An open letter to President Obama.

Dear Mr. President,
It's January 20Th, 2011 and seeing & hearing the news, it doesn't seem to be getting any better for most of us, no matter what the polls seem to say.If you listen to Glenn Beck & Rush Limbaugh, you'd get the impression that the sky is falling and it's the end of the world. Conversely, if you listen to Ed Schultz, Thom Hartman and Randi Rhodes it'll be the end of the world if any conservatives have any power. I think that they're all wrong, If you look around, most Americans are pretty much middle of the road, they just want to work, take care of their families, pay their taxes( not too much. ) and have a bit left over to be able to get things that they want and not just what they need.
You once said that you'd like to see any good ideas that anybody had to help our Country( your first state of the union address?) & you didn't care who they came from, therefore,as a currently unemployed American with a lot of time on my hands ( even with the job hunt.) to think about things, I've decided to take you up on that.

The GOP won some victories in the last Election ( Congress, etc...) because the people apparently don't want to have any party left in total, unopposed power, they've already voted to repeal your health care bill, unfortunately, they don't seem to have any good ideas to replace it.

I understand that you ( and the Democrats.) passed the health care bill with only the best intentions at heart, unfortunately, the only people who seem to be benefiting from it are the insurance companies themselves, at increasingly larger cost( premiums, etc...) to the rest of us.

I've heard that health insurance companies are regulated individually state by state, thus ensuring that even though there are almost 1400 insurance companies nationwide, sometimes only a handful may do business in some states.

Most Countries that have some form of national or socialized health care have a few things that we don't have. price caps on medicine, medical equipment, and on medical (surgeries, medical tests, etc...) procedures. They also have (mostly) much smaller populations than we do.

My proposal is this;
1.) Take the current plan off the board.

2.) Set up a bipartisan panel to examine the regulations of all 50 states, take the best rules & make a federal standard into law, make the ins. companies comply with the new standard & open up business, Nationwide, to all of them.

3.) Set price caps on drugs, medical equipment and procedures. between this and the federal ins. standards, this would drive the health care (premiums, co pays, prescriptions, etc...) prices way down, making it affordable for almost everyone. Don't worry about the Insurance companies, with all of the sudden competition, they would have to give much better value for the price, otherwise, they'd fail if they didn't.

4.) leave the provisions for pre-existing conditions in place, otherwise, many people would be out of luck.

I hope that you are true to your word about wanting good ideas from everybody, regardless of political affiliation, I'm not a Democrat, however, I wish you the best of luck and I hope that you'll think about all of us in your work, no matter what you do. Have a nice day.

Fixing the Economy privately and saving mortgages.

It's been a while since I've posted anything, between work, the holidays and the whole family thing I just haven't had time for much else so lets catch up a little bit.
The President seems to have gotten his way with national Health care, much to the dismay of most americans (if you read between the lines you'll see that the only thing that he's really changed is the fact that the insurance companies will now have a lot more mandatory customers!). Now there is talk about Immigration reform and about how we should now bail out a bunch of people with bad mortgages, that's the topic for today.

It seems like everything that the politicians want to do will end with more governmental control and more taxes( or, fees, as they like to call them now, like we're too stupid to know the difference?) piled upon our already dwindling personal resources.
I think that I have come up with something to help bail out the economy without excessive governmental control, let me know what you think.

1.) Get rid of early withdrawal penalties on 401k's, IRA's and other types of retirement accounts, however, there would still be a catch involved.

2.) Any person that has such an account, even if they haven't reached the age to normally withdraw from it, would be able to take money out of their 401k, etc..

3.) This money would be used by the Individual to pay off credit card debt totally and to get their mortgage caught up if they are facing foreclosure, or, are simply caught in a very bad( adjustable rate, etc..) mortgage. The individual would also be able to take money from their account in order to refinance their loan to better rates.

4.) The next time that the individual does their taxes, they would also have to send proof that the money that they took out of those accounts was used to pay off thier credit card debt and that ALL of the cards, with the exception of no more than one or two MAXIMUM were cancelled when they were paid off. They would also have to prove that they'd fixed their mortgage problem.

