American Political History and how we might Get America going again.

Marc had mentioned something about how FDR's policies have hurt us, and he's not the only one.  I've heard Glenn Beck and many many other people say similar things.  I think they are right to a degree.  I haven't fully explored everything FDR did that might have led to the socialist policies that are being enacted today, but it would be a good exercise.  Also I'd like to talk about way to change things in this country and get our Economy going again and put people back to work.
 
I liked some of FDR's policies.  His Civilian Conservation Corp put 250,000 unemployed young men to work and kept them fed.  Also the idea of letting the SEC regulate Wall Street was probably a good one too.  Under FDR Americans built dams and power stations, controlled floods, and modernized agriculture and home conditions in the poverty-stricken Tennessee Valley.  Plus the WPA set up a national relief agency that employed two million family heads.  And he enacted the Social Security program.
 
But I still don't know how he got away with taking gold away from people.  Or cut Veteran's benefits by 40%, remove 500,000 veterans and widows from the pension rolls and reducing benefits for the remainder. 
 
I've also read that FDR initiated FBI and IRS investigations on his critics.  No legal action resulted but the damage was done.  That sounds pretty familiar today.
 
FDR also proposed that Congress enact an income tax rate of 99.5% on all income over $100,000, and when that proposal failed, he issued an executive order imposing an income tax of 100% on income over $25,000, which Congress rescinded.  100%???   
You'd be better off not working at all.
 
FDR actually championed a 2nd Bill of Rights.  He said:
 

(People have )The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industry -- our shops, our farms, our mines of the nation. The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation. The right of every family to a decent home. The right to adequate medical care. The opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health. The right to adequate protection from economic fear, from old age and sickness and accident and unemployment. Finally, the right to a good education.

Now that sounds good.  I wish I was guaranteed the right to work, a decent home, medical care and all that stuff.  But how did he plan to achieve this?  And Obama has said he wants to use FDR's 2nd Bill of Rights as well.
 
But again, how do you achieve this without income redistribution?  (Which is theft imo).  How do you guarantee all these things without raiding the bank accounts of other people?  Personally I suspect that if we reduced or eliminated the billions in wasteful spending and fraud in our govt's policies and programs, we might be able to achieve a lot of those goals without stealing money from people's bank accounts.
 
If the govt would do this, they could enact legislation to create programs to build infrastructure like they did during FDR's presidency.  The govt could put thousands to work on public works projects.  They could start in Detroit tearing down buildings and slums.  The could rebuild our railways and highways.  And any natural disaster we had (as we usually have every year or so) these workers could go in and help rebuild.  How about building that fence along the border?  You could gett he US Army Corps of Engineers to oversee it and use civilian workers to do the grunt work.
 
I don't call a plan like that Socialism because the govt wouldn't really be taking money from the wealthy and give it to the poor.  Rather, it would be cleaning up fraud and waste and taking THAT money to pay for these work programs.  That would put a lot of people to work as well as give our economy a much needed boost.
 
But our govt officials don't think like that...not even Republicans.  Not even Libertarians.  And certainly not Dems.  All to often the plan is to tax to generate money.  Take the money away from the working man, give it to the poor in social welfare programs.
 
Personally I couldn't get out and dig ditches or lay rails anymore because of my health.  But I could sit at a desk and do paperwork needed to make a program like that go.  People like me could find all sorts of opportunities to work if a program like that was created.
 
What do you guys think about a plan like that?  Would it be worth sending it to my Senators as a suggestion?  I wanna get all the bugs out before Ido.

Here's a brief outline for the economy:
 
 
1. Term limits for Congress. 2 terms max. No more 25 yr politicians.
 
2. Congressional Salaries are set to a max of $75,000.
 
3. Line Item Veto for the president.
 
4. Investigate govt waste. (Let the IRS do this?)
 
    A. Eliminate unnecessary govt programs and departments.
 
    B. Seek out evidence of fraud and eliminate it.
 
5. Move to a simple flat tax of 10% to 15% for everyone making over $50,000.
 
6. Reduce Corporate taxes to 13% or 14% to increase economic growth and job creation.
 
    A. Give tax incentives to businesses who stay in America and hire American workers.
 
    B. Enact E-verify and go after (business owners) who hire illegals.
 
    C. Give tax incentives to businesses that invest in new equipment that keep Americas at work.
 
7. Reduce spending in non essential areas.
 
8. Enact legislation to eliminate pork barrel spending.
 
9. Abolish the Capital Gains Tax.
 
10. Abolish the Death Tax.

FDR was the reason they installed term limits on the prez.

Some good ideas that might be implemented again if tweaked a bit:

 

This assumes that it might be paid for be recovery of govt waste and fraud.  Also perhaps if we stopped sending billions to Pakistan and Egypt and Saudi.

Well just like during te great depression, you cant actually create jobs with taxmoney. You may be putting people to work, but theyre still being paid with the taxes of everyone else. If the fovernment could create jobs, we'd all be gov employees.

Just look at all the jobs the stimulus created. Of course, now it doesnt matter how many were temporarily "saved."

All we need to get going again, is a government that stays out of the way. A government that creates a business friendly environment, rather than over taxing, over regulating, and adding to the cost of business. As long as obama and his policies are in place, thisIS the new normal.

Sir Pun wrote:All we need to get going again, is a government that stays out of the way. A government that creates a business friendly environment, rather than over taxing, over regulating, and adding to the cost of business. As long as obama and his policies are in place, thisIS the new normal.

 That's it exactly!  Give businesses a good reason to operate in this country and hire American workers. 

I will ad though that the prez alrdy has too much power. A line itsm veto would just give him more. We also need to stop paying congress their salaries once theyre out of office.

Either a line item veto or an amendment aimed at preventing sneaky congressmen adding riders to bills that have nothing to do with the bill.
 
ie...don't let em attach a special earmark for a multimillion dollar swimming pool to a bill on offshore drilling.  That's waste....actually fraud imo.

Well i agree with that, but thats congress. they passed a law back in 2011, that they were subject to the same laws they were creating, ie. obamacare, yet now congress and their staff's premium increases are now being footed by the taxpayers. So i dont see any real way of eliminating that sort of thing other than term limits. Give em 8 years.

FDR said he believed that all had the right to work, and to a point he was right. We do not really have a right to work. We have the right to chase work. What FDR, and those who follow him believe in, is not the right to work....it is actually the living wage. When we bring living wage into the picture, we open the door for fraud like we see today. We pay a wage and ask for nothing in return. Human nature leads most to take advantage of the kindness of others. We then become enablers to those who wish to take advantage and we refuse to see the evils of the system because "it could help me when I am needy". The only thing that will really help you when you are needy is preparation on your part and kindness of others given freely. We see that today. Add up how much is given to the needy via private donations to non-government sources. These donations actually outstrip money given by government dole, and actually does more good than the dole does do. Of course the dole is seen as free, so the masses are happy to put hands out. Our debt to ourselves is now 187 trillion and climbing. There is no way to dig ourselves out at this point. There is only 1.8 workers for every 1 on the dole. That is a recipe for disaster.

"Living wage" is such an ambiguous phrase though. Basically, the left uses it as some mythical figure everyone can get paid, that will wipe out poverty. Very much a socialist version of a communist idea, where there is no poor, or lower class. Of course this is sometging that flies in the face of economics, so it will never be seen. Basically like a $20 minimum wage.