National Priorities: A New Candidate's Pledge

Mike Pence was quoted describing himself as "a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order.”

I think that is laudable. Many people say he is a fine man. Others might describe themselves differently. That’s what life is all about…different strokes for different folks. It is nice that we tolerate each other’s personal penchants.

But when it comes to national priorities, we realize that our own personal desires may have to take a back seat to the national interest. When young people are drafted into the military they often serve proudly because their national duty comes before their personal goals. Some of us are dragged kicking and screaming or at least complaining. Maybe we even threaten to move to Canada. I might hate to pay a higher tax rate on my income or have to pay more for my Medicare benefits because I am richer than someone else. But I also realize that being part of the USA I win some and I lose some. Sometimes national priorities do not exactly coincide with my own.

It is in that spirit that I offer a suggestion with respect to the coming election. I am asking Hillary, the Donald, and Alfred E. Neuman (if he decides to run) to consider taking on the following candidate's pledge. Hopefully the pledge would be accompanied by shots of JD but that's optional.

I promise that I will fix the US economy. Fixing the US economy will be my main passion for the country for four years. I realize that sensible economic policies could take all four years of my term and therefore I pledge and promise that in four years the US economy will be humming like never before. If not, then I will forego a second term.  I also promise to do whatever it takes to make Americans safe and secure from terrorism. So as to not take my eye off those two balls I promise to veto all and every legislation that is not directly involved with these two goals. Included in this list of important but secondary goals is anything relating to religious rights, gun rights, abortion, illegal immigration, and income equality. Yes, these and other unmentioned issues are important. And therefore once we have fixed the economy and our security I promise to spend my second term as President restoring the proper importance of these other issues. But for now, we have to provide more and better jobs for Americans and we have to keep our people safe.

Ok I admit that Ruth Bader Ginsberg and I may have been drinking out of the same JD decanter. But come on folks – is it not obvious that we have stuck the proverbial cart before the horse? Are we now dissipating our remaining political energy on things that are preventing us from making any real progress? I think the answer is clearly yes.

I know some people think we need to address income inequality BEFORE economic growth. They do not believe that all boats rise equally. I too doubt they rise equally. But surely you want boats to rise and so far there is little evidence that anything is better for the poor than a rapidly growing economy. As long as we argue about social programs our poor remain the same or they get worse.

If all our energy was producing some progress on the social program side then I would say fine. But all it really has done is create a hunker down mentality among the nation’s extremes on left and right. Apparently standing in the street, singing Bob Dylan songs and lobbing bombs and bullets at each other is more fun than actually talking with someone about real and effective policies. Of course those people who sit in their homes thinking there are no social problems do not help matters either. 

I love all the promises being made this week to heal differences among police and minorities. They swear it is time to talk to each other. You just watch. This will be yet another opportunity for extremists to hijack an important issue and use the occasion to scream at each other even louder repeating oft-heard mantras. If  that is talking to each other then I would rather take a pledge of silence.

Finally, what do we really give up if we put progress on these social policies on hold? What do you really expect to accomplish through more of the same? Despite all the attention given to it, how much did the needle move on abortion in the last four years? How much progress did we make in race relations or illegal immigration? 

So that’s my point. It sounds crazy to some of you to put some vital issues on the back burner for a while. But wouldn’t it be refreshing to have a timeout wherein we all worked together to get economic growth going again? And do that without the din of hatred playing in the background.  Accomplishing that maybe we could move on to learning how to work together on ways to eliminate the rest of our problems!