Long answers to sirius bizniz questions.

Exposition;

I've been following Buddy Roemer for a while now, in part because I remember my father speaking highly of him, and working with him, when he was Governor of LA, but mainly because of coonass loyalties, and because I'm a nerd about these things. 

This means I've also spent the past months watching the GOP electorate neglect a perfectly reasonable candidate in favor of an empty suit, a boot stomping buffoon, and a menagerie of people who are either flat out crazy or obviously using the race to boost their personal fortunes. 

I've also watched the absolutely disgusting media blackout against a candidate who dares to challenge the money in the system.(If you have any doubt that your media is bought and paid for, question how a former Congressman and Governor is derided as 'fringe' while someone like Herman Cain is propped front and center.). 

So I've watched Buddy. I enjoyed his initial message, but was really turned on by his reaction to, and interaction with, the OWS movement, which I think goes to the very core of what's wrong with this country. So, as I was watching the debate last night in one browser window, and watching Gov. Roemer's twitter feed in another, I felt compelled to start talking about both things on my soapbox of choice, my facebook feed. I got a couple of responses from people I don't usually get responses from, my hunch being they were intrigued that the filthy NYC liberal was speaking positively about a republican candidate. One of them mentioned he sees Gov. Roemer around the bayou on occasion, and should he pass on a message. Then he asked me, in all seriousness, what three issues I thought were the most important to our country. And to list my valid solutions, as easily I as I do my opinions. 

Well, Challenge Accepted, Tony, so long as you understand that these suggestions are just that, suggestions. They are also very, very broad strokes. 

Meat; 

Issue 1: Money in Politics. 

This has more heads then a Hydra, and each one of them is ugly as sin, but the root of the problem, in my opinion, is this view of "Politician" as a career path, a view we've all accepted. The simple fact that Politician is a job, and not an act of service, creates a whole host of problems. It leads to people so busy moving up that they pay little to no attention to the local and regional matters that are actually their responsibility. On the opposite side of coin you have people so entrenched in their positions that they've lost all touch with the country they're supposed to be governing. Their primary concern is maintaining their own power base, and waging war against whatever rival faction they've been feuding with for decades. A prime example of this would be my own Democratic Congressman, Charlie Rangel, who I futilely but gleefully vote against every chance I can.

This would be somewhat allowable if that was the extent of it, but the problem is the salary for the job position 'Politician' isn't paid by us, it's paid by corporations, and interest groups. It's paid in the forms of gifts, bribes, donations, issue ads from PACS, more bribes. It's even paid in the form of job security when they are eventually voted out, just look at Louisiana's own Billy Tauzin. And the worst of it, I'm sure, happens below the radar of the politician, at the staff level. 

Politicians are no longer representing us, they are representing themselves, doing for the whole country what is in their own best interests. So, that being the issue, my solutions? 

• Every interest group(lobbyist) must register with a non-partisan federal agency. Yes, it's more government. Deal with it. This agency would handle lobbying requests by those groups, and schedule them with the congressman's office. Each member of congress is required to set aside a certain number of hours a week to meet with interest groups. Not staffers, the actual representative. Employees of groups registered with this agency would be barred by law from any part of drafting of any legislation. They could not be on special committees, could not be asked to consult on wording. Violation of this would carry serious penalties, such as revoking the offending member's lobbying privileges, and banning the group entirely on subsequent infractions.
• Every member of congress will, upon taking the oath of office, be legally restricted from being employed by any group registered with this agency, either as a direct employee OR has a freelance consultant. This restriction would never expire. The general sense being that you served your country, now go home. 
• Term Limits. And that limit is 1. You would offset the brain drain by extending the duration of that term, say 5 years for congressmen and 8 years for senators. But that's it. No exceptions. No one should ever be thinking of re-election when they are casting their votes. This would also extend to the white house. Winning the presidency gets you one six year term.
• 100% direct public financing of every federal campaign. No opting in or out. No exceptions. If citizens feel extremely patriotic about the election process, they can donate to the public financing budget which would be distributed evenly among candidates. If they feel extremely patriotic about a certain person well..... they can go door to door volunteering. This is not capitalism, this is democracy and every voice should be given equal weight here. This would, of course, require a constitutional amendment overturning the ruling of Citizens United.
• And this, "Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States ". 

Issue One = Money & Politics is Bad. 

Solutions = Transparent, monitored lobbying; term limits; and extreme campaign reform. Amending the Constitution for the 28th and 29th time. 

Issue 2: We are in a global trade war, and we are losing  

We have destroyed our manufacturing base. Worse then that, we have destroyed the desire in most Americans for a domestic manufacturing base. We all want to have good wages with nice benefits, but we still shop at Wal-mart, and we can't, as a country, reconcile those two ideas. We are in a trade war and we refuse to admit it. It's killing us, killing the middle class, which is killing our tax revenue base. 

