It is time for change in America; in fact, it is well past the time for drastic change in many, many aspects of the way America is governed and a return to the fundamental policies and values we hold sacred. This Manifesto’s purpose is to lay out what we, the citizens of this great country, the United States of America, believe needs to change to bring America back to prosperity and greatness, and to give our country back to the common man, as our founding fathers envisioned so many years ago.
Listen America, Listen to the words of the great masses; listen to the yearnings and injustice; listen to the promise for your future. Listen, all you in the 99%, and take heart, for this is your call to action, this is your new declaration of independence from the fetters of the rich and powerful! Listen, you in the top 1%, and fear; fear the return of control to the common man, fear the rise of the common American, fear that your days of unfettered profit taking are numbered.
We, the people of America, feel it is high time that any and all persons and/or corporate entities who are responsible for creating the great financial crash that we so recently have suffered should be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law; this applies to those on Wall Street, in the banks and major brokerages that created the worthless securities and bet against America, and extends to those who changed our system of financial regulation such that such excess and mismanagement was made possible. This needs to be done at once, with no further delay on the part of the legislative or legal system of America. We demand that those who have put this upon our country stand accountable to the people of America for their actions, and made to pay for their arrogance and disregard for our country and our economy. We also demand that all financial judgments, fines, and other penalties of a monetary nature be paid into the national revenue system, returning these monies to the citizens of America so we, the people, can receive benefit from them in a visible and straightforward manner.
We, the people, feel it is time to stop giving exorbitant salaries to any corporate officer or professional, including professional athletes. We demand a salary cap be applied across the nation, to every man, woman and child, and to every corporate officer of any company in these United States. We, the people cannot see any one person, no matter the size of his family nor his situation or station in life, needing to make more than one million dollars five hundred ($1,500,000.00) a year. Period. This will apply to total compensation, including all benefits except for what they pay into the national health care system. Period. No exceptions to any one person; If a person in America cannot well support his or her family on one and a half million dollars a year, they are not wise enough to have earned that salary. We will not stand for heads of corporations, particularly banks and other companies in the financial sector to have runaway high salaries well beyond that which they need to live on comfortably and support their families while the salaries of the common man suffer and remain stagnant and loose what little buying power they once had.
We call for a new system of national elections; a system where the campaigns are short, funds are limited, and every candidate is given an equal share of public monies with which to make his case to the people. Gone shall be the party primaries. Gone shall be the private campaign contributions, the backing of unlimited funding from those with unlimited wealth. Gone from our elections shall be the influence of the rich and powerful; let every candidate stand equally before the nation and make his case for leadership. We call for the abolishment of the electoral college system, and demand that each American citizen of proper age and intelligence be give one vote, and that vote shall be counted, yea, every vote shall count. Let the best candidate win in a majority as voted by the citizens of America, and no other way shall be tolerated nor supported.
The same shall apply to all elected national offices across the land; one person, one vote, and that vote has power. We call for term limits, identical to those that apply to the Presidency, to be applied to the Senate and the House of Representatives. Let no citizen be in his elected national office for more than two terms. Any citizen may run for different offices, regardless of prior offices held, but a strict term limit of 2 terms in any single elected office is what we want, and what we need, and need right now. Our founding fathers desired that those who represent us in the legislature of this country serve the people first and foremost while in office; but they did not envision a career in elected office for any person. Elected Senators and Representatives were to come from among the common citizenry, and while in office, devote their time and efforts to the good of the country; but they were to be citizens first - with jobs and families to return to, with companies to run, and workers to pay for the work they do. In short, they were to be part of the fabric of America, and to that fabric they are to return. While in office, the nation owes them a reasonable salary with which to maintain their households, but they were never to get rich while in office, and the current salary scales for the Senate and Congressional Representatives are abhorrent; we have seen year after year, where these elected officials pay themselves first, We demand that this shall be no more. Other than a reasonable cost of living allowance increase from time to time, which is paid across the board to all elected national officials and shall be reflective of the state of the national economy, they shall no longer have the capacity, right, or responsibility to grant themselves raises in pay or benefits. As set salary shall be given equally to each Senator, and each member of Congress shall be given a set salary equal to the salary of all other congresspersons, and that is the total of financial income they shall receive from the government other than valid expense reimbursement for out-of-pocket and travel expenses they incur in the course of directly performing their duties and responsibilities of the offices they hold.
