Introducing third options into the great American debate
The Godly Algorithm (107: …Ethical fixes continued…)
Ensure business loyalty to United Statesinterests: All entities doing business in the USA shall first and foremost serve the interests of all the American people, subject to specified penalties. Multinational business entities, entities of foreign or indeterminate ownership, and U.S.-based corporations avoiding taxation through offshore machinations shall be permanently banned without recourse from doing business in the USA.
Transportation: A nationwide high-speed rail passenger system will be incrementally brought into operation over the next five years. The tracks are mostly already in place, it’s only the administrative governance of the train routes, their schedules and affordable low-cost fares that must be made responsive to serving the public’s needs. With its fixed infrastructure of tracks, this nationwide system shall be declared a natural monopoly controlled only by the federal government. A ten-year moratorium on construction of any new federal or interstate highways, effective immediately throughout the United States, will be automatically renewed at the tenth year unless amended. Massive maintenance overdue and vitally needed on interstate highways, bridges and associated infrastructure will use tax dollars that would otherwise have been spent building new interstates.
Cheap Continuous Sustainable Energy: The federal government shall initiate, as a top national priority to be fully implemented within five years, production of extremely low-cost electricity constantly generated by horizontal tube turbines submerged along both banks of America’s thousands of miles of rivers. The turbines, turned by the never-ending flow of river currents, shall by design be more than ample to meet our nationwide energy needs for at least the century ahead. The new energy will be distributed over a decentralized, modernized fail-safe national smart grid to be simultaneously developed during the five years. Massive federally-sponsored R&D shall proceed with wartime urgency on 1) long-charge cheap batteries and energy-storage alternatives, 2) increasing exponentially the efficiency of the riverine tube turbines, and 3) optimizing the efficiency of solar and wind power generation which, unlike our multitude of flowing rivers, are dependable only when the sun shines and the wind blows. All U.S. Government facilities and military bases are hereby commanded to fully (meaning fully) convert to renewable energy within three (3) years. State-owned facilities, in all states that accept and desire to continue accepting federal funds for anything whatsoever, shall convert within five years.
Reverse Global Warming: 1) Dismantle fossil fuel power plants, coal first, as fast as equivalent energy from tube turbines, solar and wind comes online; 2) Ban all fracking within two (2) years; 3) By Congressional fiat, totally restore all environmental- and energy-relevant federal regulations that were abolished or in any way degraded from 2017 through 2020; 4) ditto for all other federal regulations; 5) restore full funding to budgets for all federal agencies consistent with their Congressionally mandated duties; 6) require all new US cars and small trucks to run on electric motors within five years; 7) develop heavy-lifter dirigibles within six years to start replacing millions of long-haul semi trucks. Outlaw new oil and gas wells, new coal mines, and burning coal or crude oil in the USA. Launch as the State Department’s highest priority diplomatic initiatives to persuade and assist comparable carbon reduction by every nation contributing 3% or more to the planet’s carbon excess.
Tax reform: Reset the top federal tax bracket to the 1945 rate of 94% for all income over [about $2.5 million, equivalent to $200,000 in 1945]. Taxes on individual citizens, families and domestic households shall always (meaning always) be bracketed lower than taxes on businesses (all businesses of any nature). Taxation of parents shall increase significantly for each child over two children. Sales taxes—which fall most unjustly on the poor—are abolished forever throughout the USA and good riddance hoorah.
Defense policy: The overriding purpose and foremost priority of the U.S. Department of Defense including all armed forces, the Coast Guard and Customs, of all U.S. intelligence activities of every nature, and of all federal law enforcement agencies of every nature whatsoever, is to defend the citizens and residents of the United States of America, its territories and possessions from aggression, attack or hostile action: 1) by any foreign nation, or 2) by any other entity, foreign or domestic, that opposes or seeks to overturn or control our American constitutional government, our democracy and the freedoms guaranteed to every citizen, including domestic provocateurs (defined) intent on overthrowing federal and state governments through legislative stealth. The purpose of our armed forces, intelligence and support agencies, and police agencies is neither to force our will upon any other nation nor to make the world safe for corporations’ inroads into foreign markets. The Department of Defense exists solely to defend, not to aggress and—excepting response to nuclear threats otherwise already provided for in law—no preemptive military action shall be initiated by the Executive Branch without four (4) weeks advance request for Congressional authorization. All domestic and foreign sales of American-made or -brokered military weapons are banned and outlawed; the President may, with prior consent of Congress, direct the lending or leasing of weapons for purposes of conducting diplomacy.