Add to our trade war with other nations the fact that we are at war with ourselves. 50 States, each vying for corporations. When Rick Perry says he created one million jobs in Texas, he's also saying he killed one million jobs in other states. We are, state by state, racing to the bottom of what an American job is worth. It's a race where the only winner is China. 

As the earth gets flatter, the challenges of maintaining first world conditions while competing with a third world labor market, a market that we fuel at the expense of our own livelihood, creates an irreversible decline of the American middle class. If that's the issue, my solutions?

• If China won't adjust the value of their currency to reflect reality, make it increasingly difficult for them to sell to Americans. We're in a trade war, we might as well start fighting back. If that's tariffs, then it's tariffs. If it's stricter regulations on products that can be sold in America, then it's stricter regulation.
• Tax incentives for stores that sell strictly American made items, and tax incentives for people that Buy items made in America. 
• Increased Domestic Energy Exploration.(This would be tied to a stipulation regarding issue 3)

A lot of this is changing the culture. We view clothing, tools, electronics, as almost disposable, so of course we don't mind buying cheap knock offs from Wal-mart. Made In America shouldn't be a niche item, or a special bonus, it should be something we go out of our way to make sure we do as much as possible.

Issue Two = Trade War

Solution = Fight It.

Issue 3: Capitalism isn't a religion. 

 I don't blame corporations for the income inequality gap in this country. They did what they're designed to do, make a profit. And, generally, I'm a fan of that, seeing as how I live on someone else's discretionary spending, I like it when people have profit to spend. No, I blame us, for not watching them like hawks, for letting them get away with it. 

See, Americans love capitalism, but it's an unrequited love. Capitalism loves money, and that means that it doesn't always function in America's best interests. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't. Our problem with capitalism has been that we haven't been there to stop it when it does something bad for America. Like..... destroying our environment in the quest for cheap power, or shipping millions of jobs overseas for increased profit, or systematically replacing our manufacturing sector with an imported one from a country we are at war with. 

I don't hate capitalism, but I do recognize it for what it is, and I'm not foolish enough to mistake it for a religion. It's a system of economic freedom designed to chase the money towards the most profit and it's succeeded spectacularly in doing that. Americans failed America by not stopping capitalism when it got out of hand, primarily because the people in charge of stopping it were being well paid to make sure it succeeded. 

Capitalism is like your young child. It's great, in your eyes the best of all it's peers, but it can still burn it's hand on the stove or shove a PB&J in the VHS player if you're not watching it. So if that's the problem, what are some of my solutions?

• Reinstate the Glass Steagall Act
• A tax applied to all stock transactions, small but more sizable then the one currently being discussed. 
• The restructuring of the SEC into a collaboratory relationship with the FBI, with the FBI holding the reigns for a 10 year period. The SEC has the skills needed for regulating the financial sector, but little interest or motivation.
• However, I would couple that with gradual but considerable compensation increases at the SEC across the board, to make the jobs there more attractive to financial professionals
• Prohibit the selling of debt as a commodity. If I get a mortgage from BoA, they wouldn't be able to turn around and sell it to someone else. This, of course, gets the government out of the mortgage industry, where it had no business being in the first place. 
• Across the board 10-1 Leverage cap on all financial institutions. 
• Restrict salary to compensation, which you can then use to buy stocks. CEOs should be motivated by long term business growth, not short term stock growth.
• Massively increase both the size and scope of the EPA. If we want to seriously pursue domestic energy creation our only option is to heavily police that exploration, because the private sector has proven time and again they are incapable of self policing. 
• End government subsidies for any entity showing a consistent 4 quarter profit.
• A complete audit of the Federal Reserve, and the replacing of the chairman with a 6 person committee, all of whom are subject to congressional approval via majority vote (this is of course a Congress built with the rules I laid out in issue one)
• A strong and well funded Consumer Protection Agency.

I think the overlap on the Venn Diagram of OWS and the TPP is much larger then most people think it is, and it will be a really interesting moment in our history when those groups both figure that out. Where the TPP and I differ is that I don't think Government is bad, I think THIS Government is bad. The solution isn't to throw out Government. That's Somalia. The solution is to throw out THIS Government, and that brings us back to Buddy. 

So far, of all the candidates, Barack Obama included, Buddy Roemer is the ONLY one I see speaking out firmly on all three of the issues I just listed. Registered independents can't vote in the New York Primary so I can't vote for him as a Republican, but, as of right now, he'd have my vote if he ran as an Independent in November. 

Hope that shed some light, Tony.