Jzyehoshua

I can't understand why anyone would be against universal health care. As Thomas Carlyle once said, "A great man shows his greatness in the way he treats little men." Likewise, a great nation shows its greatness in the way it treats its weakest and poorest.

If universal health care is at all feasible, of course we should make it a reality! Who would say that taking care of our nation's weakest and poorest is a bad thing?

However, the question of course is whether it would be feasible. We could provide at least a low level of health care to all citizens without killing our national budget. However, with our national deficit skyrocketing and our economy at risk of a recession, even that might prove the straw that broke the camel's back.

We need to fix the economy first, but I think once we do that we should definitely pursue a universal health care system.

To put it briefly, I think our economy could be fixed by 4 simple reforms:

1-Protect American jobs by exiting free trade pacts like NAFTA and the World Trade Organization. Set a tariff system based on the difference between our national minimum wage and the minimum wages of other countries, to create a level playing field for American companies. This way companies can't get away with outsourcing jobs and moving factories to places like China and Mexico where labor is cheaper.

2-Make American companies competitive by placing caps on how much CEO's and managers can be paid above the average worker. American companies Ford and GM are outsourcing labor with the excuse that they can't compete using higher-priced American workers, but Japanese company Toyota is creating more and more plants here in the U.S. and is prospering because they don't pay their management exorbitant sums of money.

3-Fix the housing crisis by enacting legislation that will protect American homeowners from fraudulent lending practices like ARM's and also require lenders to present info to buyers showing what each of the payment plans will cost as compared to the original price. Create a law where buyers paying 200% of any object's original cost instantly are credited as "Paid in Full". A profit of as much again as something costs should be satisfactory for any seller and they should not be able to drag out homeowners year after year on interest costs alone.

4-Reduce the major source of government spending: our military. Withdraw troops from both Iraq and Afghanistan, effective immediately. Withdraw them as fact as our economy can support them returning, and leave only a 5% contingent to guard to-be-created heavily defensive outposts near areas key to the securities of said countries, like oil fields, government offices, major schools and hospitals, etc. Focus on protecting our own borders and begin withdrawing troops stationed around the world.