If Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner thinks the Obama Administration's and Democrats' agenda for this nation is infuriating, wait until he encounters the following proposed agendas.CMN News, an independent radio show that can be heard live on "Talk Shoe" every Saturday at 3 pm ET, recently had its host and panel participant give their "Top Ten Priorities Lists for America."

::::::::

House Minority Leader John Boehner says "no" (to pretty much everything) by Kevin Gosztola

If Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner thinks the Obama Administration's and Democrats' agenda for this nation is infuriating, wait until he encounters the following proposed agendas.

CMN News, an independent radio show that can be heard live on "Talk Shoe" every Saturday at 3 pm ET, recently had its host and panel participant give their "Top Ten Priorities Lists for America." Understanding that often radio focuses on railing against the latest problems and controversies in politics, this was an effort to put forth something constructive. So, here they are.

TOP TEN PRIORITIES FOR AMERICA LIST - CMN News Host Chris Novembrino

#10 Regain Economic Upperhand on China

Tariffs, etc. Whatever it takes. They've been undervaluing their currency against us. And there is an economic cold war going on between us and China and they want to win.

#9 National Alternative Energy Initiative

Wind, solar, etc. We need to get off our antiquated energy system in this country. Our grid's getting old. We have water pipes that are heinously outdated. Our energy, our resources we've fallen terribly behind on them. This includes our automotive industry. We need gasoline, for sure. We need diesel though primarily for tractor trailers, eighteen wheelers that are doing all the transport and heavy lifting. And, I would end all commercial airlines. This would also open up more gas for those eighteen wheelers. We need eighteen wheelers for the moment especially until we can phase out. But, do we need a commercial personal fleet of vehicles that's driven on gasoline? No, but we're not going to get there without state intervention and that's why we need a national alternative energy initiative.

#8 Secure the Border

We need to do it especially if we're going to couple this with a withdrawal. We've had the capabilities to do this for years. And we have the capabilities to have a secure border and not be spending all this money and to have a national defense that is strictly --- and this is important --- national. This doesn't mean get rid of intelligence programs on other countries. We need to know what other countries are doing. But, we don't need to have a military footprint in these countries. We don't need to have 50,000 troops hanging out in Iraq afterwards.

#7 End the Wars

Bring our troops home. All of them. Now you may ask, how will we stay safe? See #8.

#6 Strong Regulation of the Financial Investment Sector and Wall Street

This includes derivatives, etc. coupled with the establishment of a strong and meaningful financial service transaction tax. And, raise the capital gains tax to about 35%. The revenue generated from this should go to pay down the national debt.

Among the first proponents of a financial transactions tax was my favorite economist, John Maynard Keynes, who first proposed this in 1936. He proposed that a small transactions tax should be levied on the dealings on Wall Street in the United States where he argued that excessive speculation by uninformed financial traders increased volatility. For Keynes, the key issue was the proportion of speculators in the market and was concerned if left unchecked these players would become too dominant. Keynes wrote, "speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But, the situation is too serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation."

We have this in our system now and we need to get it under control. Wall Street is way, way, way too loose. And the reason you don't hear about it more on the media is because they own the place.

#5 End the Districting for the House

Go to strict proportional representation. I understand that this has some pluses and minuses but I also view districting as having some pluses and minuses cause you've got gerrymandering that goes on right now. I think it'd be better if you actually had proportional representation in the House. And you need those legislators there because we need people who can draft up legislation. And with 435 people, I think that can still get done especially with their team and their staff.

#4 Electoral Reform

Make election day a paid national holiday. Everyone will be encouraged to go out and vote and your job can't keep you there. Polls will be open from like 9 to 9. I want people to get out and vote. This matters. The election of representatives will now be annual. For people who were disenfranchised with the health care debate and didn't feel like it was going how you wanted, wouldn't you have liked an election in November? That probably would have straightened out your representative. Election of the president every two years. And, I got rid of the Senate so no need to worry about senators.

