A New Political Party and Agenda

A New Political Party and Agenda

If you are tired of the excesses of the Left and Right, of liberals and conservatives, of Democrats and Republicans, take heart - a third party is emerging - the Independent Moderate Party.

It will have a simple, straightforward platform for future government. Here are the planks:

I.    Reducing income inequality -
    A.  Raise the minimum wage to $10 per hour now and up to $15 an hour in
          five years.
    B.  Change the federal tax code with all income considered equally taxable, and no itemized deductions or
          credits, just a standard one and only six,    
          tax brackets with the highest being 35% for incomes over $1 million.
    C.  Improve pre K-12 public education, including a change in curriculum
    D.  Bring manufacturing jobs for clothing, electronics and appliances back to USA via trade agreements to
          produce good paying jobs.
    E.   Put financial reforms in place splitting up  banks into retail and investment.

II.    Reducing the budget deficit -
    A.   Close most of our 700+ foreign military bases, shrink the infantry and expand special forces, letting host
           countries, regional treaty organizations and the U.N. ensure their security.
    B.   Enacting 1A and 1B which would raise taxes while reducing transfer  payments such as Earned Income
           Credit, food stamps and rent subsidies.
    C.   Reduce foreign aid that now exceeds $50 billion a year.
    D.   Reduce prison populations by releasing prisoners who are no risk to  society.
    E.    Legalize and tax marijuana.
    F.    Route out waste and fraud in government programs and healthcare.
    G.   Stop minting pennies and nickels.


III.      Improving the Environment
    A.   Dramatically increase solar and wind power sources while limiting coal production and domestic oil use.
    B.    Plant tens of millions of trees, especially near factories.
    C.    Strictly enforce fair EPA regulations.
    D.    Encourage alternate transportation choices like walking, biking or living nearby.

IV.    Improving the Political Environment
    A.     Eliminate campaign contributions, shorten and change the primary and campaign efforts.
    B.     Work with Congress on moderate measures avoiding extremism.
    C.     Make legislation simple and clear so the public and legislators understand it.
    D.     Encourage moderation.

V.    Improving Immigration System
    A.    Secure the borders and our VISA system.
    B.    Penalize companies hiring undocumented workers
    C.    Allow undocumented residents to get documentation if they have not violated the law. They must be paid
           what others are but will not be eligible to citizenship or welfare.
    D.    Change criteria for legal immigration to be people with skills we need and not distant relatives of legal
            residents.
    E.    Make English the official language.
                
VI.    Making Social Security Secure
    A.    Immediately raise FICA deduction to be 8% for both employer and employee instead of current 7.65%
           (this would include 6.5% for Social Security and 1.5% for Medicare).
    B.    Over time, raise the FICA deduction to 10% each.
    C.    Raise the maximum amount subject to FICA deduction to $200,000
           from the current $110,000 ceiling.
    D.    Make all Social Security benefits payments subject to federal income tax, not just a maximum of 85% of
           benefits. All tax collected goes back into the trust for Social Security.


VII.    Making Medicare Healthy
    A.    Route out fraud and waste said to be in the hundreds of billions.
    B.    Use improvements in communications to dramatically reduce doctors‘ visits and lab tests.
    C.    Improve preventive and treatment strategies to reduce the incidence and severity of major diseases like
            heart, cancer, liver damage and AIDS.
    D.    Dramatically reduce incidence of obesity now affecting one out of  three Americans.
    E.    Dramatically reduce number of people smoking cigarettes.
    F.    Dramatically reduce the rate of alcoholism.
    G.    Legalize euthanasia.

VIII.    Foreign Policy
    A.    Maintain a non interventionist position
    B.    Support strengthening the U.N. to police the world
    C.    Support NATO and encourage the strengthening of all regional alliances (e.g. African, Latin American,
           Arab, and Asian)
    D.   Dramatically reduce foreign military footprint closing most foreign bases and cutting most foreign aid.
    E.   Use economic pressure, rather than military force to change behavior.




      

Finding the Right Team Name

Names have meaning and value. Parents try hard to find the perfect name for their beloved offspring. Pet owners challenge themselves to find a name for their pet that expresses their affection for them and the attributes that make them so lovable.

Athletic teams also choose their names carefully. Now, a team whose team name has been the same for more than 81 years is being asked, urged, demanded to change their name for fear it might offend some members of a group that has been identified with the name.

The team was the Boston Braves but changed it to the Redskins to honor its beloved coach who was part American Indian. They are now the Washington Redskins and are now being asked to find a less offensive name.

There is no doubt that the American Indian has been mistreated since the 16th century by Europeans who migrated here hoping to start new lives in a new world. The settlers stole Indian land, killed their people and forced the survivors to live in substandard conditions on Indian reservations. When some of the reservations were found to have oil, the government withheld billions of dollars owed for access to the black gold.

The name “redskin” is not one that American Indians enjoy or identify with. To some it is racist and should have never been used for a team name. It should be changed, some say. A number are also offended by the name “Indian” or “Brave” preferring to be called Native Americans not to be confused with the term “native Americans” which refers to anyone born here.