If these Ideas were utilized, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, would be able to keep their homes. The reason that I included credit card debt in my plan is simple.
Millions of people are enslaved by their tax burden, mortgage debt and by credit card debt.
Let's say, for example that Joe Sixpack has an 401k plan that he's had since he first started working, he's in his late 30's or early 40's, his 401k has about $50,000.00 in it. joe has an 80/20 arm mortgage that costs $1500. per month and a total of about $20,000.00 in credit card debt, If Joe has ever been late or missed a payment they may have jacked his credit card rates up to 29% or there abouts. Joe and his wife both have steady jobs but they can barely afford to make the minimum monthly payments on their credit card ( let's say about $1,100.00 a month or so.) debt, if anything happens to his, or his wifes job, then they are pretty much screwed. Because of medical bills or a work slowdown( loss of hours, etc...) they may have fallen behind ($6,000 or 7,000) on the mortgage payments and face losing their home. Under my plan, Joe would take money out of his 401k to pay off the credit card debts, to catch up on his mortgage and to refinance to a much better (4 to 5% or so) rate, if this reduces his monthly debt to$1,000.00 or so for his mortgage, plus the credit cards are all( exept one or two) cancelled and all of the balances are paid off, then, in effect, Joes family has gotten a raise of about $1,500.00 a month, and Joe probably still has $20,000.00 or $30,000.00 left in his 401k ( remember, often times your cedit card companies will negotiate a settlement if you can afford to pay a large portion of the balance owed all at once, assuming that you've carried a large balance forward for a long time.) plan. They've saved their home and they can afford to go out to eat more often, go to movies, buy things(paying cash of course!), save some money, maybe even start investing in stocks or bonds.
If you multiply Joe Sixpacks family by millions( who knows how many?) of americans, then this would probably create many, many more jobs for americans.

The only downsides to my plan are this.

1.) Not everyone has a 401k plan, an IRA account or some other retirement plan that they could take money out of. Unfortunately, there's just no way to solve everyone's problems.

2.) This would require the Government to, in effect, declare a tax holiday on retirement plans and would require them to forego tax/ withdrawal penalties and, ultimately, some governmental control over the lives of those people involved.

That's all for tonight, have a good one and I'll see you on the beach.

It's Almost time for a PEACEFUL REVOLUTION!!

Post Christmas greetings to everyone, I hope you had a good one. More & more lately, it seems like the people are ready to take up arms & head for the streets. This would be the idea of last resort, and frankly, I don't think that there are enough Americans with the BALLS, much less the BRAINS to make that happen!! So, once again, I Have observed from the sidelines & come up with my own answers.

1.) JOIN A POLITICAL PARTY!! It really doesn't matter which one, most of them, the big two anyway, are pretty much the same anymore.

2.) BECOME ACTIVE IN THE PARTY THAT YOU JOIN!! many people are Republicans & Democrats 365 days a year, but they only take part on election day, at the most they MIGHT put a sign for so and so in their yard, maybe a bumper sticker on their car, they might even send a little bit of money to their favorite Candidate. But, beyond this (and cornering you at the water cooler during break time & telling you WHY YOU SHOULD VOTE FOR SO AND SO!!) they really don't do anything more than vote, then they BITCH about all of the politicians and how they're nothing more than a bunch of crooks looking out for their big money friends.

In Colorado, we have a Precinct and caucus system, this means that the ACTIVE party members get together for neighborhood caucus meetings and nominate & vote for people who will then go on to the county conventions and try to convince the people that attend these as delegates & alternates to vote for those candidates. If these candidates get enough votes then they will appear on the primary election day ballot. Whichever candidate WINS the primary (unless they ran unopposed.) then goes on to the general election to run against the other parties candidates, the overall winner obviously becomes the next elected official.

What I'm saying is this "Shut up & do something about it!!" if you're tired of the same old career politicians then get VERY active at the grass roots level, you may even decide, after a while, that you want to run for office, hell, you might even win!!

