Congress must soon find ways to legally neuter that wrong-minded decision. In the meantime I have instructed the IRS to work with Congress to formulate rules abolishing corporate deductions for purely political expenditures, retroactive to Feb 1, 2010. There is simply no socially or morally justifiable reason corporations and labor unions be allowed to harvest tax credits for purchasing legislation and legislators at taxpayer expense.
Furthermore, this new restriction, while in no way inhibiting the free speech rights of corporations and unions, will put company shareholders and union members on notice that their dividends/dues are being spent in ways that may not reflect their wishes or beliefs.
Let me now talk about re-framing homeland security in the 21st century.
Much has been said and written over the past decade about the many dangers we face, but little thought has been given to how those dangers differ from Cold War times. No longer is America faced by any genuine strategic threat, as we were when we were toe to toe with the nuclear-armed former Soviet Union. Today we face a very different enemy, an enemy that employs the asymmetric threat, like the hit and run terror tactics of al Qaeda and similar groups.
Nevertheless, in the wake of the tragic attacks of 9-11 the previous administration framed these new enemies in the same existential and apocalyptic way we had previously viewed the former Soviet Union. Generals are often accused of "fighting the last war." In this case it wasn't the generals, but their civilian leaders, still steeped in Cold War thinking, who fought the last war.
That has proven to have been a fundamental, tragic and expensive mistake. Rather than reducing threats from abroad, our occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our extra-judicial handling of prisoners from that region, have served only to foment more hatred of America and deeper distrust of our intentions in the region. In short, rather than reducing terrorist threats from that region, these outdated tactics have increased those threats as well as increasing terrorist ranks.
That is not to say terrorists don't threaten Americans, they do. But, while terrorist tactics pose a serious threat to public safety, what they don't pose is a strategic threat to America . In other words, there is no way al Qaeda can "defeat" America, in military terms, or "takeover America." All they can do is threaten public safety as a way to scare to terrorize us. And when we allow them to scare us into doing things generations of Americans have rejected and our laws and constitution explicitly prohibits, we hand terrorists victories. In reaction to the 9-11 attacks, our deepest fears were exploited to justify spying on entirely innocent Americans, creating secret gulags, torture, imprisonment without representation and even possibly the summary executions of prisoners in American hands.
We must reverse this mindset, not just because it's been ineffective and counter productive, but because it's as un-American as anything since the nation sanctioned slavery and segregation. It's time to engage the American public in an adult conversation about these new, asymmetric threats. First of all terrorists and terrorism will be with us just as hurricanes and earthquakes will always be a threats. That's just a fact. Of course we must react to these threats, but not by soiling our constitution, or ignoring our laws or international law. Not by destroying the very America we claim to be trying to protect.
So, nation-states that harbor and/or finance groups or individuals who threaten America and Americans, will be aggressively sealed off from the civilized world. At first this will be done with aggressive financial and political sanctions. But if that fails I will authorize surgical military action against such rogue states.
If sanctions fail to change their behavior I will expand our use of armed drones and highly skilled special forces to eliminate any immediate threats. And yes, I will expand the role of civilian domestic and international law enforcement to further manage these threats.I already have done so in Pakistan and will do so without hesitation when justified in the future.
What I will not do is to continue sending tens of thousands of American men and women to fight in and occupy such those nations. I wish it were otherwise, but it's not. And continuing to the truth of that , sentence America to a 100-years of wasted lives and wasted treasure.
Therefore let me reiterate my decision to withdraw our forces from Afghanistan in one year and to speed up our withdrawal from Iraq. Neither of these two nations can or will stand on their own feet until it becomes clear to their leaders that America is no longer willing or financially able to continue propping them up.
Even if we wanted to, we can't continue propping up these troubled lands because, frankly, we're broke. And not just broke. I wish it were only that. We are not only broke, but we're in debt up to our collective necks. America and Americans are now treading in a sea of red ink. We owe trillions of dollars some of it to competing nations that wish us ill and others just itching to eat our lunch, like China. And if we don't get our fiscal house in order, and quickly, they'll do just that. For example, while China invests in it's civilian infrastructure, building a national network of high-speed trains, we can't seem to even be able to keep our aging passenger trains on their tracks. If the 20th Century was the American century, the 21st century could go down as Asian Chinese century, thanks entirely to our unsustainable burden of debt.
Which is why I am asking Congress to begin work immediately on legislation rolling back most of the Bush-era tax cuts for the top 1% of America's earners. Those folks prospered during the very time the vast American middle class saw their net earnings decline, their jobs disappear and their homes foreclosed upon -- by some of the very companies and individuals who prospered most under those tax policies. The time has come to re balance that equation.
I will propose that half the revenues gained from this change automatically flow to repay and reduce our national debt. Bill Clinton did this and, by the time he left office he had not only paid down the debt but left a surplus for his successor.
The other half of tax revenue raised by this change will used in its entirety to create jobs for working Americans. We will continue to incentivize the private sector to hire as well. But during such a deep recession it's unlikely that, even with generous government credits, the private sector can create the number of new jobs we need to jump-start the economy.
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