Once these servants of the nation have established a common national health care system, they, these elected officials, shall be granted the same access, costs, and services granted to all other Americans, and no more, save the President and Vice President, whose health care must be the best available for the good of the nation at all times. Therefore, if our elected officials want better care for themselves and their families, they must create a national health care system that provides the same measure of care to each and every American, for they are to be, and shall remain, citizens first, and servants of the people, second.
Similarly with all their benefits; they are entitled to have no better benefits than those of the citizenry from which they come; they shall be common men and women, chosen to do the work of the people for a season, and are not entitled to special considerations beyond what every citizen is entitled to. Period.
As relates to national and state legislative bodies, we the people feel that the custom of lobbying for change is absurd, unfair, and unnecessary. We call for an immediate stop to the practice of lobbying to gain influence over the legislators of our country. While all private citizens shall have equal access to their representatives in state and national legislative bodies, we feel this can be accomplished, and should be accomplished, either in person, or via individual communications by concerned private citizens using available electronic media or the U. S. mail. It is proper for citizens to band together under a common cause to bring about change or attention to serious issues facing the nation, but paid, professional lobbying should be eliminated immediately. We feel that all petitions to the legislators of our nation, and likewise, to those of the separate states that form our country, must be without promises of direct or indirect reward to the legislators that are thusly petitioned.
We, the people, call for the leaders of our nation, both of government and of private industry, to enact and support a complete reform of the national tax system that taxes each person, and each company fairly based on their ability to pay. It is time to separate corporate income from private citizen income, one and forever more. We call for a simple, straightforward system of paying reasonable taxes on our incomes. That system shall be based on an incremental scale, with those who can pay but a little allowed to contribute to the nation by paying a small percentage of their income; and those who earn more, should be proud to contribute more to the affairs of the nation. We demand an incremental scale, equally applied to all; a fair and just tax shall be required, but only the minimum amount needed to maintain our country and its national interests. Corporations shall also be held to the same standard, but with a different, higher scale; the companies who make the most shall be required to give back to the most to the nation that enables their companies to grow and prosper so well.
Every man, woman, and youth of adequate age and physical and mental capacity has the right to work and earn a reasonable wage for their work. We call for a national minimum wage to be set at no less than $25.00 per hour, and in high cost areas, that minimum wage shall be increased such that it has the same economic buying power as those in lower cost areas working for the minimum wage. We call for a national employment system whereby public employment is offered and available to those who are able to work but for whom there is no private sector employment available. Every American willing and able to work, if they desire to work, shall be gainfully employed. Period. Those who the public employs shall be given meaningful employment that contributes to the good of the nation; no type of employment shall be considered demeaning or undignified – we ask not for welfare, but an opportunity to support ourselves and our families with pride and dignity. We the people encourage aspiring American entrepreneurs to become their own bosses whenever and wherever they can be, to start and prosper in legal private businesses as they are able. Our nation was built upon the enterprising spirit of our forefathers, and this spirit shall be encouraged in every way practical by both the private and public sectors of the nation. We call for financial institutions and those with the financial resources available to them to invest in America; to extend loans to those who wish to start their own business, providing these enterprising entrepreneurs have a solid plan for business and the opportunity exists for them to succeed in their chosen industry or field of endeavor.
Every American, after a lifetime of labor, shall be entitled to a reasonable retirement; the existing system of social security must be used to provide this extended financial security to all Americans, and provide them all with a reasonable standard of living once they are of age to retire from the workforce. To this end, every citizen shall be compelled to contribute to this system, with their employers contributing also, in a ratio not to exceed 3 to 1, employer to employee. There shall be no maximum earnings level beyond which contributions are no longer required; each citizen and each company that employs them shall contribute to the social security system in America.
