Be Transformative Mr. Biden

Dear Mr. Biden, 

Please don't just tell us how badly President Trump is doing. Tell us how transformative and exciting your administration would be.

We are not enduring just a pandemic. We are enduring the federal government's inability to respond. The dead are predominantly people of color, but there are still enough white corpses to make white voters rethink who should be running the government. Between pissed off white voters and enraged people of color who may have stayed home in 2016, we could see a realignment of power this coming November. More importantly, due to the pain, due to the economic devastation, which was so avoidable, people may be willing to consider transformative policies.

Mr. Biden, focus on our problems and be honest. Your opponents may disagree with you, but they will respect honesty, and the difference between an honest candidate and President Trump is frighteningly stark.

Here is what I would love to hear from a Presidential candidate:

My Friends,

Our biggest problems today are our health, our economy, and our planet, though not necessarily in that order, and we need a vital, functioning, science driven government to legislate and deal with these problems. Yet some would have us believe that law and order is our nation's critical issue. So let's address that head on, and then return to the other difficult problems. 

Our nation was built on racism and white privilege. That's not subjective. It's a simple fact. Slavery was written into the constitution and the only people who could vote in our first election in 1788 were white male property owners.  Our nation was born with the sin and stain of slavery and it took one hundred years for us to right that wrong with a horrific war. In 1865 we passed laws outlawing slavery but we did not change minds and hearts. We did not look deeply into our souls and acknowledge that our African American brothers and sisters were just that, members of our family, who had been egregiously wronged. We white Americans did not open our hearts to the rest of our family. 

So it took another one hundred years for white America to pass some more laws, in the 1960's, attempting to right the wrongs of slavery and racism. I say "white America" because in the 1960's 98.5% of our elected officials were white. Fifty years have passed since the 1960's, and where are we? 

For starters, we have made progress. The Congress governing today, the 116th Congress, has 116 members who are our black and brown and non-white brothers and sisters. 22% of our Congress is people of color, which is a boon for all of us, because when we share our power and our wealth with others, we benefit from their wisdom and life experience. We need the perspective of all the people in our nation, if we are to be successful in facing the problems of our lifetimes. 

And one salient perspective from our brothers and sisters who are black and brown, is that they are stopped by police, they are targeted by police, they are killed by police far more often than their white brothers and sisters. Are you surprised? Come on. Are you really surprised? My black friends are not surprised. It is the year 2020, one hundred and fifty-five years since the Civil War ended, and every one of my black friends has had this conversation with their children: "If a policeman stops you, you could be killed. Don't run, don't talk back, don't argue. You could be killed." I don't have one white friend who has ever had this conversation with their children. This is black and white. This is a cancer. This is not OK. And this is why we have had demonstrations across the country this year. 

So what do we do? Do we get rid of the police? Of course not. Do we change requirements for being a police officer? Probably. Do we bury our heads in the sand and say there is no real problem? No. Do we pretend that racism doesn't exist? Our brothers and sisters of color expect more of us. Can we rise to the occasion? Our young people are demanding it. Ending this scourge of racism has been painfully slow. Centuries have passed. Yet each generation sees progress. Each generation demands progress. So we acknowledge we have a problem. And we work to find a solution. We work. We be honest and we work. I don't have all the answers. I have some. I'm sure sending military supplies to police departments is not part of the answer. I'm sure providing racial sensitivity training for police departments is part of the answer. I'm sure pretending we have no problem is not part of the answer. I'm sure that supporting leaders who own up to the problem is part of the answer. White leaders. Black leaders don't need to own the problem. They have lived it their whole lives. White leaders need to step up. In big ways and in little ways. Cops have to stop shooting black people. That's big. And when my black friend visits my white suburb and browses through the department store, the clerk has to stop shadowing her. That's little, and that's not OK. And when my black friend decides to make the leap and look at a house for sale in my white neighborhood, the real estate agent has to show her the house. That's big, and that has to happen. 

We have a problem, friends, and we need to talk about it. We need to take racism and discrimination out of the closet, hold them up to the bright light of day and slowly but surely wash them away. Wishes won't make this happen. And since we are still dealing with the scourge of slavery one hundred and fifty-five years after the Civil War ended, I'm sorry to say that one more administration is not going to make this happen either. But we have to dialogue, we have to work, we have to point in the right direction. Our current President speaks of African nations as "shithole countries" and of Mexican immigrants as "drug dealers, criminals and rapists." That is not the direction we want to take. That is not the dialogue we want to have. In fact that is the polar opposite of the dialogue we want to have. 

We are a nation of immigrants. Our diversity is our strength, if we use it. The people in our nation who have fought the hardest, who have struggled most, are our citizens whose ancestors were slaves, are our immigrants from war-torn nations, are our immigrants from impoverished nations. All of us have family who, at some point in our history, came to these shores, struggling to make a better life for themselves and their loved ones. Native Americans are the only original American inhabitants, and they too have struggled mightily to deal with the incursions of those of us who came afterwards. Immigrants, people of color, our neighbors on the margins, enrich our communities. They bring energy and dynamism and love and gratitude to our communities. When we welcome them, when we help them, we enrich ourselves. But they are different, you say. They're not from around here. You're right. They are different and they are not from around here, and that can be scary. But I'm going to make you a promise. If you can find your way to open your hearts, to open your doors, to open your communities, to people unlike yourselves, you may find that your lives grow in ways you never imagined possible.

And we dearly need to push the bounds of what is possible. As I said at the outset, this pandemic has brought to light the inadequacies of our government. The pandemic is hurting all of us, but it is hurting disproportionately those whose jobs have been lost. They have lost not only their source of income, but also their source of health care, at a time when health care is of supreme importance.

