My fellow Americans,
I can think of no forum in which I'd rather to make this announcement. I'm making it official now and beating all my opponents to the punch: I'm announcing my candidacy for the Democratic Presidential nomination...in 2028. The way I see it, twenty-four years should be plenty of time to study the issues, build a campaign infrastructure, and perhaps most importantly...raise campaign funds.
Admittedly, times and issues change in ways no one can predict. Perhaps by 2028 some truly progressive leadership will have been elected and many of my proposals will have already been enacted. (We can only hope!)
Nevertheless, this is what a Geddings administration would work to deliver for America:
1) Universal Health Care with a Single Payer Plan: Over 40 million Americans have no health care and 30 million more have only minimal coverage. Those with coverage often pay exorbitant amounts. The current profit-driven system, dominated by private insurance firms and their bureaucracies, has failed. A Geddings administration would establish streamlined national health insurance, Medicare for All. It would be publicly financed health care, privately delivered. It would provide affordable prescription drugs, thanks to bulk purchasing. The General Accounting Office of Congress has concluded: If the U.S. were to shift to a system of universal coverage and a single payer, as in Canada, the savings in administrative costs would be more than enough to offset the cost.
2) Full Social Security Benefits at Age 65: Social security is the basic covenant our society has with workers who have built our economy. At a time when CEOs earn 240 times the pay of the average worker, it is unconscionable not to return full retirement benefits at age 65. A Geddings administration would make that possible through a progressive tax structure and reordered national priorities. Social Security must not be privatized. Retirement years cannot be dependent on the rise and fall of the stock market.
3) Withdrawal from NAFTA and WTO: The global trade regime of NAFTA and WTO has enriched multinational corporations. But for workers, family farmers, and the environment, it has meant a global race to the bottom. NAFTA has been used to whipsaw workers at the negotiation table, forcing wages and benefit concessions under threat of moving jobs overseas. Trade treaties must be conditioned on workers rights, human rights, and environmental principles. Among the first actions of a Geddings Administration will be withdrawal from NAFTA and the WTO--to be replaced by fair trade agreements.
4) Repeal of the Patriot Act: The Patriot Act is not what American patriots have fought and died for. To allow our Bill of Rights to be nullified without judicial supervision invites tyranny. The Attorney General has been handed unfettered power to wiretap, search, jail, and invade our most sacred right to privacy. The government must not be allowed, without probable cause or warrant, to snoop on our communications, medical records, library records, and student records.
5) Right to Choose, Privacy, and Civil Rights: In a Geddings administration, a womans right to choose will be protected as essential to personal privacy and gender equality. Only those who agree to uphold Roe v. Wade will be nominated for the Supreme Court. Civil rights (and voting rights) enforcement will be intensified. Lesbians and gays will be afforded complete equality throughout society. Affirmative action will be maintained as a tool for racial and gender equality. Drug policy will emphasize treatment over criminalization, and not a rampaging war that erodes Constitutional freedoms, privacy, and law enforcement resources. An end to capital punishment will be sought.
6) Balance between Workers and Corporations: American workers are working longer and harder for less pay than 20 years ago. Whats needed is a resurgence of organized labor, and a Geddings administration will tenaciously defend the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively. Since the purchasing power of the minimum wage has dropped 21% in two decades, its time for living wages, not minimum wages. And its time to reverse tax cuts that benefit the already well-to-do, and retain an estate tax. Investing $500 billion to rebuild schools, roads, bridges, ports, and sewage, water, and environmental systems will do more to stimulate our economy than tax breaks for the wealthy.
7) Guaranteed Quality Education, Pre-K Through College: Since education is the only proven way to reduce poverty, it is unacceptable that a childs education be dependent on where they are born or the financial status of their family. The federal government spends only 2.9% of its budget on education. That will change under a Geddings administration, because quality education is a core American right and value. Education must emphasize creative and critical thinking, not just test-taking. Schools need money to decrease class size, increase teachers salaries, renovate decaying facilities, and include hands-on job training for those not going to college. Pre-K and after-school programs will get increased funding, and the soaring costs of college will be reversed.