But what about other team names? Are some of them also possibly offensive and needing to be changed?

The Cleveland Indians should be the Cleveland Native Americans. The Cleveland Browns should have a color blind name not one that could upset Latin Americans. The Cincinnati Reds should have a less communist sounding name that might also upset Native Americans. The Atlanta Braves should be the Atlanta Courageous. The New York Yankees’ name might offend Southerners still remembering what the Yankees did in the 1860s. And what’s with the Red Sox and White Sox? Should the Golden Gate Warriors be the Peacemakers? And why do the Clippers have a name used for NFL players who make illegal tackles or is it after coupon clippers, which would surely offend the 99%? And there are two teams called the Giants. How does that make short people feel? Does size really matter? Then there’s the 49ers. So people 50 and over should feel old? Isn’t that offensive?

What about the Dodgers? Are they tax dodgers, artful dodgers or do they dodge all rules? Is this what we want our children emulating? Aren’t parents upset? The Chicago Cubs seems like an OK name until you talk to some Boy Scouts. Why not the Chicago Scouts, instead? Chicago also has the Bears. The name sounds like people are naked or are tolerating something difficult. Shouldn’t G-d fearing people find this objectionable? And don’t the Baltimore Orioles sound too much like Oreos, a term also used to question a person’s racial soul? The Oakland Raiders should change their name so as not to offend corporate raiders or those who raid their refrigerators late at night and wonder why they are gaining weight. They should be able to watch the game without feeling guilty.

And the two teams that call themselves the Cardinals should change their name so as not to offend Catholics who saw their cardinals cover-up sex abuses against their children in order to save the "good" name of the Church or atheists or those who believe in the separation of church and sport. The Kings should find a new name as well. America is a democratic republic. We revolted against the King in 1776. How would DAR members whose ancestors gave their brave lives fighting the King feel to hear people cheer for his namesake? The Jets' name must be changed so as not to offend the Puerto Rican - Americans who still feel unfairly stereotyped by the "West Side Story" anti-Puerto Rican gang by that name. Surely they don't want to hear "Here come the Jets..." anymore.

We must be much more sensitive to the possible feelings of our people.

What if we only used the name of the city the team plays in? If there are more than one team in a city as is the case in New York, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, the name could be followed by the sport name as in Football or Baseball, to avoid possible confusion. This would ensure that no one is offended or hurt by the team name.

See, every problem has a solution. 

Let's hope it doesn't offend anyone.

Addressing Homelessness

Recent surveys on homelessness have found that there are approximately 600,000 homeless people in America; that New York City has 60,000 and San Francisco has 6,400 individuals/families living without a permanent residence. Another study found that different cities had different percentages of homeless living on the streets. San Francisco has about half of this population in shelters at a cost of $165 million per year, most of it county money with some of it going to related services. This figure does not include city costs for medical care and does not include charitable efforts to provide food and shelter to San Francisco’s homeless. When these costs are added, they total more than $200 million that is spent annually on our 6,000+ homeless. We are spending $30,000 per homeless person per year and still half of them are still sleeping on sidewalks and under bridges.

It makes one wonder if there is a better way to help this desperate population. I think there is. First a little history.

Until the 1990s, San Francisco had few homeless people. Single individuals who were poor and in need of food and shelter went first to 150 Otis Street and applied for General Assistance. Families that were poor went to 170 Otis and applied for AFDC.

Applicants for aid would be identified and interviewed and if found eligible, were given a list of hotels and residence centers to call for a room. The clients would be given a cash grant, Medi-Cal, food stamps (now called SNAP) and a Muni fast pass.  There were more than 3,500 individuals on G.A and about 15,000 families on AFDC. Not all the G.A. clients were really eligible to the aid and not all the AFDC recipients were close to being homeless, but about 3,000 single people, mainly men, and thousands of families would have been homeless without these programs.

In 1978, an analyst for the Department of Social Services (now called the Department of Human Services), which administered these programs, produced a report to change the General Assistance program. The report recommended dividing the G.A. caseload into three groups: the permanently disabled, the temporarily disabled and the employable.

Workers assigned the permanently disabled would work to get their clients on Social Security disability (known as OASDI) if they had worked long enough to qualify, or on VA benefits if eligible, or on SSI which was federal/state welfare for the disabled poor. If G.A. clients got on these government programs, the county would be reimbursed for its costs back to the application date from the client’s retro check, and the client would receive welfare benefits that exceeded G.A. payments. G.A. clients who were employable were referred to ETRS for jobs.

But because of the generous G.A. payments and difficulty proving residence, there was an unacceptable level of fraud. People who didn’t live in the county would get aid. People with excess assets would receive benefits to which they were not entitled.

To address this issue, the analyst recommended turning G.A. into an in-kind benefit program. The client would receive little or no cash but get a place to live, food stamps, Medi-Cal and a Muni fast pass. The analyst recommended the City buy the many rundown and filthy residential hotels that clients were living in, fix them up to be clean and safe, and offer them to the clients rent free. The hotels would have been bought either through normal real estate transactions or, if necessary, by eminent domain or police power. Real estate values in the late 70s were a small fraction of what they are today. These hotels are worth many times as much as they would have cost the city in 1980.

