http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0B7dOQwKm0
1. A New Social Contract: What You Can Do for Your Country, and What Your Country Can Do for You. First, we need a new bargain between the people and their government, based on four new mutual obligations: universal citizen service, universal college access, universal retirement savings, and universal children's health care. The terms of this bargain may be new, but the bedrock principle is not: You do your part, and your government, your company, and your country will do theirs. (In other words, you don't play, you do not get these services)
Universal Citizen Service. Citizenship is a responsibility, not an entitlement program. If your leaders aren't challenging you to do your part, they aren't doing theirs. We need a new patriotism that brings out the patriot in all of us by establishing, for the first time, an ethic of universal citizen service. All Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 should be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic civil defense training and community service. This is not a draft -- nor is it military. Young people will be trained not as soldiers, but simply as citizens who understand their responsibilities in the event of natural disaster, epidemic, or terrorist attack. Universal citizen service will bring Americans of every background together to make America safer and more united in common national purpose.
Universal College Access. We must make a college degree as universal as a high school diploma. We have an education system built in the last century. In this new era, college will be the greatest engine of opportunity for our society and our economy. Just as Abraham Lincoln gave land grants to endow our great public universities, we should give the states tuition grants to make college free for those willing to work, serve, and excel. A College Tax Credit should replace the five major existing education tax incentives with a simple $3,000-a-year credit -- fully refundable and available for four years of college and two years of graduate school. It would help 6 million full-time students cover more than half the average cost of tuition at a public university.($3,000 will pay one month at a state college.)
Universal Retirement Savings. (Obama and his Universal savings plan in the 2010 budget) From now on, every job ought to come with a 401(k). An aging society cannot afford to keep saving less and risking more. We need new means to create wealth. Employers should be required to offer 401(k)'s, and workers will be enrolled unless they choose otherwise. If they switch jobs, they should be able to take their account with them. When their paycheck goes up, so should their savings. Instead of a workforce in which only half the workers have retirement savings plans, every American will have one.
Universal Children's Health Care. We need to cut the cost of health care so that every business can afford it, and every child in America at last can get it. We can save hundreds of billions by adopting electronic medical records, rewarding outcomes instead of procedures, providing incentives for personal responsibility, and starting a National Cure Center to cure chronic diseases. As we achieve those savings, we should use them to give small businesses access to the same health plans as members of Congress -- and to make sure all parents in America have the responsibility and the means to afford health insurance for their children.
Fiscal Responsibility and Ending Corporate Welfare. (emdomg corporates period) We'll never build a new social contract if we don't repair the broken contract between the American people and their leaders. We can only achieve universal service, college, pensions, and children's health care if we're willing to cut and invest to pay for them. The place to start is by ending corporate welfare and the Hack-ridden government that fuels it.
Tax Reform to Help Those Who Aren't Wealthy Build Wealth. Americans shouldn't have to start rich to get rich, and ordinary Americans shouldn't have to hire an accountant to get ahead. We propose a tax reform plan that makes sure no middle-class family with an income of under $100,000 will ever have to pay an effective income tax rate of more than 10 percent. Our plan cuts the number of tax brackets in half, closes dozens of loopholes by setting a corporate flat tax, and simplifies the tax code by offering four superincentives: a $3,000 refundable college tax credit, a universal mortgage deduction, a simplified family credit for families with children, and a universal pension that replaces the current hodgepodge of 16 existing IRA-type accounts.
We need to fortify the military's "thin green line" around the world by adding to the Special Forces and the Marines, and expanding the Army by 100,000 more troops. We should give all our troops a new G.I. Bill to come home to. Finally, we must protect the homeland and our civil liberties by creating a new domestic counterterrorism force like Britain's MI5. 5. A Hybrid Economy that Cuts America's Gasoline Use in Half. Any questions what Obama is doing?
MARK