8) A Renewed Commitment to Peace and Diplomacy: America will return to its role as the most admired--not hated--nation. The doctrine of pre-emption will be retired, as will an aggressive, unilateralist foreign policy that makes our homeland less secure, not more. Our security will be enhanced by working with other nations and the U.N. Instead of acting like an Empire, arrogantly undermining international agreements such as the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions, the Small Arms Treaty, the International Criminal Court, and the Kyoto Climate Treaty. As President, I will work to implement two measures currently proposed in Congress: the Space Preservation Treaty, which bans space-based weapons, and a cabinet-level Department of Peace, to establish non-violence as an organizing principle in both domestic and international affairs. A Geddings administration will cut bloated and unneeded weaponry from a military budget that now almost equals the military spending of all other countries combined. The Geddings peace dividend will be invested in education, health care, environmental clean-up, urban infrastructure, Social Security, veterans benefits, and other pressing domestic needs.
9) Restored Rural Communities and Family Farms: Agriculture, trade, and economic policies that favor agribusiness conglomerates have devastated family farmers, rural communities, and the environment. While the number of family farmers has plummeted, profits have soared for a handful of agribusiness giants that increasingly control everything from seed to shelf. A Geddings administration will break up agricultural monopolies and restore a strong, independent family farm system with fair prices for farmers and healthy food for consumers. A Geddings administration will monitor and reduce contamination of our air, water, and food from factory farms, with strong USDA enforcement of tough new food safety laws.
10) Environmental Renewal and Clean Energy: Clean air and water, as well as an intact ozone layer, are not luxuries, but necessities for our childrens future. A Geddings administration will toughen environmental enforcement, support the Kyoto Treaty on global climate change, reduce oil dependence, and spur investment in alternative energy sources, including hydrogen, solar, wind, and ocean. Clean energy technologies will produce new jobs. Tax and other incentives will favor sustainable businesses that conserve energy, retrofit pollution prevention technologies, and redesign toxins out of their manufacturing processes. The right to know (for example, when food is genetically engineered) will supercede corporate secrecy. Globally, the U.S. will become a leader in sustainable energy production and a partner with developing nations in providing inexpensive, local, renewable energy technologies.
These are our goals. This is our vision. For a brighter tomorrow and a nation we can all be proud of again, vote Geddings in 2028. Thank you, and God bless America!
I can think of no forum in which I'd rather to make this announcement. I'm making it official now and beating all my opponents to the punch: I'm announcing my candidacy for the Democratic Presidential nomination...in 2028. The way I see it, twenty-four years should be plenty of time to study the issues, build a campaign infrastructure, and perhaps most importantly...raise campaign funds.
Admittedly, times and issues change in ways no one can predict. Perhaps by 2028 some truly progressive leadership will have been elected and many of my proposals will have already been enacted. (We can only hope!)
Nevertheless, this is what a Geddings administration would work to deliver for America:
1) Universal Health Care with a Single Payer Plan: Over 40 million Americans have no health care and 30 million more have only minimal coverage. Those with coverage often pay exorbitant amounts. The current profit-driven system, dominated by private insurance firms and their bureaucracies, has failed. A Geddings administration would establish streamlined national health insurance, Medicare for All. It would be publicly financed health care, privately delivered. It would provide affordable prescription drugs, thanks to bulk purchasing. The General Accounting Office of Congress has concluded: If the U.S. were to shift to a system of universal coverage and a single payer, as in Canada, the savings in administrative costs would be more than enough to offset the cost.
2) Full Social Security Benefits at Age 65: Social security is the basic covenant our society has with workers who have built our economy. At a time when CEOs earn 240 times the pay of the average worker, it is unconscionable not to return full retirement benefits at age 65. A Geddings administration would make that possible through a progressive tax structure and reordered national priorities. Social Security must not be privatized. Retirement years cannot be dependent on the rise and fall of the stock market.
3) Withdrawal from NAFTA and WTO: The global trade regime of NAFTA and WTO has enriched multinational corporations. But for workers, family farmers, and the environment, it has meant a global race to the bottom. NAFTA has been used to whipsaw workers at the negotiation table, forcing wages and benefit concessions under threat of moving jobs overseas. Trade treaties must be conditioned on workers rights, human rights, and environmental principles. Among the first actions of a Geddings Administration will be withdrawal from NAFTA and the WTO--to be replaced by fair trade agreements.
