Ned's Ideal Candidate

The recent election debacle has led Ned to think about the attributes his "ideal" candidate would possess. Whether such an individual could be elected is, of course, another matter entirely.

* His candidate would support a freeze on immigration. In future, this country would not accept immigrants when our own unemployment rate was over 6%, and it would only accept immigrants, up to 200k a year, from countries which had replacement-level birth rates. No more subsidizing global population growth and its associated environmental impacts.
* His candidate would immediately initiate an investigation of federal "disability" policy and require all persons on disability to become re-certified as disabled by independent medical experts.
* The candidate would tie future social security payments partly to income, such that members of the sneering plutocracy would get little or no cost-of-living increases. The salary level subject to payroll taxes would rise to $1 million per year.
* The candidate would immediately call for a National Single-Payer Health Service modeled on some mutant of the Great Britain or Canadian system. Any medical practitioner who chose would be included into the system as an upper level cvil servant. Any person accepted as a medical practitioner would have medical school debt repaid on an annual basis depending on years of service. There would be no more expensive lawyer-enhancing lawsuits arising out of poor medical care. Any practitioner who so chose could opt out of the system, but would then have to arrange payment with patients individually, or could go to Botswana, where they need doctors and dentists. Dental care would be included.
* The candidate would initiate an immediate investigation into military spending, and would cut military spending to a level equal to the single highest spender globally. Right now the US spends more than the next ten countries combined.
* The candidate would immediately declare the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, passed in the 1940s, to be the law of the land. Any citizen who wanted a job but couldn't find one could be employed by the federal, state or local government.
* The candidate would increase gasoline taxes by 25 cents per year, indexed for inflation, annually, and apply the proceeds to environmental remediation and the reduction of fossil fuel use, mainly coal.
Mountaintop removal as a coal mining technique would be immediately banned.
* The candidate would initiate an immediate campaign to rebuild the Nation's infrastructure, including water and sewage systems, the Amtrak Eastern Seaboard rail system, and high-speed rail between all cities of 50,000 population or greater, the conditions designated for the Interstate Highway system.
* The candidate would support a revision of the income tax structure, lowering corporate rates and eliminating deductions, and raising the sneering plutocrat top rate to 90% on any income of any kind over $10 million. The rate would be 50% on amounts over $1 million. Interest deductions for housing would be limited to $10k per year phased in over 10 years. Capital gains would be free of tax for the first $5k, and would ramp up to the income tax rate as capital gains increased.
* The candidate would immediately notify the Israeli government that the US would no longer tolerate further occupation of Palestine, and Israeli troops and "settlers" must leave within 6 months. The US would immediately notify the Arab states that it would no longer tolerate attacks on Israel from their territory. The US and the UN would guarantee the borders of the Israeli and Palestinian states.
* The candidate would apologize to the States of Iraq, Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, Nicaragua, Honduras, Vietnam, Panama and any other state in which the US had intervened in its internal affairs. if that were to have been found to be contrary to international law.
* The candidate would declare that the US does not support torture and declares its intention to close the Naval Base at Guantanamo, Cuba, illegally held against the wishes of the Cuban people. The Cuban embargo would immediately be repealed. A War Crimes Tribunal would be installed with mandate to investigate the Iraq war and hold miscreants accountable.
* The US would declare that it no longer offers Most Favored Nation trade deals to countries that do not enforce environmental or labor laws at least as strict as those in the US.
* The US would initiate measures to lower carbon emissions drastically to deal with the proven fact of climate change.