I heard Senator Corker talk today on the morning TV shows. He wants to extend the debt limit by 1 trillion dollars by cutting Medicare and Social Security by 1 trillion dollars. Another Republican is advocating shutting down the government over the debt limit. And POTUS Obama just signed a 633 BILLION Dollar Defense Bill.
Then there was this great article today in HP (Do These Things, Don't Cut Entitlements) about places to save $$ so we don’t have to cut entitlements (One of the most notable ways was to end the war on drugs) but will Congress consider it? No because they are stuck on destroying entitlements in the guise of reform.
Do we need entitlement reform? Yes? But GOP doesn’t reform it; they want to destroy these programs by defunding them. That’s what they are doing to Planned Parenthood. That’s the model. That’s why they want to sneak it into some grand bargain. It’s also why it needs to stand alone as an issue the way the health care did and not held hostage every time the GOP wants to get its way.
We have all these so-called show downs that don’t have to happen.
Just remove marijuana from the controlled substance list, regulate and tax it. Conservative estimates are that at very least it will generate enough money annually to cover the entire costs of 633 Billion dollar defense bill and others predict that this new regulated industry can generate 1 trillion dollars annually in savings, jobs and new federal tax revenue.
Now you ask seniors and baby boomers, if they would choose to endure Medicare cuts and social security cuts or see marijuana removed off the controlled substance list and you will see an overwhelming majority support the latter. You give their kids the same choice and they will by even wider support make the same choice. The only people that would choose cuts are politicians and crazy right wingers.
Since POTUS Obama doesn’t have the gumption to take it on, then it should fall on Democratic Senators and Congressman from Colorado, Washington, California and every other state with laws at odds with the Federal Controlled Substance Act. The politician that has the courage to put this revenue on the table and make it happen may be our next POTUS because its success carries with it huge political capital and financial support in coming future elections. And since we only have 60 days to all these showdowns, I would suggest that they get on it right away. Because if they act now, they take away all the so-called political capital that the GOP thinks it has.
If the GOP shuts down the government over entitlement cuts, they are again placing themselves against the will of the people. Why groups like MoveOn.org and AARP don’t jump on this boggles my mind.
We need all the revenue we can get. Now is the time to act. Maybe we can afford this asinine policy in the past but today we have 2 states which have legalized it, 20 + states have medical marijuana laws and 3 recent POTUS who all smoked it.