4) Repeal of the Patriot Act: The Patriot Act is not what American patriots have fought and died for. To allow our Bill of Rights to be nullified without judicial supervision invites tyranny. The Attorney General has been handed unfettered power to wiretap, search, jail, and invade our most sacred right to privacy. The government must not be allowed, without probable cause or warrant, to snoop on our communications, medical records, library records, and student records.
5) Right to Choose, Privacy, and Civil Rights: In a Geddings administration, a womans right to choose will be protected as essential to personal privacy and gender equality. Only those who agree to uphold Roe v. Wade will be nominated for the Supreme Court. Civil rights (and voting rights) enforcement will be intensified. Lesbians and gays will be afforded complete equality throughout society. Affirmative action will be maintained as a tool for racial and gender equality. Drug policy will emphasize treatment over criminalization, and not a rampaging war that erodes Constitutional freedoms, privacy, and law enforcement resources. An end to capital punishment will be sought.
6) Balance between Workers and Corporations: American workers are working longer and harder for less pay than 20 years ago. Whats needed is a resurgence of organized labor, and a Geddings administration will tenaciously defend the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively. Since the purchasing power of the minimum wage has dropped 21% in two decades, its time for living wages, not minimum wages. And its time to reverse tax cuts that benefit the already well-to-do, and retain an estate tax. Investing $500 billion to rebuild schools, roads, bridges, ports, and sewage, water, and environmental systems will do more to stimulate our economy than tax breaks for the wealthy.
7) Guaranteed Quality Education, Pre-K Through College: Since education is the only proven way to reduce poverty, it is unacceptable that a childs education be dependent on where they are born or the financial status of their family. The federal government spends only 2.9% of its budget on education. That will change under a Geddings administration, because quality education is a core American right and value. Education must emphasize creative and critical thinking, not just test-taking. Schools need money to decrease class size, increase teachers salaries, renovate decaying facilities, and include hands-on job training for those not going to college. Pre-K and after-school programs will get increased funding, and the soaring costs of college will be reversed.
8) A Renewed Commitment to Peace and Diplomacy: America will return to its role as the most admired--not hated--nation. The doctrine of pre-emption will be retired, as will an aggressive, unilateralist foreign policy that makes our homeland less secure, not more. Our security will be enhanced by working with other nations and the U.N. Instead of acting like an Empire, arrogantly undermining international agreements such as the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions, the Small Arms Treaty, the International Criminal Court, and the Kyoto Climate Treaty. As President, I will work to implement two measures currently proposed in Congress: the Space Preservation Treaty, which bans space-based weapons, and a cabinet-level Department of Peace, to establish non-violence as an organizing principle in both domestic and international affairs. A Geddings administration will cut bloated and unneeded weaponry from a military budget that now almost equals the military spending of all other countries combined. The Geddings peace dividend will be invested in education, health care, environmental clean-up, urban infrastructure, Social Security, veterans benefits, and other pressing domestic needs.
9) Restored Rural Communities and Family Farms: Agriculture, trade, and economic policies that favor agribusiness conglomerates have devastated family farmers, rural communities, and the environment. While the number of family farmers has plummeted, profits have soared for a handful of agribusiness giants that increasingly control everything from seed to shelf. A Geddings administration will break up agricultural monopolies and restore a strong, independent family farm system with fair prices for farmers and healthy food for consumers. A Geddings administration will monitor and reduce contamination of our air, water, and food from factory farms, with strong USDA enforcement of tough new food safety laws.
10) Environmental Renewal and Clean Energy: Clean air and water, as well as an intact ozone layer, are not luxuries, but necessities for our childrens future. A Geddings administration will toughen environmental enforcement, support the Kyoto Treaty on global climate change, reduce oil dependence, and spur investment in alternative energy sources, including hydrogen, solar, wind, and ocean. Clean energy technologies will produce new jobs. Tax and other incentives will favor sustainable businesses that conserve energy, retrofit pollution prevention technologies, and redesign toxins out of their manufacturing processes. The right to know (for example, when food is genetically engineered) will supercede corporate secrecy. Globally, the U.S. will become a leader in sustainable energy production and a partner with developing nations in providing inexpensive, local, renewable energy technologies.
These are our goals. This is our vision. For a brighter tomorrow and a nation we can all be proud of again, vote Geddings in 2028. Thank you, and God bless America!