On September 8, 2011, in the early hours of the morning, a letter by an anonymous and concerned citizen, Guesswhoo, is placed on the President's desk. The contents of the letter are as follows:
"Mr. President: You'll address the nation tonight. Let's get it somewhat right at least, for once. The solution to the nation's woes is clear: Universal Health Care (Single Payer), a balanced budget, and massive job creation. The combination is dynamite and you're welcome to take it in my direction. I know, I know. Nobody elected me anything...but trust me that this is the salve for the nation. Read over the next few pages of my proposal, and I know you'll love what you see....[letter continues for numerous pages, detailing the in's and out's of Single Payer, and all the positives that would arise from its implementation. The President eagerly muses over the contents of the letter]."
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At this stage of the game, with everyone plumb out of new ideas, I've actually thought of something different.
The seed for my diary was planted last week on.......uugh, Facebook! Everyone, including the NJ State Senator whose post it was, chose to overlook and ignore my marvelous comments that night. This evening, however, Obama will be presenting our country with his jobs plan, a miracle to save us all. My plan is better and is repeated below the fold. What if the President were to use my idea? Imagine the direction this country could go!
The idea was presented on Facebook, spread out over many comments and perhaps several sarcastic innuendos by this author, but here's the gist of it, a stream of consciousness that will save the Union.....
Phase out cash; issue a government debit card; tax the underground economy using a national sales tax. Eliminate all other taxes, aside from personal income tax on rich......RAISE THAT TAX.
Eliminate corporate taxes altogether; next, eliminate business health care cost by instituting a government run system of Single Payer, funded by all that new found money which a regressive national sales tax would bring in.
Companies are sitting pretty; no corporate taxes and no health care costs. Single Payer sees to that! Businesses can expand.... they hire like crazy. Jobs for all!!
Then, eliminate the Department of Commerce and a whole bunch of other Departments not needed anymore, since companies don't need any more government welfare. Lobbyists, they get the heave ho, too, because there are no corporate tax loopholes to fight over. Single Payer is the common theme. Throw in medical saving accounts in combination with free health care. Why not? It could make sense; we explain later.
Fast forward to tonight. Looking into the teleprompter, the President reads these last paragraphs of his address to the nation....
My fellow Americans, we have the greatest Health Care infrastructure in the world. It's not crumbling. It doesn't need painting like a bridge or a public school might, in this one's or that one's Congressional district. (The President pauses and looks down at members of both both parties in the audience). Let's go with our strengths in this new American Century. Our medical schools are the envy of the world. Our research and development, both in the private and public sector, are phenomenal...why not utilize this fact in order to grow our nation and lead to centuries of prosperity to come?
Let's decide tonight that all Americans deserve Health Care and work backwards from that premise. Let us change the way goods and services are paid for and taxed. We'll eliminate cash and institute one national sales tax, collected on a Gov't debit card, ensuring that nobody avoids paying his or her fair share. Everybody will pay and have a stake in this new notion that everybody, very soon, gets "free" health insurance. Make our system of government run health care the envy of the world; we can do it and pay for it. Pour the money into it; export the technology; unravel the cures. (the President waits while Democrats and several wayward Republicans clap).
Let's agree to compromise: Republicans, Democrats, Independents. First thing tomorrow I'll be instructing several of my Cabinet heads to oversee plans for dismantling their departments as down payment to Republicans for their agreement to shelve Obamacare, while at the same going forward with a plan for a Single Payer type system of government run Health Care. Kathleen Sibelious, my Secretary of Health and Human Services, will be available starting Monday to explain to Americans what Single Payer is, and the future role, or lack thereof, of private insurance companies in the new Health Care paradigm coming soon. In the next Presidential election, 14 months from today, everybody will have the chance to go on record: either yes, all Americans deserve basically the same health care as their neighbors; or no, we like the current system with millions of middle class Americans falling through the health care cracks.
Furthermore, eliminating the income tax, FICA taxes, state sales taxes, and corporate taxes in favor of one national sales tax, as I've suggested, does indeed put a disproportionate share of the tax burden on the poor and middle class Americans. In order to balance out the pain, I believe it is imperative that wealthy Americans, those in the top 2% of personal wealth, pay a significantly higher percentage of their income to what's left of the old IRS and federal income tax system. My Treasury Secretary, Timothy Gietner, will explain tomorrow morning at a news conference how the new system will work and why Americans need not worry about things like personal privacy concerns associated with this Government Debit card I'm proposing, and other issues, such as how states will be reimbursed for taxes which they themselves will still be entitled to, but which they now will not be responsible for collecting. This (debit card) would be the same tax collection method for collecting future Social Security receipts as well.
What I'm proposing here tonight is a stream lining of government, in order to make room, in many ways, for larger government in the form of Single Payer. To reiterate: By changing the way that government raises revenue, we would in fact greatly increase the amount of tax that is collected, while simultaneously increasing jobs and paying down the national debt. This is a blessed idea worth betting both the re-election of my Presidency and the reputation of the Democratic Party upon going forward.
When, not if, it unleashes the economy and pays down the debt in short order, future generations will be assured the same America some of us knew several short decades ago growing up after the Second World War.
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footnote
Sept 1 @ 9:22am The State Senator from New Jersey asks, "So who's going to watch the R debate (comedy hour?) Wed. night? And are you going to watch the Prez's speech or the football game Thursday night? Doing my own very unscientific poll."
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some tags, such as those in this diary, as usual, provided by- and many thanks, as always to -Congressman Frank LoBiondo, the god awful incumbent in New Jersey's 2nd Congressional district.