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    Joe Schmoe to the Rescue!: Solving America's Problems
    Joe Schmoe to the Rescue!: Solving America's Problems
    Joe Schmoe to the Rescue!: Solving America's Problems
    Ebook110 pages1 hour

    Joe Schmoe to the Rescue!: Solving America's Problems

    By Rod Sterling

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    About this ebook

    THIS IS A NO WHINING ZONE. "Somebody ought to do something." Well, somebody is. 25 major problems in the United States are identified but each comes with a common sense solution. For the last sixty years we have been throwing money at every problem that surfaced only to find out that money wasn't the answer. The people have to take the power back from the lobbyists, empty out half our prisoners while holding onto the bad guys, and demand our mainstream media get their integrity back or go out of business.
    We know who the crazies are that will shoot up a school, theater or mall, but we don't share the information. Every household spends thousands extra each year to reimburse big buisiness for political donations. Political contributions are a business expense, not altruism. They always get their money back. Let's put an end to that.
    The author never checked with any political camp. Joe Schmoe's solutions are plain everyday common sense. You'll come away with a different point of view.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLulu Publishing Services
    Release dateAug 19, 2014
    ISBN9781483415482
    Joe Schmoe to the Rescue!: Solving America's Problems

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      Book preview

      Joe Schmoe to the Rescue! - Rod Sterling

      me.

      ONE

      CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

      One of the truest and saddest things I ever heard from the lips of a congressman came from a former Philadelphia longshoreman, Michael Joseph Ozzie Myers. He was unknowingly addressing an undercover FBI agent dressed as a sheik in 1979.

      I’m gonna tell you somethin’ real simple and short. Money talks in business and bullshit walks. And it works the same way down in Washington. Ozzie Myers became the first person expelled from congress since 1861.

      Money is everything in political campaigns. The result is that while we all have a vote, we have almost nothing to say about who the two or three people are as candidates for any particular office. We often vote for the one we dislike least. The deepest pockets fill the airwaves by mud-slinging his opponent. Dirty politics works because if you hear a lie often enough, sooner or later you’ll believe it.

      Our current system wasn’t designed for lobbyists but it’s a perfect fit. We need campaign finance reform if only to take away the power of the lobbyists.

      This is Joe Schmoes plan:

      It shall be illegal to make any political contributions to any candidate for public office whether local, state or federal. It shall also be illegal for any candidate to receive any contributions.

      Every taxpayer will be assessed $25.00 each year with his income tax return to fund all political campaigns. The money would be apportioned to go to local, state or federal elections proportionately. E.G. A senatorial candidate in Alaska would not have to reach as many people as his counterpart in Ohio and therefore would not receive as much money.

      The only permitted political contributions would be to fund the gathering of petition signatures needed to qualify for a ballot position.

      After the primary is over any surplus would be required to be turned over to the general fund. Not one penny could ever find its way into a candidate’s pocket. No other contributions, whether in kind, personal, or corporate. could be made or received. Foreign donations, personal, corporate, or national, shall be prohibited even in the petition phase.

      Any individual who violates this law, whether a donor, a recipient, or any person conspiring to subvert the intentions of this law, shall spend the next five years in a federal detention camp.

      An opponent of this idea said: But there are people who can’t afford $25.00. This person clearly has no idea what is happening. Consider the role of a lobbyist. He is engaged to represent the interest of a particular business or industry. His weapon is holding the purse strings on moneys earmarked for political campaigns.

      When a business or industry contributes money to a given candidate’s campaign, it is because the business or industry has expectations of selling more of their product or service if that individual gets elected. That contribution becomes a cost of doing business and is reflected in the price of that product or service to the consumer. Often, that occurs at three levels: the manufacturer, the wholesaler and the retailer. The result is that a product could easily cost fifteen or twenty percent higher than what it could sell for with no political contribution factored in. The lobbyists are not exclusively in Washington, but operate in every state capitol as well.

      And that happens with virtually all products or services: clothing, automobiles, fuel, furniture, food, insurance, interest rates. Everything.

      How much extra does the average guy pay because of this system of political contributions? Impossible to say, but it would likely be at least a tenth of all you spend on goods and services: thousands of dollars.

      So what it boils down to is not only are you paying for those television commercials for candidates, but you are supporting a system which minimizes your voice and maximizes the lobbyist’s voice. You are paying to elect people that do not represent your interests, your political philosophy, your state or congressional district. So much for the guy who can’t afford the $25.00.

      This same process is in play at all levels of government. Consider the lawyer who wants to be named as city attorney. The county Republican or Democrat chairperson requests a political donation of $20,000 to help fund the campaigns of candidates to municipal and/or county office. It is understood that if the lawyer makes no contribution, he will not get the job. Again, the contribution becomes a cost of doing business and his rates are raised to recover such cost. And who pays that? The taxpayer. When you consider this system is applied to new police cars, coffee makers in the break room, or computers in the local library, it becomes apparent that much of your income exists to fund political campaigns.

      Politicians have to spend a great deal of time not on serving the public that elected them, but in raising money for the next campaign. My plan would end that. Lobbyists would become an endangered species. Maybe a couple of Italian shoe companies would go under.

      Applying this very simple system of everybody kicking in $25.00 a year would reduce costs all around and put the power back where it belongs: to the citizens.

      When people hear about government corruption, they think about an official taking bribes or accepting expensive gifts in exchange for political favors. Corruption does include those things, of course, but most government corruption is perfectly legal. And it is perfectly legal because that is the way our elected officials want it to be.

      TWO

      DRUGS

      In 1933, after nearly fourteen years of prohibition of the manufacture or sale of alcoholic beverages, the American people wisely employed common sense and repealed the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, commonly known as the Volstead Act, or, officially, The National Prohibition Act.

      The purpose of the Volstead Act was to rid society of the evils of drunkenness. It didn’t accomplish that end but did foster an underground, tax-free industry, without quality control, that corrupted officials, fertilized crime waves, crowded our courts and filled up our prisons. People died or went blind drinking bad booze. And throughout the thirteen years, those who wanted to drink, drank.

      Yet we persist in the prohibition of drugs, which has all the negative effects of alcohol prohibition and more. It is well past the time that drug use be legalized. And the word is legalized, not de-criminalized. Allow hard drugs to be sold by doctors’ prescriptions. Sell marijuana like tobacco. Bureaucrats will try to cash in and tax it to the sky. I propose no opposition to taxing but suggest that not more than twenty-five percent of the ultimate retail price could go to taxes, divided up by local jurisdiction, state and federal government. The price, and therefore the tax, could only be raised by the retailer. For this plan to succeed, the price must be very substantially reduced to take the criminal element out of the equation. If the price goes higher and higher, drug dealers will re-surface and undercut legitimate prices.

      Opponents will argue that drug use will increase. I think not. Firstly, no doctor would issue a prescription to anyone who was not already addicted. And criminal drug dealers would dry up because they would not have repeat business. Who would pay $40 or $50 for a daily fix when a prescription for the same thing would cost only a dollar or two?

      It is, after all, the contraband element that keeps the price sky-high. With legalization, the prices would plummet. I have also been told by several former

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