TREASON!

UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION, Art. III, section 3(1); “Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”

“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” Abraham Lincoln

In the past months, the greatest threat to our country has not originated from without, but from within. The perpetrators are not a clandestine group planning the destruction of buildings or airplanes, but the United States Congress. Moreover, their treasonous acts have been witnessed by many more than the required “two witnesses” required by the Constitution, but the entire world.

The greatest threat we have to our nation today is not military but economic. Our two greatest strengths as a nation have historically been our production capacity and the strength of our economy. Both have been, and are currently being eroded, if not destroyed by the antics of the Tea Party, the intransigence of the Republicans, and the ineptitude and weakness of the Democrats. In the movie, “The American President,” Michael Douglas stood as President of the United States and said, “I was so busy keeping my job that I forgot to do my job.” So it is with Congress. Each refusal to compromise and act for the benefit of the American people in the face of an unprecedented recession, largely of our own making is and should be considered an act of treason. Osama Bin Laden said he would destroy America financially, but Congress seems to have taken that burden upon itself.

What this nation needs is known by anyone who has taken Economics 101. First, the tax system needs not just reform, but re-writing. It must be simple enough so that the average citizen can understand it and fair enough so that everyone (including ALL corporations, charitable and religious institutions) pay their fair share of taxes by lowering the tax rate for all, but removing all exemptions and deductions. If that were done, everyone would pay lower taxes (except for the multibillion dollar corporations and charities that now pay none) but we would have substantially more revenue with which to work.

Secondly, we need to create jobs; a two pronged problem. There must be an immediate increase in jobs through government intervention as was done during the New Deal. Federal money needs to be funneled into refurbishing our crumbling infrastructure, relieving businesses of the burden of health care costs by having a single payer national health insurance program, and increasing the number of workers able to participate in an increasingly technologic workplace by creating retraining and employment programs. Additionally, we need to put money into improvement of our educational system as well as increase our investment in research and development. This includes  our space program, and extended programs to reinvigorate our manufacturing base by encouraging new industries such as alternative energy companies including solar energy, wind energy, etc., as well as electric vehicles. These are things we can produce here and sell to the rest of the world. The demand is there, all it is waiting for is the supply.

Next, we need to take back control of the country from the enormous corporations, especially the financial and insurance sectors, which control everyone’s lives, and return it to the people. “Citizens United” needs to be reversed or trimmed back, the stranglehold that financial companies have over people with credit reports and FICO scores needs to be eliminated by returning to a system of credit reporting that fairly portrays the individual’s current credit worthiness and ability to overcome their problems. This requires eliminating the credit “score,” whose very method of calculation is a closely held secret, and making it illegal to use a credit report to decide upon hiring (except where it directly bears on the job such as in the financial sector) and insurability and premium rates.

Finally, we need to have both a short term and long term plan to eliminate our dependence on fossil fuel. In the 21^st Century, energy is the “coin of the realm,” and the country with the least expensive and most available energy will ultimately prevail. The United States, as the most technologically dependent nation in the world, is also the most vulnerable to insufficient energy; a position which can be exploited by any country from whom we buy oil.

Failure of Congress to immediately respond to these needs and instead pursue partisan political goals is tantamount to giving “Aid and Comfort to the Enemy,” and should be considered an act of treason. If nothing is done in the immediate future, the members of Congress who stand in the way or take no action at all should be impeached and convicted of treason. We owe it to our nation, we owe it to the world we pretend to lead, and most importantly of all, we owe it to our children who deserve a future, at least as bright as the one we were handed by our parents.