More Q&A

Nellie, a Mass General nurse from Boston, asks:

Q: I don’t see why schools, medical, and social services should be administered by cities and towns rather than the Federal Government. Won’t this lead to inequities between rich areas and poor areas?

A: Perhaps in isolated cases, but our Constitution was not designed for Federal involvement in State and local matters, although we have certainly evolved that way—with some disastrous results. Our bedrock systems, Social Security and Medicare are both actuarially bankrupt, to the tune of about $20 trillion--double our entire national debt.

FEMA proved to be a sick joke in the aftermath of Katrina, with the 3 Stooges leading the Keystone Kops in a finger-pointing merry-go-round that the great Mack Sennet could well have scripted if he were still alive.

Our K-12 schools—that is, our country’s future—are controlled by Washington hand-outs and regulations, and taught by union-dominated teachers with a liberal Socialist bias that has led to a 50% high school drop-out rate. This is a national failure greater than the collapse of Wall Street.

I could go on, but there’s no point; we already see it in our daily lives. Rather than look to plausible corrective solutions, our leaders can only propose more of the same. This state of financial affairs is unacceptable. My proposed remedies are reflected in my books’ themes, wherein I propose concrete solutions, which is a helluva lot more than we have recently seen from either our political candidates, elected winners, or their collective "brain trusts". Nellie, all important National problems come down to money--how to create it and how to tax it.

Washington has continued to brush off concrete financial solutions with a shrug, and a “there’s no silver bullet” excuse. They are pathetic, and unworthy of our great people, especially in times of financial crisis.

My answer to continuing D.C. obfuscation is that we “local yokels” can and should be masters of our own fates. If we are to sink into Roman Empire oblivion, let it be by our own hands, and not by the hands of Pelosi and Obama, because they cannot begin to cope, armed as they are with a box of band aids to cure an American 21st century malady requiring major brain surgery, under a surgeon’s scalpel which must cut away the illusion that Washington can cure our ills. Obama and his Socialist buddies cannot.

They will fail miserably, not for lack of intelligence or oratory skill, but from lack of faith in our “individualist” American heritage. They are lost in a “Big Brother” sea that has been building for a century--The Perfect Storm that has now become a Washington hurricane crossing paths with my town's tornado.

In the final analysis, this responsibility falls to me, the guy next door, my neighbors, my neighborhood Councilperson, and my Mayor. If we can’t do it on our own, given a fair chance, then we are lost in mediocrity, pissing away our heritage.

Returning to Nellie’s question: You’re right, there would be inevitable inequities between Boston and Palm Beach, and between Detroit and Albuquerque. Such has America been conceived, and then built upon our Constitutional premises of State and local rule, with Federal overall protection, and Federal oversight of State uniformity in matters of commerce, citizenship, voting rights, and Congressional representation—that’s all there was at our one and only Constitutional Convention in 1787. There was no “Big Brother”—hell, there was only a bankrupt Continental Congress after 8 years of war against the mighty British Empire. Well, our financial guy, Alexander Hamilton, and his buddies had the "right stuff", and I judge we middle-class Americans have it today.

Apart from our Bill of Rights, abolition of slavery, and women's votes, there has been little else of great import added to this founding document that should, but unhappily doesn’t, rule our everyday lives, because D.C. has acted like Caesar, ever since Abe Lincoln, who by extreme necessity saved our Union by voiding States’ Rights. Well, that was a century and a half ago, and the time has come to get over what many Southerners have since referred to as “the late unpleasantness”, a genteel media spin, because we lost more men in our Civil War than in all of our other wars combined.

Nellie, rest assured that your City and County’s 60% share of the $10 billion per day revenue pie will be adequate to take care of your local medical, unemployment, and disability needs, with something left over for a rainy day. Look forward to your future family, and don’t fret about Palm Beach’s ability to afford free Muni transportation with their gambling and prostitution emporiums’ hefty tax income—you and your townspeople can vote on this moral issue each November.

And don’t worry about poor Detroit. Our cheap gas will fuel these repentant carmakers back to wiser management and a 70% market share. We Americans prefer the big safe cars they build. We will give Americans what they want, at a price that is unbeatable by the Japanese, Europeans, Koreans, or anyone else, whose gas is taxed at 2 bucks per liter, because they have no petroleum, while we have a cumulative 200 billion barrels--enough for 100 years once we wake up and decide to drill, pump, and refine to the max. By that time we’ll have every alternative power source we need, but not now, in the midst of an economic meltdown that has freaked us out.

We will emerge stronger than ever, because this is our God-given destiny, as long as we maintain the moral strength to lead our planet by good example, which does not include Obaman Socialism.

Detroit will bounce back, along with the rest of American industry. Gone would be family dependence on Washington-mandated social behavior, replaced by the townsfolk sagacity that Bostonians exhibited in 1775. Nothing has changed in more than 2 centuries—we Americans want to rule our daily lives—for better or for worse—that’s all we ask from any government, Democrat or Republican.

This concept has been lost somewhere along the way, and we must rediscover it to survive in a 21st century as tumultuous as the 20th, which gave rise to two World Wars and a 50-year Cold War.

My message should be clear--we were founded on the premise that we are individually responsible for our actions and our fates. But we have misplaced this basic truism, so we must now renew ourselves, or become lost in a sea of Socialism that will eventually destroy our independent souls.

So Nellie, find your soul mate, embrace him, and make American babies. We Americans will back you up when “Constitutional patriots” regain command of our national vision, which I view as a 21st century inevitability. Vote out the naysayer Socialists who pretend to rob us of our American culture—from Bunker Hill to New Orleans Jazz. Let’s vote out any bastard who tries to block our quest for the American heritage of "individuality"--it's our strongest suit, and unbeatable when we put our minds to it, as we did in WWII and the Cold War.