It seems that everyone is trying to put the blame on others for our current dark times. The current Oval Office occupant (#CO3) says that he is blaming the media and calling them the enemy of the people because they are blaming him. Republicans are blaming Democrats and the other way around. Blaming is easy, solving the problems is the hard part.
I am praying that the beginning of this hard part is coming next Tuesday. I am praying that those who have chosen to put their heads in the sand pull them out and vote for change. The status quo simply is not working. Be part of the solution…
RJ's Corner 
It would be nice if someone was trying to fix this mess. No party is. They both do what ever they can to win. Here is a list in the order of what I would do. Hint. It will never happen.
1. Fix social security. This is the easiest and most important for retirees. Raise the salary cap, increase payroll percentage slightly & move full retirement age up 1 or 2 years. Take any excess contributions and invest in the highest rated public bonds in USA. Toll roads, sewer plants, bridges etc. No more investments in T bills.
2. Fix healthcare. This means a total revamp of entire system. Total coverage for all Americans. Period.Every lobbyist group, doctors, hospitals& pharmaceutical co., will fight every idea tooth and nail. Due to this we might have to do it in one fell swoop. Put everyone on Medicare. We will never solve the problem as long as their is employer healthcare. Once on Medicare we can negotiate drug prices, like the rest of the world. Force doctors and hospital to accept negotiated prices. Capitalism has never & will never substantially lower healthcare costs. We should also allow Medicare to institute some logical rules. When an 85 yr. old comes into the ER with a heart attack you don’t put them in intensive care unit and spend several hundred thousand dollars. There is almost no upside. Palliative care only at that point.
3. Substantially reduce military spending. Could do it by just freezing spending for 10 years. Inflation would do its job. When you give politicians ready access to the most powerful military in the world it will be abused every time. Military adventurism has gotten us into more trouble than it has ever saved us from. If we want to invade someone we should have to go to the citizens and explain why their children will be drafted and their taxes immediately increased. Having to wait a year or two to ramp up would give everyone time to think and would not be the end of the world.
We have to remember every politician finds something to give us fear and then promises to ride in on their white horse and save us. They are all lying. There is no country that could ever invade the USA and control it. There is no terrorist group that can ever take over the USA. You are statistically more likely to fall off a step ladder and die than to be killed by a terrorist. The poor are not bankrupting the country. The citizens have lost far more money to crooked bankers, wall streeters & corrupt politicians than the poor could have ever have consumed.
The only ones that can ever cause this country to fail are us. We are trying as hard as possible to make it happen.
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I am with you 100% on your three areas Fred. I think what we need is another “New Deal” where we make wholesale progress as FDR did after the Republicans put the country into the depression.
The fourth item I would add to your list is tax reform. My idea is to exempt a certain level of income per household and EVERYTHING else is taxed at a given rate. No exemptions or loop holes. Income is income wherever it came from. The current Oval Office occupant has not paid any federal taxes in probably over a decade and he is very proud of that fact. Make him and his crowd pony up what they owe the country.
Now if we can just find someone to carry out all these things… 🙂
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Just saw the CEO of McKesson is retiring. They are the middle man between the pharmaceutical companies and the pharmacies. They are also largely responsible for the opioid crisis. Shipping millions of pills to pharmacies whose populations could not possibly support that level of usage. Retirement package is as high as $159,000,000. No wonder congress does not want Medicare to negotiate drug prices. We certainly would not want to deny this man his just rewards.
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