A Commoner Writes: Rural Independent Responds To Trump’s Speech To Congress

Solving the worlds problems requires us to be equal partners, not overlords.

 

In responding to the President’s remarks about unity, I agree that we work better when we work together. Our exceptional quality as Americans is to solve any problem, fight any enemy, and to provide generous help to those who need it. To be effective, we need to agree on a plan.

Aye, but that’s the rub. The direction the President and the Congress wish to take us ignores the needs of the vast majority of Americans and creates more problems than it solves, spawns more enemies, and helps those who need it the least.

Mr. Trump said, “Who knew how complicated health Care is? Some of us have known for a long time that allowing the for-profit health care industry to drive the plan would not be affordable, would not create efficiencies, and would require subsidies, or allow many to be vulnerable. Their bait-and-switch tactics and skyrocketing premiums were the reason the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was needed in the first place. The industry effort to kill real reform created the inefficiencies in the plan. Obamacare is Romney care and is worse than Nixon proposed in the 70’s or Eisenhower in the 50’s. A simple solution is Medicare for ALL, where we spend literally half as much, cover everyone, and improve quality dramatically.

Mr. Trump wants to “rebuild” the military and raise its revenues 10%. We currently have more military spending than the rest of the world combined. Solving the worlds problems requires us to be equal partners, not overlords. What are our troops, already stationed in nearly 200 countries, doing to create a peaceful prosperous world? Plans to build up to a new nuclear cold war are opposite of what we need to do to reduce that threat to humanity.

Mr. Trump wants to return to massive use of dirty energy that currently is more expensive than alternative methods. The benefits of small, local, renewable energy plants go beyond providing clean heat and power; they offer opportunities to grow local economies and to provide local solutions to dangerous climate change effects of unrestrained fossil fuel use. (Can you deny that our weather is changing? Can you make dry hay the way you used to? Do you remember thunder snow storms from your childhood?)

I have total faith in the American people to get this right. What we need is agreement on what kind of world we want to live in. I suggest that we choose a long term goal of building a sustainable peace and prosperity for all; that we use that goal as a lens to decide if our actions are compatible; and we stop taking actions counter to our goal.

Tom Crofton

(Commoner Call photo by M.L. Taylor, 2017. Open source and free to use with link to www.thedailycall.org )