There have been some around town that do not know just what I stand for and my question why I respond the way I do on some things that come to the City Council. One thing you should know is that at the City level, at least at this point in history, we have a council devoid of personal agendas. It has happened in the past, even while I’ve been an alderman but I’d say at least for the last 3 to 4 years we haven’t had a problem with this. Not that we haven’t had problems, just that we’ve had a council that works together and seeks to do what is best for the City of Carl Junction.
There are many things about this country that are great but there are also many things that are seriously wrong in this country and what follows is what I believe is needed to address those problems. They are listed in no particular order other than how they happen to come to mind. If there is a candidate that is brave enough to adopt what I have here they can count me in on their team.
1. Foreign Aid – The United States is one of the most giving nations on earth, both from the government and the public at large. It is high time however, that we stop using tax dollars to try to win the favor of other countries. We should immediately withdraw all aid to foreign nations and use that money to bring down the huge deficit that we are faced with. The only exception that I would even think of is the aid that we send to Israel. They are our best friend and it is crucial to our National security that they are successful.
2. Israel – We should formally declare our unwavering support for the State of Israel and their right to the land that they paid for (according to Golda Meir) when the State of Israel was reformed in 1948 and have bled and died to protect ever since. It is not a Palestinian state. It is the State of Israel and there will be no peace so long as we try to play both sides of the fence.
3. Nuclear Proliferation – We cannot as a country afford to let nuts like we have running Iran, Venezuela and other countries have access to Nuclear weapons. They simply do not have the common sense to use those weapons as deterrents. They want the weapons because they want to use the weapons.
4. Military Personnel – The way we have treated the military of this country is reprehensible. I would immediately remove any political input from the fighting of wars or actions that we send our military into. I would also ensure that our military have the absolute best equipment and supplies available on the face of the earth to do the task that we have asked them to.
5. Foreign Military Bases – I would immediately close the military bases anywhere in the world where we are not wanted. On the way out though I’d also tell that government that my phone number has been disconnected and not to call me in a crisis asking for help.
6. Military Retirement and Health Care – Our Military men and women are treated like sub class human beings in this country rather then the heroes that they are. I would immediately make it such that a military retiree that has given his 20 years minimum in the defense of his country has a minimum of One Million dollars in retirement proceeds from which to retire in a style more suitable for those that have given their utmost for their country. Furthermore I would ensure that any active duty military killed in the line of duty has a minimum of a 2 million payment made as a death benefit to their estate so that the loved ones they leave behind can be taken care of and not worry about being destitute. It is the least we can do as a country. Any active duty or veteran should also have access to the best medical care available in the United States at the local level rather than having to rely on veteran’s hospitals. If anyone in this country deserves free health care, it’s our military men and women.
7. Taxes – I would immediately scrap the IRS and any tax that penalizes the creation of wealth it is the exact opposite of what we should be doing in a free enterprise, capitalistic society. It would replace all taxes based on income with the Fair tax as outlined by Neil Boortz. This is the on fair tax there is. Those that are poor would not pay one penny more tax than they do today, which is $0 to start with. It would eliminate the temptation for businesses of any sort to keep a set of books for tax purposes and a set for the banks to see. It would also truly put the taxation of people in this country into the mode that some have always said they were trying to do. Those with more spend more; hence they would pay more in taxes. All the politicians that talk against this now do so because the fair tax would make them actually have to start paying taxes. This is because, and any business person knows this, a business pays taxes on what’s left after the income has come in and they’ve paid all the bills associated with running that business. You and I pay taxes on our income before any bills are paid. We are always going to pay more than a business person and the politicians know this.
8. Welfare – this is needed for the temporary restoration of those that are less fortunate than others. However, we are guaranteed the right to the “Pursuit of happiness” not the right to happiness. Therefore anyone on welfare should either be working on jobs supplied by the government to earn their keep until they can find something better or be sent to school at the expense of the government to learn a trade that will keep them off of Welfare in the future. We should not be enslaving people to the system making it virtually impossible to escape welfare as we do today.
9. Death Penalty – I absolutely believe in the death penalty as a deterrent to violent crimes. I’ve never seen someone executed come back and kill someone else. However, we should adopt the biblical principal that says that the only way the death penalty can be used is if there are 2 eyewitnesses to the crime. This might be people or it might be incontrovertible forensic evidence but any less requires a maximum of life in prison.
10. Justice System – the idea of circumstantial evidence should be stricken from the lexicon of the American legal system. One should never be allowed to be put in prison without direct evidence tying that person to the supposed crime.
11. Economy – The economy should be left to the market it doesn’t need the government meddling in it. One thing that should be abolished is any reference to consumer confidence or other similar indicators. The current recession was not caused by wall-street or the real estate crash or anything of the sort. The current recession was caused by a political party and the media that serves them convincing the American people that the sky was falling despite all the indicators to the contrary. Everything that has happened since then was a direct result of the people going into a panic as both consumers and creditors. I would look at going back to some form of the Gold Standard. Our money needs to be backed by more than the supposed good faith of the Federal Government.
