A U.S. Senator enacts change through legislation. My opponents seem to forget or ignore this. Here's a summary of some of the specific short-, medium-, and long-term legislation that I will fight for. You can find details of each on this website, and by watching my TV show.
• Flip the FICA: to deal with unemployment, foreclosures, small business failures, and tax fairness, eliminate FICA taxes for workers and employers on incomes below $100,000, and institute FICA taxes on additional income above $100,000. When full employment is reached, FICA taxes for everyone.
• Require all lenders to keep 30% of every loan they make, for the lifetime of the loan, to prevent future mortgage crises.
• Social Security: remove the income cap, means-test payments (see TV show on YouTube).
• Universal Health Care, with cost containment (see TV show on YouTube).
• Make permanent a temporary renewable energy tax credit that is impeding investment.
• Close hedge-fund-managers tax loophole that costs us $6 billion dollars a year.
• Specific, large improvements in our ethanol policies.
• Implement a National Energy Policy for the first time.
• Require corporations to disclose compensation packages to stock holders. Transparency.
• Reinstate 1990 Budget Enforcement Act.
• Reinstate Glass-Steagall, and address “Too Big to Fail”.
• Fight for Constitutional Amendment that ends Eminent Domain Abuse.
• Fight for Constitutional Amendment that prevents corporations from donating limitless funds to political advertising, and states that corporations are not treated as persons.
• Urge reduction of troop levels in Afghanistan to 10,000. Focus on Al-Qaeda in Pakistan, corruption and 60% unemployment in Afghanistan. Purchase all Afghani poppies.
• Fight for U.S. Drug Policy urged by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). (see TV show on YouTube.) Address 30% high school dropout rate in the U.S. with savings.
• Implement real campaign finance reform.
• Tax Fairness: our tax burden has been shifted to the middle class. Reverse this with more progressive tax structure.
• Keep government out of our personal lives.
• End tax credits for businesses that outsource jobs.
• Fight obesity and diabetes epidemic, replace corrupt FDA food pyramid with Harvard study.
• many more....
We are facing huge long-term problems: a real unemployment rate of 18%, dysfunctional banks that are "too big to fail", a regressive tax structure that's stifling economic growth, prisons that are bursting at the seams, urban schools that are struggling, a health care system that still needs major reform, the lack of a coherent national energy policy that will protect our economy and the environment, and a government that has been encroaching on our civil liberties. For decades we have lived with irresponsible public policies from career politicians in Congress who care more about increasing their party’s power and getting re-elected than they care about solving long-term problems. They haven’t been honest with us, and they have been lousy public servants.
I’m different. I do not want to be a career politician. I am not a Democrat or a Republican. I’m a Problem Solver. I want to force members of Congress to be responsible, and implement sustainable solutions to real problems. Please read the positions I present on this website, and spread the word to friends and family.
Please email me at John@Mertens2010.com, and become a supporter on Twitter at @mertens4senate or Facebook: John's FB