As an example, many years ago, a good friend & neighbor of mine was an active republican, I was just a voting republican at the time. He took me over to meet our party precinct captain, after that I became more active in the local party & started attending meetings whenever I heard about them. Eventually, I got to know other active members and even went to a few conventions( county, the local congressional district and even the Colorado state convention in 2004) as an alternate or a delegate. at one point some of the other regulars even talked about having me run for our state representative ( someone else decided to run,so I decided not to, they'd been alot more active for a lot more years in the party) office, did I mention that at the time I was just a delivery driver for a local car dealership? So, If YOU all get INVOLVED, we can have a peaceful Revolution and, ultimately, change America into something more, something better, for all of us, for generations to come.

See you on the beach!!

Illegal Immigration Reform-part 2

In part one I discussed several ways to put an end to illegal immigration. in this part to I'll talk about amnesty eligibility and paying the costs involved.

1.) All current Illegals should come forward, register with the government and pay a registration fee. this would be applied at, oh, lets say $1000.00 for a single illegal immigrant adult and $200.00 to $500.00 per extra ( Spouse) person. This would raise about 10 to 30 ( Based on estimates ranging anywhere from 12 to 40 million Illegal Immigrants currently in the U.S.) Billion Dollars. Portions of this money would be used to Pay for Background checks on those people that pay the fee, they would be allowed to stay in the U.S. pending the outcome of their background ( Criminal, they would be required to give up DNA samples, Fingerprints, etc.., and Medical.) checks. They should also be checked out in their country of origin. Of course, all of this would require many more people at the local, state and federal level( can you say" A LOT of Jobs created?? ) to handle the checks andthe paperwork involved.

2.)No communicable diseases or Criminal (Felony ) record: If the Illegal Immigrant passes their check with a clean bill of health, then they would, at this point, be allowed to apply, while staying in the U.S., for permanent Legal ( of course they would have to pay all of the fees normally associated with doing so.) resident status. My Wife came to the U.S. Legally before I met her, after we got married we applied for Permanent resident status for her, and ultimately, she became a U.S. Citizen, all told, this took about 7 years and cost us somewhere around $10,000.

There was a hospital on Ellis Island, thousands of Immigrants from europe were detained there and eventually sent home because they had tuberculosis or some other disease. this is why we should have the medical check, The criminal check should need(remember those photos, dna samples and fingerprints mentioned earlier? ) no explanation.

These applicants would be required to give a valid address when they pay their initial fee. they would then have to check in physically on a monthly basis. while their status is determined.

3.) Paying the initial fee in installments: The applicant would have they option of paying a down payment( at least $250.00 ) of their initial fee. this would encourage them to try and become legal, of course, if they don't pay the remaider, or fail their backgroud checks, then all bets would be off and they would be detained and deported.

4.) All applicants would be required to sing up for English classes: this requirement would be waived if the applicant can demonstrate at least a 50% profficiency in reading, writing and speaking english.

5.) Eventual Citizenship: All applicants would ultimately be required to attain U.S. citizenship, they would have to do this within 5 to 7 years of obtaining resident alien status.

6.) Social security: if an applicant is successful, social security funding would start on the day that they're approved, If they have been here working for any amount of time before this (illegally) using a taxpayer I.d. # to file taxes, then any ssi deductions taken before that date would be forfeit to the government.

7.) Children of Applicants: Minors that aren't here legally would not be charged a fee, because they did not come here by choice. On their 18th birthday provided that they either graduate from High School or get a G.E.D. and have no criminal or gang record, they would then be given american citizenship, if they do not meet these requirements they would then have to pay the fee as an adult would in order to avoid deportation, they would also have to follow all other steps to eventual citizenship. This policy would start with all illegal immigrant children that are here when the law goes into effect, and end when the last children (with proof that they were all ready here when the law started!) turn 18 years old.

8.) Some exceptions: A.) Military service. If a person is absolutely unable to pay the initial fine then they may join the armed services for a term of 5 years,this is not excessive as the military all ready requires a 5 year commitment if you go to one of the service academies and get an officers commission, the applicant would receive full citizenship after they finish their term of enlistment. The French all ready offer this if you do five years in the foreign legion. Of course the applicant would still have to pass all background checks.

