I was born In Charleston, SC at the end of World War II. Most of my life has been lived in Durham, NC. where my father was a lawyer and a lifelong Democrat. I followed by father's footsteps into the law, graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill School of law in 1970. That same year I married the former Mary Fry Edmunds (she goes by Mary Fry) of Greensboro and also began a three year stint in the Navy's Judge Advocate General's Corps. Coming back to Durham after the Navy, I became an associate in the firm where my father practiced. I eventually made partner, attained a high Martindale rating, and became the sixth name in the partnership..
In 1986, following my dad's death (and my mother's generous disclaimer in my favor under his will), I came home to handle investments and start, along with my wife, a home school for our four children. We called it Calvert School, operated it over 14 years, and placed all four in competitive colleges. Time magazine gave us a bit of notoriety in 2000 when it ran a picture and several paragraphs in a story about homeschoolers being admitted to established colleges and universities.
I once asked my father why he was a Democrat. He said: "Because they're for the little guy." But in 1980 when Ronald Reagan campaigned against "high taxes" and "big spenders," I switched to the Republicans and remained so through the 2000 election of George W. Bush. Besides, I didn't consider myself a "little guy." I lived in a nice neighborhood, and home and stock prices were rising nicely. The only thing that was down after Reagan's election was our blankety-blank federal income taxes. By 2000 I wouldn't have dreamed of voting democrat again, even if the Republicans had nominated the devil himself.
George W. Bush didn't have a tail and horns, but I believe he will go down in history as one of our worst presidents-- with his copycat successor rated not much better. Mr. Bush greatly accelerated a trend that began with President Nixon's 50% cap on taxation of earned income. Other Republican presidents followed up with lower income tax rates. Even President Clinton chimed in with a zero tax on sales of primary residences. The net result: destruction of our progressive income tax system to the point that, today, the top one percent of households receives 24% of the nation's income (as opposed to 10% before Nixon.) When that happens you get money hoarding (explained in the following section) that removes huge amounts of cash from the spending economy (the government spends what it taxes) and destroys the middle class. Every American voter must come to realize, as I have, and as Utah tycoon Eccles did (see next section) that OUR COUNTRY PAYS A SEVERE PRICE WHEN IT ABANDONS PROGRESSIVE INCOME AND ESTATE TAXES. We pay that price with lost jobs, lower home values, lower income, and destruction of the middle class.
President Obama had to have his surge in Afghanistan, and when his tax-the-rich proposal was rejected by Congress last December, his gratuitous capitulation to the Republicans that continued the Bush tax policies has left his treasury depleted. He finds himself not only without ammunition to battle the recession, but so short of funds that the safety net programs on which millions of Americans depend have been placed in jeopardy. For shame! And the only path to justice in old Palestine and peace in our time is through United Nations Security Council sanctions against Israel--sanctions long sought by the community of nations but just as long thwarted by repeated American vetoes.
Keep reading and you will see that I have other proposals including: geoengineering that cools the earth to counteract geoengineering that is warming it; turning toward renewables and away from "pollutables"; preservation of a woman's right to an abortion; same-sex marriage rights; dusting off the Comprehensive Child Development Act--a bill that passed Congress with large bipartisan majorities but fell to a RIchard Nixon veto; and, of course, the centerpiece of my campaign addressed in the first section of the Broadside -- THE INITIATION OF A NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE TO REPLACE THE FOR-PROFIT SYSTEM THAT IS BLEEDING US DRY.
No comments:
Post a Comment