We Can Do Better and Must

We are now more than forty-eight hours after the inauguration of Barack Obama. Putting aside the pending lawsuits questioning the legitimacy of this Presidency, we can already begin to assess the direction of this new Administration.

Certainly good things have been done. It is all to the good that ethics processes are being strengthened and clarified. It is great that the unconstitutional trials of certain individuals held at Guantanamo are being delayed.

What is troubling some people at this point is there seems to be no clear plan as to how to deal with the national financial and economic crisis. I will say swiftly that what is being proposed will not work. We don't need more money going to already bankrupt financial institutions. As others have said and I have written many times, these institutions must be put under bankruptcy protection. This is what happens to ordinary citizens and all institutions which cannot pay their bills.

Likewise, the Federal Reserve is unable to carry out its function. The Federal Reserve System must be replaced by something like a national bank. This national bank will not replace the local private banks but will assist them in stabilizing their assets and protecting account-holders.

Next, home-owners must be protected from eviction through appropriate and effective programs.

Then, immediate efforts to create jobs must be undertaken along the lines of the Works Progress Administration of the FDR Administration. Along with this, it must become established national policy to protect American jobs through appropriate tariffs as enunciated and explained by Henry Clay in his famous Senate speech of the nineteenth century.

In energy, safe nuclear power should be re-examined and new plants built as soon as feasible.

In transportation, the automobile industry should be in large measure converted to other useful manufacturing purposes according to the activities outlined above. Then, modes of mass transit must be modernized, built, and properly maintained.

This is the program we need. Let us be about the business of adopting it.


(Note: These are not my original ideas, needless to say. Many experts have proposed these kinds of measures.)