B.)Criminal record and a review board: If, for example, an applicant had been convicted of a felony (excluding manslaughter, murder, rape or pedophilia ) many years before, had served their sentence and been released back into society, this person would be able to go before a review board. The board would determine, after seeing the record and actions of the person since their release. the applicant would have to prove that they've been a positive influence on society (by bringing witnesses,letters from employers, friends, church pastors or other personally known figures of authority. if the board decides positively then the applicant would be able to pay their fine and proceed.

9.) Penalties: A: If an applicant is not qualified they would be given a certain amount of time to put their affairs ( sell their house , if one is owned, or other personal property that they may not be able to take back to their home country.) in order. they would then be required to report on a certain date for transportation and deportation.

B: Any person who follows these procedures and ultimately attains full citizenship May lose their Citizenship and be deported. If at any time after receiving citizenship, that person is convicted of a Felony, they would serve their sentence and then be deported.

C: Any person who is legally deported and returns to the U.S. Illegally, would face a minimum 3 year felony sentence, on top of any other charges, if they are caught. this would be for the 1st offence with 3 additional years added for every time that they are caught in the U.S. after that time. I know it seems rather totalitarian, but they would eventually realize that they aren't welcome here and quit trying to come back.( I believe that I covered this in one of my earlier points.)

If implemented this policy would eventually save the U.S. ( that's all of us!) untold amounts of money and put many Americans back to work. Have a nice day and see you on the beach!

Illegal Immigration Solutions-Part 1

Now there is talk in Washington d.c. About pres. Obama possibly trying to get amnesty for Illegal immigrants in the U.S., just like pres. Reagan did back in the '80's.

This would be a Huge mistake, unless, the government takes some steps to stop illegal immigration. So, Here are My ideas.

1.) Change the 14th amendment. This was added to the constitution after slavery was abolished to ensure that former slaves would have constitutional rights as Americans, and,so that their descendants would be American citizens automatically. Last time I checked, all former slaves are long since dead. Ireland was having the same kind of problem with "Anchor Babies" as we do now, their solution was to change the rules.

Now, in order to be born as an Irish citizen, your parents must be either Naturally born citizens,naturalized citizens,or, LEGAL permanent Residents that have been LEGAL for 5 years or more. If we adopted this plan we would no longer have the issue of anchor babies.

2.) Force ALL Employers to utilize the "E-verify system", currently there are many companies that don't use this system and still hire Illegals, yet, the "official Unemployment rate is somewhere around 10 percent, my wife is a naturalized citizen from Mexico, we Have a lot of friends from Central & South America. I couldn't tell you which ones are here legally (It's not polite to ask your friends questions like that.) or not. I can tell you that almost all of them (90%+) have jobs, Most of the people that I know that don't have jobs are white or black and are Americans.

3.) Check Citizenship status for Housing and, or, Government Benefits.

If we force landlords, mortgage companies/lenders to verify Citizenship (using E-verify) then many Illegals would, quite possibly, leave on their own. In the matter of government benefits, these would be used like this: A family of five( mom, dad,3 kids ) has two kids that were born in the U.S., their Benefits would be based on two people, not on five, because only two are american citizens. This would save the government(That means all of us!!) Billions of tax dollars.

4.) Deport all Illegals that are arrested.

Many cities(Denver is one of them.) have declared themselves as "Sanctuary Cities and have told their law- enforcement people that They may not question the citizenship status of anyone that they stop or have any professional involvement with. there are many people here whose only crime is that they are here illegally, they work hard, keep to themselves and generally are pretty good people. There is another class of illegal here that are always trying to pull scams, commit crimes(dui, dwi, fraud, Identity theft, fighting, robberies and more.) These particular people give everyone of their race, whatever it is, a generally bad( and often undeserved.) reputation, they were usually losers at home and they are losers here in the U.S.

when someone commits a crime and they are caught, their status should be questioned. Obviously, the good people that are here aren't going to be arrested if they're not committing crimes, If they already have a place to live and a job ( Remember item # 3.??) then they should be ok. The Criminals should be fingerprinted, DNA sampled, blood sampled etc..., this information could be put into the national criminal database and kept even after they're deported(after they've served their sentence of course!) if they come back to the U.S. and are caught again, then they should have a nice long sentence( and no bail, probation, or, parole.) 5 years for the first time(more for every time that they get caught coming back again.) etc...