#3 Campaign Finance Reform

This involves public financing of campaigns. End all private donations. This needs to be run through the state and through our taxpayer dollars. There's public support behind this. People want to get on board with this. And also, there should be the establishment of a campaign season. This is important because we have to curtail costs but also politicians are spending way too much time these days campaigning for stuff instead of actually doing real policy. There needs to be less breaks too. Perhaps a six week campaign season and perhaps a month break annually.

#2 Speed Up the Legislative Process

This involves, for me, ending the Senate. There's a lot of debate about the 17^th Amendment, ending the filibuster. I'd like to resolve that all real quickly by just ending the Senate. I don't feel it represents the population. I don't feel it represents the people. It gives small states heavy leverage over big states where there are millions millions millions more people. In Alaska, there's 500,000. In Texas, there's ten million. Both have two senators. This is a disproportion that needs to end.

We also need to end the electoral college. This disenfranchises the popular vote. And, it was originally conceived in my opinion because it wasn't technologically feasible to have a popular vote. Also, the Founding Fathers were concerned about the intellectual capacity of a populist who couldn't read---and that's something valid. However, thanks to public education, we now have that ability. And also thanks to being the global hegemon, we have the ability to have an education system that needs a lot of work but still has Americans substantially more literate than they were in 1776 or 1787.

#1 Rebuilding and Restructuring the Service-Based Economy to Be Something More Manufacturing Based

Whatever it takes; this is includes heavy state intervention. I'm pretty much open to all suggestions. In a geo-economic world, we're not competing well and we have a model that's outdated. Other countries are using more state intervention. We're not. And we're falling behind. We're not--we're quickly losing our foothold as the global hegemony, economically. I don't care about the military aspect but I think the economic one is something that the ramifications of losing are lost on the average person.

[Chris answered questions on his Top Ten Priorities List. Click on this link to hear Chris repeat his Top Ten Priorities List and field questions on why he designated these items as his Top Ten.]

TOP TEN PRIORITIES LIST FOR AMERICA - CMN Senior News Analyst Kevin Gosztola

#10 Adopt Fair Trade Standards

We really need to reverse the trends, the effect that NAFTA and the WTO have caused--the way those things have contributed to the immigration problem in the country, the way that certain free trade standards have turned countries into devastated impoverished areas and sent people fleeing and turned many people into economic refugees. I think we need to change the way that we operate and trade.

#9 Repeal the PATRIOT Act and All of Its Expansions

I would do this not only because I would like to see all civil liberties restored for Americans but I would also like to cut the waste and shrink some of the agencies and sell some of the buildings and end some of the contracts that have risen up as part of this "Top Secret America" that Washington Post reporters Dana Priest and William Arking took a look at. They detailed how a lot of these national security agencies and a lot of these organizations have become entrenched in our system and they are doing a lot of things with national security information and exchanging it and it may not be good for security but it's also wasteful. It's taking a lot of money that could be used for other things instead of fighting the war on terror.

#8 Repeal the Anti-Union Taft- Hartley Act

The Taft-Hartley Act, which is an older law that was put in place when there was this fervor against unions that was rising up in the early 1900s. And, it basically gave employers the right to bust unions and deny workers their right to collectively bargain. It is essential that we reaffirm the rights of unions in this country and maybe even go as far as to give workers opportunities to turn businesses and factories into places where they can have workers' councils and they can have some kind of voice in the way that the place that they work for is organized.

#7 Establish a System of Single-Payer Healthcare

I think that the tradition of progress is such that eventually you will see this nation get to the point where it will need and where politically a single-payer system will be created. The country will change the way that Medicare is limited and government will expand it to cover all Americans because that is the system that will save money and that is the system that will actually work better than the for-profit healthcare system we have right now.

#6 Cut the Bloated Military Budget

I would do this to better fund the human needs of Americans, to put it toward other things like social programs and reinvigorate the social safety net that is really necessary for people in this country. You have to pull it from somewhere. And the military is taking up about 57% of the budget when you actually run the numbers. That's how much it is. We need to decrease the amount of war that we are exporting to other countries so I would reduce this.