Health care should not be tied to a job. It is a burden for employers and it is tumultuous for people unemployed or moving between jobs. The Obamacare health exchanges were designed to fill the needs of people between jobs, but they are functioning erratically, with premiums and deductibles far too high.

I am proposing a medicare for all plan that has no premiums, no supplements, no doughnut holes, no insurance companies, no drug costs. If you are sick, you see the doctor. If you are well, you see the doctor. There is no bill. There is never a bill. Period.

This pandemic has put many of our citizens out of work. Businesses are wary of hiring. That is understandable. So I am proposing the federal government will create a federal jobs program open to everyone. The government will find you employment and pay your salary within your community. It will be a baseline salary, but it will be a live-able salary. It will pay the rent and food bills. We don't want the government in the business of creating business, but where the free market cannot meet the needs of all its citizens, government can and should step in and fill the gap.

Education is another casualty of this pandemic. Education has long been an ailing byproduct of our economic system. While public schooling is free for all citizens, it is paid for primarily through property taxes, adversely affecting our poorer towns and cities. The pandemic has only exacerbated this method of funding. Thanks to record levels of unemployment, particularly in poorer communities, city and town budgets are suffering greatly. I am proposing that the federal government  fund public education in all communities, based on a per capita formula. The local communities will continue to control and manage their schools, but the federal government will provide the base funding.

There are many more proposals our party has to invigorate our communities and nation, and we will discuss them in future talks and debates, but before we leave today, I want to address the elephant in the room.

How do we pay for these noble and worthwhile programs? 

Well I can tell you one way we will not be paying for them and that is with taxes. In fact, I am proposing that we eliminate the federal corporate or business tax entirely. We will also eliminate the FICA and medicare tax. They are regressive taxes and we don't need them. We do need the federal income tax, and we do need to address inequities in the federal income tax rates, but I need to clarify a very important point. We don't need the federal income tax to pay for federal government programs.

Why?

We don't use taxes to pay for government programs. The federal government is the only entity authorized by our Constitution to create money. 

 

You may be surprised to learn that the government does not require taxes to spend money. You probably know that the government spends far more money than it collects in taxes every year. The difference is called our annual deficit. So how does the government do this? How does the government spend more money than it collects in taxes? The government prints some of it, but mostly the government creates the money using key strokes on a computer. Every year the government creates as much money as it needs to pay all its bills. Those bills include social security payments, medicare payments, expenses Congress has authorized for bombs, planes, roads, bridges, schools, etc. Whatever Congress authorizes, the government pays. The government does not need taxes to spend money. It simply creates money whenever it is needed. That is the role of the federal government.

Another role of the federal government is to take money out of the economy. We do this for two reasons: avoid inflation and prevent excessive income inequality. We don't take money out of the economy to pay our bills. We don't need to. We can print it. Keeping track of the federal deficit is a waste of time. The federal government does not keep a budget like your household budget or a business's budget or your local or state government's budget. The federal government's job is to maintain full employment and keep inflation at a stable and steady rate. If inflation is high, the feds will raise taxes and pull money out of the economy. If inflation is not high, there is no need to pull more money out of the economy. Whenever we do pull money out, we should do it progressively, so that those of us making millions of dollars a year pay at a higher tax rate than those of us making thousands of dollars a year.

Policing, crime, and drugs. I am proposing that we decriminalize all drugs. Taking drugs is an addiction, an illness. It should not be a crime. We don't criminalize smoking or drinking. We should stop criminalizing drugs. Release all non-violent drug related criminals from prison. Abolish mandatory minimums and three strike laws. Create federal guidelines and training for police.

Voting: set national standards for creating voting districts. Require the electoral college to respect the popular vote (in effect abolishing the electoral college).

Judiciary: set Supreme Court Justice terms to 18 years, with one replaced every other year.

Military: cut our military budget. A lot. We are not the world's policeman. We should not be. Other nations have the right to set their own destiny. We should not interfere. If we see wrongs committed, discrimination, genocide, we should offer our nation as a refuge for any who wish to come. Beyond that it is up to each nation to grow itself.

Climate change is going to be the twenty first century's greatest challenge. We should join others in that struggle. What companies will emerge to meet this crisis. How will our government join with business to address this world changing phenomenon? This should be our focus. This will be our future.

Government is hard. Good government is extremely hard. We need people who are driven to serve their communities more than themselves. We need talented people. We need people with demonstrated skills in science, education, foreign affairs, the environment, public policy, law, medicine. 

And we need voters. We need all of you to vote. I know you are busy. I know you have families and jobs. I know many of you go to bed at night exhausted, struggling to make ends meet, with little time to dig into the intricacies of politics and government. I get it. And I wish there were some easy way for you to see the difference between candidates, but usually there isn't. Most candidates are more interested in falsifying their opponent's positions rather than promoting their own. Turns out it is a heck of a lot easier to bad mouth your opposition than it is to put forward an honest account of what you plan to do in office. 

I urge you to listen to each of us who is running to represent you. I don't think you have any difficulty naming three, four, or five issues that you wish government would tend to. Are we candidates talking about those issues? Do we have plans to deal with those issues? Do we sound like we really care about those issues. 

I've tried to tell you where I think our nations needs to go. If you agree with me, I'd appreciate your vote. And I urge you to vote for the folks running for Congress in my party as well. Give my party a chance to make a real stab at the problems we face. Give us four years, and if we don't make headway, throw us out. If you give us a chance, I'm not worried about coming back to you in four years for an evaluation. I think you'll be more than pleased. I think you'll be relieved. I think you'll be invigorated. I think you'll be impressed with our coordination of business and government, working together to solve our problems, to explore frontiers and dimensions we have yet to even imagine.