We the people of America feel it is high time we ended our dependence on oil products, especially those imported from other countries where the price is artificially controlled. We have an abundance of natural gas resources, and we feel a push should be made, nationwide, to equip or retrofit as many commercial, public, and private trucks, buses, and automobiles to run using electricty as fuel vice gasoline or diesel fuel. We demand that the U. S. government should provide financial incentives and financial support to states, cities, municipalities, and unincorporated population centers across the country to create and/or install natural gas filling equipment so that natural-gas powered vehicle use is made practical to all Americans, all across the country. We see this as an interim solution to wean the country away from dependence on foreign oil. In the longer term, we feel that the use of electric vehicles should become a national priority, with the U. S. government providing financial incentives and financial support to states, cities, municipalities, and unincorporated population centers across the country to install charging stations so that electric vehicle use is made practical to all Americans, all across the country.
We feel solar and wind power, and other alternative sources of clean power should be supported and brought commercially online using a joint effort between industry and the US Government, to address doing our part to reduce greenhouse gasses and slow the universal problem of global warming.
We feel that our nation has suffered a terrible financial loss due to our manufacturing jobs being taken offshore; this limits our ability to respond to national emergencies, and forces us to look to the exports of other countries for goods that were once manufactured within out national borders. We feel that companies who send jobs off-shore should incur a steep tax penalty. We further feel that companies that have already sent manufacturing capability offshore should be encouraged to return these jobs, and this national capacity back to America as a national priority. This encouragement should be financial in nature, as it seems these companies only speak the language of money. This will create numerous good paying jobs for many Americans, jobs which are desperately needed in these economic hard times.
We feel it is a national priority to rebuild America’s crumbling infrastructure, and further to improve it for the 21st century and beyond. America should waste no time in budgeting, allocating, and appropriating funds, with the support and partnership of industries that use and depend on our national transportation systems of roadways and rail transportation, and this task should begin at the earliest possible time. This will also provide demand for manufactured construction equipment with which to carry out this renovation and improvement, creating a heavy demand for this equipment which can be met by American companies as we improve and expand our national manufacturing capabilities by opening new factories and renovating and modernizing existing manufacturing plants. This infrastructure improvement should include the development of a national system of high-speed railways that shall be second to none that exist today, to be used to transport both people and goods cheaply and quickly across our nation.
We, the people of America, understand that America must be a leader among Nations, and the nation is obligated to the global community to share our blessings, as we can afford, with those peoples and nations that are in need. We agree that foreign aid is a valuable tool of public policy and national democracy, but the people of America shall always come before anyone else; as long as we have poverty, hunger, inequality, and disasters within our borders, we demand that our citizenry, our people, and our nation be first for aid and relief.
We, the people of America, believe in a strong and well-equipped Military force, and that it must be maintained to enable us to protect our national interests throughout the world. We understand that we can and should use the projection of our military might and support as a tool of both diplomacy and public policy. We should do our fair share, in accordance with existing treaties of mutual support, to uphold our end of military alliances to which we belong, such as the United Nations and NATO. However, we the people do not support the prolonged use of our military in far off lands to fight for other nations and causes that are not directly related to our national defense. We call for the immediate cessation of funds to Ukraine, and demand that further involvement in such conflicts be severely curtained in the future, unless the President can demonstrate to the Joint Senate and Congress, and to the American people, that such involvement for a prolonged period of time is critical to our national best interests. This does not preclude the Nation from entering a state of war against hostile nations and forces, nor does it preclude the executive branch form using our military to defend the nation without forcing a protracted debate or national referendum. However, engagements such as we have seen in Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Ukraine are to be avoided unless they meet certain specific criteria that our elected national legislative representatives shall make the law of the land.
We, the people of America, call for an immediate and nationwide end to the criminalization of marijuana, and the immediate establishment of legal business opportunities for those who wish to do business in this commodity. Such businesses shall be subject to the same rules of law as are required to ensure the safe and controlled manufacturing/growing, packaging and sale, they shall be subject to taxes based on the business they do and the location of that business, and it shall be law that no person below the age of majority in any state of territory under control or administration of the country shall be given the ability to own or be employed by such a business, nor to produce, package, or purchase this product. In short, the same basic rules that apply to the sale of alcoholic products to the public shall be enabled for the sale of marijuana. No state will have the ability to opt out of this legalization, but they may add additional business restrictions and taxes and conditions of operation as agreed upon by the common consent of their citizens through public voting.
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