Eventually, the criminal element from other countries would get the message and would either leave on their own, or, not come here at all.

Rounding up all illegal immigrants and deporting them is just an implausible pipe dream that some people( I'm not one of them!) have, however, getting rid of the bad guys is totally doable if the government would PAY ATTENTION!!. next part, we'll talk about paying for all of this, have a nice day!! see you on the beach!!

National health care-part four

As I write this the national health care plan seems to be stalled out in Washington, this is probably a good thing for us as the bill seems to be quickly growing into a huge monster. The problem now seems to center around the abortion issue, well, as usual, never fear, for I, have a plan and it's actually pretty simple.

Unless I'm mistaken, Planned parenthood is the main abortion service provider in the U.S.,the people on the right feel that the Government shouldn't pay for abortions with their tax dollars, and they're absolutely right( the left feel that they shouldn't have to pay for private (read religious) schools with their tax dollars in the form of vouchers, they are also right. It's simple, add a donation slot on to our tax return forms, If you feel that abortion services should be payed for by government funds, then, feel free to check yes in this box and fill in the amount that You would like to contribute to the fund out of Your Income tax return, these funds, along with private or corporate donations, would be the only Government funds, used for this purpose. Those who are morally or religiously opposed to abortion services could then be assured that their money is not used for something that they don't agree with, and, of course, the other side would be able to put their money where their mouth is. Come to think of it, we could also use this same concept for at least two other sometimes controversial issues, mainly, government funding for the National Endowment for the arts( anybody else remember the uproar about Robert Maplethorpe's art a few years back?)and also for Private school vouchers. This is not an Original concept,we already have a box on our tax forms for campaign funds( which I never check off, they take entirely too much of our money as it is!!)

So, there you Have it, My Ideas on National Health care, let's just hope that our "friends" in Washington actually get a look at this before they drag us all screaming over a cliff.

Have a happy Holiday, no Matter which one you like( I prefer Merry Christmas Myself) and stay frosty, see you on the Beach!!

National health care- part three

Hello again, I've talked about cutting down health care costs in the first two parts of this topic, now, here're some ideas on paying for it all.

1.) paying for Medical education.

premed, nursing school and medical school can all be pretty expensive,so, here's my plan. the Military pays for school for their medical people while they're in the military, usually with a commitment of five years or so of active duty afterwards. If someone qualifies and wants to go to med school or nursing school then have the government pay for it, when school is finished then that person would work( internship included) at a public and/or teaching hospital or clinic for five years at a lower pay rate, maybe around $30,000.00 to $35,000.00 a year, the difference between this and what another doctor or nurse that paid their own way would go towards paying off their educational cost. At the end of their five year commitment( having spent that time helping the poor and destitute.) these medical professionals could go to work wherever they wanted to( Private practice, hospitals, etc..) and the government would pay off outright whatever cost is left from their school bill.

2.) paying for everything else.

A large portion could come from selling off the assets of those who are caught and convicted of fraud and abuse of the system( remember part 1 of this topic?) all of this money would go into a special government fund that helps to pay for health care costs. their should be a public option available for those who are too poor to buy Insurance for themselves, however, the participants should be means tested( taxpayers are already way over taxed as it is, we shouldn't have to pay for someone else that is trying to get over on the system and screwing all of us in the process.)

Maybe we should offer a reward for tips about someone committing fraud($500. to a $1000.00) if they are caught and convicted.

3.) legalize marijuana.

If we legalize Marijuana and tax it that could possibly raise hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, heres how to tax it:

A.) License fee for growing Marijuana.

$1000.00 to $10,000.00 a year. This fee would be based on the size of an operation that grows it for commercial purposes. An Individual would be able to grow a certain amount, strictly for personal use, sort of like brewing your own beer( you can brew a 100 gallons a year for personal use with no license or tax.) Those caught selling it without a license, or to minors( under 21) would be prosecuted( no license= tax laws, selling to minors = a big fine-$1000.0+)

B.) License fee for selling Marijuana. A license would also be required to wholesale(distribute) or to sell Marijuana at the retail level($1000.0+ to wholesale. $500.00? to retail)

The laws and penalties regarding use would be the same as those regarding alcohol. much money could be made at the local, state and federal level to help pay for health care costs and education,not to mention the money saved by not busting, prosecuting and Jailing a lot of people who go down under the current laws.

