After much soul searching, discussion with my family and acknowledging my complete inability to raise the necessary funds to be elected, I have decided to run for President of these great United States of America.
I want to unite the country, because everyone is fed up with something.
The following campaign planks should solve nearly everything that everyone is unhappy about:
* Ban all Robocalls, except for 15 minutes per day. This includes political calls, efforts to sell useless products and surveys of any sort. Any company that sells your phone number or e-mail address will be guilty of invasion of privacy and any telecommunications company that facilitates the calls or e-mail must publish the home phone numbers of their five highest paid executives. Refusal to accepts calls will be a misdemeanor punishable by placement in a stockade in front of the company’s headquarters for one hour for each infraction.
* Interest rates on credit cards cannot be greater than five times the interest rate on savings accounts.
* Ban all drug ads that use more time for potential risks than benefits.
* Make certain areas of the body off limits.
* Magazine renewals must state when the current subscription runs out.
* Weather reports must not be used by TV stations to keep you awake for the entire program. The weather must be a single segment and no models are to be used. The weather-caster gets paid plenty to interpret those models.
* Internet monthly fees must be based on quality of service meaning availability, reliability and speed. Each state shall develop a system to induce providers to bring quality Internet to everyone who wants it within the next legislative session or the state will lose all federal funding.
* I will propose a U.S. Constitutional Amendment that stops paying any salary or benefit to Congress and their staffs if the federal budget is not fully adopted by Oct. 1 of each year. No exceptions.
* Any political advertisement that is based on stating how bad your opponent is shall require the accuser to fund the cost of the accused running an ad to defend themselves. Who cares that you don’t like your opponent? Tell us what you stand for.
* Immigration approval will be based on job skills necessary to maintain a healthy economy. After five years of good behavior, you and your family will be granted citizenship, if you pass a rigorous set of standards.
* We will put together a curriculum that explains all the bad things that people have done to each other since Adam and Eve. It will not be based on creating guilt, but on creating awareness. Parents must take the course, as well as students. The goal is that schools will no longer need to do what parents should do, in the way of creating morally responsible young people.
* Finally – to control inflation – we will ban changing prices on existing inventory when new products cost more to make. Anyone who blames the supply chain rather than the profit motive for raising prices must prove that contention.
Please do not send me money. I need an outpouring of public opinion, which means at least 10 folks who agree that we should solve the solvable problems with simple solutions that will make us all happy.
Roger Carlton writes a bi-weekly column for The Graham Star. He can be reached via email, rcarlton57@hotmail.com.