While the recommendation to divide the caseload was eventually accepted, the idea about making G.A. an in kind program and buying hotels was rejected by those on the Left and the Right. The Left objected because they wanted clients to have cash to spend as they freely chose. The Right objected to the government replacing the private sector in real estate. It looked like socialism to the Right.

Years later, a young member of the Board of Supervisors with greater political ambitions, unveiled a program called “Care not Cash” which was a move to an in-kind G.A. program but without G.A.

Around the same time, a young American President, eager to reduce the budget deficit, changed the AFDC program into a workfare program. The idea was to end generational welfare and get people back into the work force. There was no more AFDC for the long term poor families to turn to. 

Now, in 2014, the homeless problem in San Francisco has grown from a few hundred in 1980 to as many as 7,000, including children. Every neighborhood now has homeless people sleeping on park benches or city sidewalks; raiding garbage cans for bits of food or recyclable bottles and cans; relieving themselves in public; using public bathrooms for bathing; dressed in rags and suffering in ways the rest of us could not bear and no one should have to. Many of the homeless here have health problems that only get worse with neglect. Many wind up at San Francisco General Hospital needing in patient or out patient treatment.  Many have serious conditions like AIDS, Cancer, diabetes, kidney failure, liver damage, pancreatitis or heart disease.

There are many good people working hard to help the homeless. The city has a program to coordinate with non profits to find more residential opportunities for the needy. Good work is being done in the Tenderloin and the Mission to convert some sleazy hotels into attractive and safe homes for those so in need of them. Charitable organizations are providing clothing and free food to thousands of people each day. Citizens are generously donating their clothing to non profits and charities to clothe this population. The staff at San Francisco General provide excellent medical care to their homeless patients.

But none of this is enough. What should be done?

I think that the analyst who wrote the G.A. report 37 years ago would recommend the following:

The homeless should first go to San Francisco General Hospital to apply for assistance. There they will be identified with basic information like name, birth date, place of birth, social security number and any known medical information. Some might be missing from friend and family who would like to help them. Some might need immediate medical attention. Each person should get a complete physical and a warm shower or bath. While at SFGH, they can get clean clothing selected from the very large inventory already at SFGH.

If the individuals are deemed to be permanently disabled or aged, eligibility workers there should evaluate whether they are eligible to government aid such as VA, OASDI, or SSI, Medi-cal and food stamps. They could then be placed at Laguna Honda’s old, now vacant hospital. It has capacity of more than 300 beds. It was closed when the new facility was built. The new one is more earthquake safe. The old one has never lost a patient to earthquake and probably never will. Patients here die on their own since they have advanced conditions that are usually terminal.

If the individuals applying for homeless assistance are temporarily disabled, they could soon be housed at what will be the old SFGH when the new hospital is completed next year. Old SFGH could house hundreds of  temporarily disabled people providing them with a safe comfortable room and bathroom as well as medical attention to bring them back to health.

If the individuals are deemed employable, with no serious medical or psychological conditions, they need to be housed in safe, clean SROs many of which are in the Tenderloin, SOMA, downtown and Mission districts or in well managed housing project units. Those not already run by non profits dedicated to helping the homeless should be brought up to code and decency for the homeless.

Since these people are healthy enough to work, they should be given work to do in the City to partially pay back for all that they will receive from it. They can help clean and fix their own buildings, pick up litter in the neighborhood, and can help park workers keep the weeds from overwhelming them. Some can help feed the homeless. Others can help other programs intended to help them. Some can collect recyclables that are not already in garbage cans.

Those who can work should does so, not only to contribute to their community, but also as a way to come back into the mainstream, slowly but surely. It also gives them something to do and a feeling of worth raising their self esteem.  

It would seem that most people who are homeless in San Francisco would jump at this idea. It is hard to imagine many preferring to live out on the streets instead of getting a chance to enjoy are more normal life. But those who do prefer the outdoor life should be discouraged from this lifestyle. Those who are too mentally challenged to make this obvious choice can be brought to SFGH on a 5150. This allows them to be kept under observation for three days or as long as 14 days. During that time, these people can go through the same process. After three days of having nice warm meals, new clothes, a few warm baths or showers, and a clean comfy bed to sleep in, many of these people might want to join the program. Those who are healthy and still don’t want in would be released but advised that they can not sleep or eliminate waste products wherever they want. They must get housing on their own and not in city parks or city sidewalks.

These ideas come with a price tag. Running the old SFGH and Laguna Honda will require additional staff and 24 hour coverage. Since all the patients at both should eligible to Medi-Cal, some of these costs should be reimbursed. The aged and permanently disabled would be eligible to Social Security benefits if they worked long enough or SSI if they didn’t. SSI pays $877 or $961 (if living in an SRO) a month per person. This money could go toward paying for their living costs. Food Stamps, now called SNAP, provides $189 a month for an individual and $632 for a family of four. These benefits can go toward feeding the homeless.

And homeless activists must agree that this idea is much better than anything their people have now. They should advocate for this by urging every homeless person to come in out of the cold.