I don't know if it will do much good, I am not a wealthy woman so it is unlikely I have "the right stuff" for a run for office, however, if I was running, this would be the platform I'd run on. The Democratic Party is welcome to gank this, royalty free. Share and enjoy. The fun begins below the fold. (Wow, that sounds obscene, maybe I should rephrase that...nah...)
Abortion: Safe, Legal, and RARE. I think that Clinton had the best frame for the issue, we should go back to that winning frame. More availability for family planning, more availability and less red tape for adoption, "safe surrender" laws in all 50 states.
Wind Down The Iraq War, Fight The Right War. Rebuild alliances. Diplomacy first. The right war in the right place is fighting al'Qaeda in whatever havens they have found. This includes going after Saudi financiers of al'Qaeda and dealing with our fake friends in Pakistan and the former Soviet "Stans." I am not a pacifist. Sometimes you have to go to war. World War II was a good example. So is the war we should have fought after 9/11, against al'Qaeda.
Restore the good features of States' Rights. Medical Marijuana has nothing to do with Interstate Commerce if the pot in question is raised and smoked (or vaporized, or eaten) in California. Oregon has every right to allow those in intractable pain and already terminal to hasten death if that is the only way out. The incursions of social conservatives on the Tenth Amendment are bad and wrong and another betrayal of the intent of the Founders.
Education is the best way of "[P]romot[ing] the general welfare" of US citizens. From helping pre-literate adults to opening up more, not less, financial aid to those who are not to the manor born, this needs to be a big priority. Time to go back to pedagogical science, rather than to "snake oil" remedies like high-stakes tests, programmatic phonics instruction and bland, boring "scientific" readers like the Open Court series of books that are being crammed down students' throats in LA Unified.
My suggestion for Education Czar: Dr. Stephen Krashen.
Dust off that lockbox: keep Social Security as it is, with a few modifications. My suggestions for change: subjecting all income to FICA tax, not just the first $60,000 or whatever the cap is. And I also suggest looking at a "means test" so that billionaires don't dip at the trough. Billionaires probably have their retirements nicely covered.
Eliminate Reagan/Dubya-style tax breaks for the wealthy. Give the tax relief to those who are being saddled with too much as it is: the poor, the working poor, and the middle class. End taxation of Unemployment Insurance benefits. Eliminate AMT for those who make less than $5,000,000 in gross income per year.
Enforce AMT for corporations. Get more aggressive on busting tax shelter schemes of questionable legality. If you are incorporated in an offshore tax haven but your offices, factories, or other types of "points of presence" are on US soil, then your corporation must pay its fair share of US tax.
Honor the faith-based heritage of our country. All of it. We are a nation of many faiths. Some of the Founders didn't even believe in a personal Deity. Everyone should be allowed to freedom of conscience.
If "faith based" charities are to be supported with Federal funds, all faiths should be allowed under that umbrella, not just Protestant Evangelical Christianity. Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Shinto, Freethinker and Neo-Pagan faith-based charities are not being given these "faith based" funds. All or nothing.
Note also that other than Protestant Evangelical Christian charities, groups like Scientology and Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church have received funds. Either all faith-based charities can get funds or nobody can. No more playing pick and choose.
Welcome back, Paygo. George W. Bush's "Borrow and Binge" fake-onomics have wreaked havoc on our economy. In the face of a wartime footing, there will necessarily be austerity measures and belt-tightening. We might not be able to do as much for our citizens as we would like. We might have to raise revenues. Bush postponed the sacrifices we needed to make after 9/11. We will have to all pull together now.
A Truth And Reconciliation Commission to untangle the webs of deceit, corruption and malfeasance of the G. W. Bush administration. After Bush is out of office, however he might leave office, we need to find out the truth of what happened during his administration. Yes we all here want to see frogmarching and jailings.
But the Mandela administration in South Africa considered the route of endless trials and executions, and decided to "stop the wheel" and offer pardons in exchange for the absolute, 100%, truth. We now know the extent of the horrors of the Apartheid administrations of South Africa. There is peace and remarkable ethnic harmony now in South Africa.
Contrast this to the tumult of Zimbabwe, where recriminations are rife and terror reigns. Do we want one America, or do we want the status quo, divided between red and blue and between ethnicities and classes? Truth and Reconciliation to handle past sins, transparent government hereafter.
Health care is a right, not a privilege. And it's good for business. The current American system of health care is broken. This is bankrupting industry and killing people. It is time to make America an attractive place to do business again by doing what the rest of the industrialized world already does and take the profit motive out of health care. Only three industries in America do not want this to happen: Big Pharma, Big Insurance and Big Hospitals.
Toyota already decided to build their newest plant in Canada instead of the US largely because of health care costs. The broken system of health care means people sue to be made whole instead of go to a doctor to be made whole when injured. Fix health care and you fix workers' compensation and injury tort dysfunctionality. National health care will save us money in the long run. The status quo costs us big time as it is.
REAL Election reform. NOW. I have saved the most important and most wide-reaching plank of my platform for last.
1.) One single primary in Spring for all 50 States.
2.) One single Election Day for all 50 States.
3.) Both of these days will be holidays in all 50 States. It will be a violation of federal law to ask a worker to work on Primary Day and/or Election Day.
4.) No voting system without a voter-verified, human-readable paper ballot. The ballot can also be optical character readable. No more black-box voting machines. All software used in voting and tabulation must be Open Source, as per the Open Source Definition. Code must be compiled by technicians working for State and Local election authorities. It must not be provided as compiled binaries. The ballot a voter approves must be the ballot counted. No voting system must be networked in any way, shape or form except a secure local wired network for the purpose of reading the count of votes. Communication from the voting machines must be one way -- outbound -- except for the reloading of software compiled for the machine by duly certified State and/or Local technicians.
5.) The option of an Oregon-style vote by mail voting system should be an option for all 50 states. However, a vote by mail system does not abrogate the Open Source requirement for all software used to count the votes. Voter fraud via mail will be punished via Mail Fraud statutes.
6.) There will be a "Campaign Season" of exactly two months before the primaries and exactly two months before the general election.
7.) As a condition of their FCC license, radio and television stations must run campaign ads fee-free. And there must be a strict balance between all qualified candidates. This includes qualified third party candidates.
8.) Real campaign financing reform, with teeth. No more PACs. No more soft money. No more corporate or institutional donations. Private "hard money" caps on personal contributions will apply to all donations. Donations must be made to campaigns, not directly to politicians.
9.) Ex-politicians will not be allowed to join lobbyist firms after serving. Serving public servants will not be able to accept money or gifts or donations in cash or in kind under any circumstances from lobbyists, corporations, institutions or private citizens.
10.) Any campaign appearance must be open to all. No picking and choosing audiences. Security concerns must be the only concerns in excluding or allowing audiences in to a campaign appearance.
11.) A new Constitutional Convention will be convened to address, and only address, the question of the Electoral College. We need to take a hard look at whether the system of Electors is needed in the 21st Century.
(note: I have posted most of these points before. I have expanded them here, however.)