Rebuilding a Quality of Life Vision for All Americans

by Wayne D. King

Secrets of the Patriot

It could be said that this image represents both sides of Tuesdays election. It was President Kennedy who said "It is far better to light a candle than to curse the darkness." We have a lot of candles to light together because it won't be long before the American people realize that both sides have sold them a bill of goods and become mired in the past - failing to recognize that the world is shifting beneath our feet and we must become the agents of change or we will surely become its victims.

Here's my brief five point plan for a good start. Some of it probably will be seen as radical but the times call for bold ideas.

1. Raise the minimum wage to $15.00 over a reasonable period of time. This is the easy one but we need to give working people a living wage.

2. Begin the process of instituting a Guaranteed Annual Income for every American. We can start this with a pilot to test the viability of this concept. However, there is no questioning the fact that wages are falling, largely as a result of globalization and technology displacing workers. This is only going to get worse no matter how much Politicians bark about bringing jobs back home. We need to find a new way to give Americans a good standard of living in a world where marginal costs continue to decline toward zero and a good standard of living will need to be defined by more than the size of a paycheck. This will have to be funded by the 1% but they will understand the need for it. This will be the most controversial of my 5 points but it is coming.

3. Institute a National Service requirement. Every young American required to choose either the military or national/humanitarian service. When the children of the wealthy sacrifice side by side with young men and women from the inner city and rural poor communities we will begin to understand one another and develop shared hopes and dreams.

4. Guarantee a debt-free College or Trade School education for every American who wants one. Good public schools should not benefit at the expense of good private schools after all public schools already have the support of the taxpayers.

5. Institute a Medicare for all Health Care system. Medicare is one of the nation's greatest success stories. There will still be a two tiered healthcare system in the US but the vast majority of Americans will be guaranteed healthcare as a right.

All of these things begin to recast our definition of "quality of life" where certain basic needs are met and beyond this each of us has the opportunity to build a life around both traditional work and commerce or sustenance from within the sharing economy.


Secrets of the Patriot
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