4.)Corporate or business paying for costs.

companies that currently offer health care to their employees are able to deduct that as a cost of business, this should be raised to a dollar for dollar deduction ($100,000. a year for health care equals a$100,000.00 off of your gross income.) companies that don't offer benefits should do so,( Walmart, are you listening?) after all if the points that I've outlined in parts one and two are implemented then the cost of doing business and getting health care/ insurance should go way down, right? In the case of companies that have thousands of employees in one area heres an idea: Build a clinic/hospital and hire doctors, nurses, etc.. to staff it, give all of your employees and their dependents a medical/corporate I.d card, these people would have priority for appointments, services,etc.. at that clinic/hospital, other people(non employees would also be able to use the facility but they would be billed just like they would anywhere else.( employees and dependents would be billed nothing.) of course the company would be able to write off 100% of the costs and it would probably be cheaper in the long run than paying HMO/insurance premiums if the company is really big.( think of Ford, Chrysler, etc..) in a certain part of the country. there is actually a precedent for this idea, some years ago I was listening to a show called Colorado matters on Colorado public radio, they were talking about problems getting doctors and such for small towns and a solution that they were thinking of in Burlington, Co.

It seems that the town doctor was getting pretty old and wanted to retire, but, there was no one too replace him. some well off local ranchers and business men came up with the idea of finding some local students that had already been accepted for premed and nursing school, these people then offered to raise the money to build a local clinic and to pay the students tuition and costs if the students would commit to returning to Burlington and work for the town clinic after they'd finished school. This was 6 or 8 years ago when I first heard this on the radio, I don't know what the final outcome was but it's an awesome idea for a small town or a large company.

5.)Personally paying for health care.

The individual person should also be able to deduct 100% of their medical, dental, and vision costs( this does not Include cosmetic surgery, caps or veneers on all of your teeth and things of a purely esthetical nature, this means that if you want expensive designer eyeglass frames then you pay for them yourself.) this would include aspirin, band-aids, vitamins, drugs, doctor visits etc..and anything else related to healthcare costs( including your premiums)

6.) No more flex plans.

many People have medical flex plans that have certain limits of pretax dollars that you can put into them annually, you have to spend all of this money every year or you lose it. This is stupid, here's a better idea: Get the Banks Involved, instead of a flex plan through your insurance company, you would be able to set up a bank account, a medical savings account, or M.S.A.you could then do direct deposit to this account and it would be pretax dollars. The bank would give you a debit card and this account would only be used for your health care costs, here's the difference between this and flex plans, any money left at the end of the year would roll over to the next year. So, if you put in $50.00 a week( or however much)and you have $1000.00 left at the end of the year, then, that rolls over and you have that money in your M.S.A. account. as the years go by, the money accrued and the annual overage in your account would gain interest just like a checking or savings account, assuming that you stay pretty healthy most of the time when you are younger then you would have a decent amount when you get older and start needing more health care. When you do eventually die, whatever is left in your M.S.A. could be passed on to your heirs, let's say 50% to them and 50% to their medical savings account, the portion going to their M.S.A. would, of course, be tax-free.

7.) Copays.

Copays should be payed by everyone, even if it's just a few dollars cost to those people on the public option, this would discourage unnecessary visits from people with hypochondriac tendencies and keep costs down overall.

So, there you have it, I'm pretty sure that if all of these things were implemented that we all could have decent, affordable health care. Unfortunately, the politicians and their cronies in the healthcare and insurance business stand in our way, maybe they should see these ideas and be politely reminded that the politicians are supposed to work for all of us, not just their big contributers and Lobbyist friends. Feel free to let everyone know what you've read here and let me know what you think about my ideas, also don't forget, what you've read here is a lot less than a thousand pages. Have a great day, see you on the beach.