#5 Withdraw from Wars in Middle East

In Afghanistan, I would have us actually ending the wars. In Iraq, I would have us reversing our Middle East Policy. And, we would be doing this not because we want the people of Afghanistan to have some kind of fate where they are brought under the rule of some brutal dictator because there are no longer American troops to defend them but because we believe that the people of Afghanistan and also Iraq can't actually be free, can't actually rebuild their country, can't actually take control of their future until they are able to have self-determination and have the right to take on corrupt regimes like Hamid Karzai on their own. And, our presence actually has an impact on the resistance to corrupt regimes like Hamid Karzai's. By our military's being in these countries, they don't really get to rebuild and reform because the situation is made worse.

#4 - Close the Prisons at Bagram and Guantanamo

We should not be a country who has prisons that are putting people in there indefinitely. The U.S. should be a supporter of human rights. These prisons are radicalizing Muslims in the world. They are giving a lot of credence and giving a lot of reason for Islamic people to take actions--acts of terrorism. Do I think closing those two prisons and any other prisons similar to them would actually be this golden thing that would make it so there were no longer terrorist activities? No. But I do think there would be a significant reduction. And, I do think there would be a significant reduction of terrorism if we were withdrawing from Middle East countries that we are fighting in.

#3 Increase Investment in Clean Energy Technologies

To address the impact of global warming, we would increase our investment in clean energy technologies--solar energy first. Investments in wind energy. We'd be combating the growing impact of global warming and we'd also be putting Americans to work, giving them green jobs. We could have some kind of a Workers' Green Administration, which would be similar to the WPA program FDR had. We could get the country off its fossil fuel addiction. The way that you get off fossil fuels and offshore drilling is that you have a way that you can meet the country's energy needs and that would be through investing in clean energy technologies.

#2 Campaign Finance Reform

We need to affirm that money is not speech and we need to set limits on contributions and expenditures during an election. We're not a nation of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations. It's for the people---of the people, by the people, for the people.

#1 Abolish Corporate Personhood

We would end the way that corporations are able to exert influence over politics and thwart democratic laws. And there are many groups that are out there working on this and they are trying to get local initiatives taken. People are writing local ordinances and they are passing them in city councils and they are trying to at least protect their areas from corporate power. Whether it is effective or not, I do think it is an agenda they need to take.

There's a reason why I put this at number one because I do think that overall the supreme barrier that most people come to as they are trying to effect any kind of change in this country as an activist (and I can say this from having two to three years experience talking to people on issues and trying to engage in actions and sign petitions and trying to elect candidates who are actually going to do something)---Every, every single time you hear about how corporations are controlling and influencing the debate, setting the agenda, determining what's possible, what's politically possible, saying what we can and cannot do. And, it just got worse with Citizens United v. FEC and what that decision meant for the way money could be free speech. And there needs to be action--possibly moving to amend the Constitution so that you can control the way that corporations are influencing our democracy.

[Kevin answered questions on his Top Ten Priorities List. Click on this link to hear Kevin repeat his Top Ten Priorities List and field questions on why he designated these items as his Top Ten.]

If you would like to submit a Top Ten Priorities List for America to CMN News to be read on air by you or by one of the hosts or news analyst associated with the show, send your list to chrisnovembrino@gmail.com.

Be sure to post your list in the comments section. Let's have a conversation about what we could do to go on the offensive and not always be on the defensive against Republicans and other right-wing elements of this country that often seem committed to obstructing progress in this nation.

Listen to CMN News every Saturday at 3 pm ET for a live weekly Saturday News Panel (that you can call in to and make comments and ask questions if you like). Future panel shows will continue the conversation on taking care of these priorities.

Authors Bio:
Kevin Gosztola is managing editor of Shadowproof Press. He also produces and co-hosts the weekly podcast, "Unauthorized Disclosure." He was an editor for OpEdNews.com