A program for the economic reconstruction of the United States
The economy is a mess. Millions are losing their jobs, homes, and
health insurance. The manufacturing economy, without which a country
cannot be wealthy, is declining. The price of oil will keep rising,
global warming is getting worse, and our agricultural lands, forests,
and oceans are being destroyed. We need the government to spend
trillions of dollars, over a 10 to 20 year period, for each of the
following projects, each of which will create millions of well-paying,
high-skill, long-term jobs; these projects will rebuild the
manufacturing economy because all equipment for these projects will be
made in the US, and all machinery used to make the equipment will be
made in the US.:
1) Construct an Interstate Rail System, linking big cities with
high-speed rail (200 mph), linking suburbs and towns together and to
their local cities with regular rail, and enabling intracity
transportation with light rail and subways. All freight will be able
to move to cities, towns, and suburbs via rail.
2) Construct an Interstate Wind System, along with an Interstate
Electrical Transmission System to carry the electricity all over the
country. The electricity generated by this system will be used by the
Interstate Rail System and provide much of the rest of the electricity
of the country, so that all coal-fired plants can be shut down.
3) Make most residential, commercial, and industrial buildings
self-sufficient in energy. This will be achieved by putting solar
panels and solar water heaters on top of buildings, geothermal heat
pumps below buildings, and retrofitting materials within buildings.
4) Construct walkable communities within most cities, towns, and
suburbs, by building large-scale, affordable apartment buildings with
appropriate commercial businesses intermixed with residences.
Residents and workers in these areas will be able to walk, bike, or
take a subway or light rail anywhere within the city, town, or
suburban center, will be able to use an electric car to get to the
center, and will be able to take a train from the Interstate Rail
System to another city, town, or suburb.
5) Construct organic farms around cities, towns, and suburbs and
construct urban gardens within them. This will include housing and
services for the millions of new full-time farmers and gardeners, and
transportation to get the food to food markets in the town centers.
6) Rebuild the water infrastructure of the country, and create a
national recycling system, so that water is maintained and recycled
within urban areas, manufacturing plants can use recycled materials,
and garbage ceases to be generated.
In addition, the following sectors will be fundamentally altered:
7) A public banking system, at the Federal, state and city level, will
be created in which individuals and small businesses can deposit their
money; the money will be used to create the projects outlined above.
8) The national debt will be converted to government-issued money,
that is, instead of borrowing money from the Federal Reserve, the
United States will create legal tender. This legal tender will
replace all Treasury bills, thus saving over $300 billion per year in
interest payments.
9) Most of the Department of Defense will be converted into the
Department of Infrastructure. The central planning and procurement
offices will plan and procure the equipments needed for the projects
above, and the military industry plants will be converted to making
that equipment. All troops outside the country will come home and all
bases closed. The remaining military forces will be used to prevent
deforestation and the destruction of ocean ecosystems. Our foreign
policy will be geared to helping nations create regional, free-trade
economies as the Europeans have done, to industrialize, and to
implement the projects outlined here.
10) Medicare will be extended to every person in the country
11) Education will be expanded by offering free college to public
universities, and by providing the funds for schools to insure that
there are always 15 students or less in a class.
12) The tax system will be changed so that the richest people pay a
minimal marginal tax of 70%, and so that corporation pay 22% of the
Federal revenue, as they did in the 1950s, not the 7% they pay now.
All loopholes will be closed.
Finally, we will demand that any politician that we vote for will
agree to submit and vote for legislation that will carry out this
program.