12. Health Care – socialized health care only guarantees that you don’t get good health care. It’s an experiment that has already failed every where it’s been tried so the old adage about what do you call someone that keeps doing the same thing expecting a different result comes to mind. There are not 50 million people in this country without health care that are crying to get health care. That number includes illegal immigrants, those that make enough money that they don’t want or need insurance and those that are too young to think that they need insurance. The easiest way to significantly reduce costs is simple.
a. I would immediately seek to repeal any and all laws that have forced insurance companies into a position where they can’t compete, just like the government has done to the oil industry.
b. Allow groups to cross state lines. The larger the insurance group the lower and more stable the insurance cost.
c. Put caps on lawsuits against doctors. We cannot afford to run good doctors out of business because of sometimes frivolous lawsuits. If a crime isn’t broken, judgements should be capped.
d. Outlaw any and all attempts to get between your doctor and your health care.
e. Incentivize in some form or fashion the coverage of preventive care rather than just treatment. For example: I’m on a medically supervised diet in an attempt to lose close to 100 pounds. My insurance will not pay for any of the doctor visits involved in this attempt. They would rather pay for the 6 medications I’m on or bypass surgery at some point than preventing any of that from happening.
13. Abortion – The scourge of America. Abortion is the taking of a human life by another human pure and simple. Debate it all you want but that’s what it is and if you say that abortion is legal then euthanasia is legal and then how can you say that any other form of killing is illegal. Abortion should be banned, immediately and any doctor that performs an abortion should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. At a minimum the same test to take someone off of life support should be used to determine the viability of a fetus. Run a EEG to detect brain waves. If brain waves are being generated then that life cannot be taken. The argument about the back alley abortions is dribble put out by people trying to scare other people. There is this thing called birth control that wasn’t as well known or as generally accepted in the 1970s as it is today. Today someone in grade school can get a condom without telling a parent but I have to have an act of Congress for that same child to take an aspirin or prescribed medication.
14. The Environment – I would immediately roll back all environmental laws in this country that are not backed by proven science, not a poll of scientists, but proven scientists. One of the things that troubles me most is the scientific community hasn’t changed in 1000 years. They wanted to kill those that said that the earth was round and that the sun was the center of our galaxy in times past. Today the popular (where the money is) scientific thought has given us evolution and global warming, neither of which can be proven and modeled. Climate change is as natural as breathing. I’m pretty sure that the vast deserts of the world use to be covered with water. Why aren’t we trying to restore them to their natural state? Evolution and Global Warming are religions to some but to most are a way to make a lot of money, no more, no les and there is no reason to wreck our economy over it.
15. Separation of Church and State – this doesn’t exist in the Constitution anywhere and should be abolished. The Constitution only says that the State is not to promote or establish a national religion. The very fact that Separation of Church and State has come into existence violates the constitution as trying to remove any reference to God or Christianity from our history, schools and government only serves to promote the religion of Atheism.
16. Energy Independence – Getting the handle on energy independence isn’t the least bit difficult if the politicians would just get out of the way. Here’s what needs to be done.
a. Repeal all laws that prohibit refiners from seeking the best price when buying oil to process. When I was working for the Texaco system in a joint venture with Saudi Aramco we could have gotten oil from the Saudi’s at up 1/3 the market price but we were prohibited from doing so as that would have given us an unfair advantage over the competition if we put gasoline out there a lot cheaper than the competition. Or it would of made us more of a profit and of course we can’t have that.
b. Create a distribution network for alternative fuels such as Ethanol, H2, Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) and Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG). When I live in New Zealand every gas station has gasoline, diesel along with CNG and LPG. We have so much natural gas (leaving the politicians aside for a moment) that we spent most of the 70s drilling and capping gas wells all over Louisiana and Texas.
c. Drill, drill, drill -we should be drilling for oil in our country wherever it is available. Anyone that thinks that we are going to free ourselves from petroleum any time soon needs to be drug tested. You can get through the next 5 minutes without touching something or using something that required petroleum (oil for you that petroleum is too big a word for) to produce. It’s insane to insist on importing oil from elsewhere and pay people a handsome profit for it when a lot of those people don’t like us.
d. Build more refinery capacity – We haven’t built a new refinery in over 30 years in the US. Most people only think we import oil. The fact is we import a lot of the gas and diesel that we use in this country and there’s absolutely no reason for it.
e. Use wind and solar wherever possible. It’s there for the using so let’s use it to the greatest extent possible. Solar needs to be affordable enough that it becomes common place to equip new residential housing with it from the outset.
f. There is no reason not to take advantage of Nuclear. Europe has used it very effectively for years. This is the one place that it makes sense to emulate them.
g. Make LED lighting the norm and bypass CFL lighting. It’s ridiculous to use CFL if it just creates a hazardous waste when LED saves more money on energy and last longer the CFL.
There are other things I’m sure that could and should be here but this is just the start of what I think should be done in regards to some of the most pressing issues of our day.
Walter E. Hayes IV
610 Hayes Ave.
Carl Junction MO 64834
