can achieve, we’ll leave that for another day. The more that working stiffs see the value in pulling back this empire to help the 99+ % of us….

PA Farruggio

February 1, 2020