Emanuel signs the Contract for American Renewal

I was delighted to have the opportunity to sign the Contract for American Renewal (CFAR) on January 4, 2024 as independent candidate for president of the United States.

CFAR offers a brave vision for a new politics in America that is about the citizens, about a nation state that conforms with the Constitution and human decency. I join twenty-six other candidates for office in the United States, and I am the first candidate for president to sign the CFAR contract.

I have added a few comments after each article of the contract that I signed so as to explain in greater detail my position.

CONTRACT FOR AMERICAN RENEWAL (CFAR 2024)

Independent Candidate for President of the United States

I, Emanuel Pastreich, if elected as President of the United States, hereby commit to support and sign into law legislation for all of the following:

·       Minimum Wage: Immediately raising the minimum wage to $20.00 per hour.

There are several critical issues that need to be addressed when setting an arbitrary figure for a minimum wage. We must not assume that system needs some tinkering, rather than fundamental change. For example, that dependency on a money economy is itself the root of many social problems and that true liberty will come through the establishment of local barter economies and local currencies controlled by the people—that process is related to discussion of a minimum wage.

Specifically, as president I will focus on establishing equality in terms of assets, rather than just wages. The greatest crime in America has been taxation of wages, rather than of assets. If we taxed on the basis of assets, most people would pay nothing, whereas the great fortunes of billionaires (obtained through fraud) would be cut down to size.

We must also consider the issue of inflation, a result of the billionaires printing up money for their use through the Federal Reserve. It would seem better to focus on making sure all citizens have equivalent assets. That is best achieved by confiscating the money stolen by the rich through frauds quantative easing, covid relief, and the purchase of stocks and bonds with the people’s money. Most likely we are talking about more than 30 trillion dollars.   

We have to also consider how that minimum wage is set, and by whom. It will be critical to have fair distribution within all organizations so that the CEO, or the owner, cannot earn more than 15 times the amount earned by the lowest paid employee, or similar such agreements.

·       Health Care: Instituting Medicare-For-All, single-payer health insurance; paid family and medical leave; coverage for dental, eye and hearing; lowering prescription drug prices; guaranteeing universal, high-quality health care.

I support such a commitment to health care. At the same time, we must cut the profit part out of the medical industry. Otherwise, the corporate owners will keep raising prices to assure profits. The gameplan for jacking up medical prices is worked out by banks, after all, not by doctors.

We must also recognize that much medical care is unhealthy and unnecessary-and that the expense of medicine is intentionally inflated. Simple cures by herbs, diet, or exercise are ignored and overpriced drugs pushed. The entire system has to be remade.

Finally, saying we will pay for medical care leaves out the critical question of who will pay. If the government pays for medical, it means that we will print up money—which devalues that money citizens have already.

The only way to do so is to take the assets from those who have immorally and illegally created this health nightmare for their own benefit. I could say quite specifically who we are talking about.

·       Job Guarantees: Trade policy and labor reform guaranteeing a full-time job, paying a livable wage and providing adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security, for every person who wants to work.

It is critical that any job guarantees be linked to an open discussion about who creates the jobs and who funds them. There are several approaches to the problem of jobs, but unless we have a concrete plan for the redistribution of wealth, these plans will fall apart. After all, most people would rather borrow money from the bank and start their own business than get a job at a corporation—but banks are rigged up so they will not give money at low-interest to anyone but multinational corporations.

Fortunately, the super-rich have engaged in so many illegal and unconstitutional activities (unconstitutional actions are felonies) that we are entirely justified in seizing their assets in accord with the law and the Constitution, as would happen to us if we stole money. If, however, we have a government pay to supplement these salaries, a government that relies on the taxes of workers for funding, and that allows the rich to hide their money offshore, then we will just have inflation from the printing of money and higher taxes eating away any rise in salaries.

·       Environment: Implementing bold measures to address climate change and protect the environment from human-caused degradation, pollution, deforestation,  desertification.

I fully support the very strongest measures, but I also demand that we shift the definition of progress so as to make the environment part of the calculus for defining a healthy economy. We must stop assuming that growth and consumption are positives, we must end the Federal Reserve run by private banks, we must radically shrink the stock, bond and derivatives markets so that they are primarily a means for local groups to raise funds for projects and are not a means for billionaires to make up money through speculation. A properly defined economy is the first step towards solving the climate crisis.   

·       Getting Big Money Out of Politics: Overturning Citizens United and related judicial decisions and immediately initiating comprehensive campaign finance reform banning big money in politics, especially targeting “dark money” and corporate contributions.

Although I agree that we must overturn Citizens United, and take concrete steps to ban money in politics, I think that we must also have an investigation into how such decisions were made by courts in the past and overturn these and other decisions on the basis that they were the result of bribery and other forms of corruption. Specifically, we need to investigate judges like Clarance Thomas who were bought and paid for and take concrete action by 1) impeaching them and jailing them for their crimes; 2) overturning the rulings that they oversaw and fining those involved in the manipulation. Moreover, even if accepted as normal today, lobbying is bribery and must be treated as so by the Justice Department immediately, and also retroactively.

·       Expanding Social Security: Making no reductions of current benefits or raising the eligibility age; expanding social security by increasing or eliminating the cap on taxable income; increasing benefits by at least 10% for all eligible recipients.

I support this position, while admitting that Social Security reform will be problematic.  We have a choice of trying to prop up a broken system that still serves some purpose, or embracing a revolutionary position in which we assume that we not only have the government supply assistance, but we end the privatization of government that eats away at that assistance, and reduce the cost of living resulting from the privatization of services and the concentration of economic control in the hands of a small group of banks.

·       Reducing Military Budget: Ending the undeclared wars and unnecessary military exploits across the globe, except where absolutely required to protect the safety of American citizens, and to defend the nation from overt, verifiable aggression.

Reducing the military budget is an obvious goal of my campaign. However, I hold that reducing the military budget requires first 1) a move away from an economic model focused on growth, extraction, and consumption that encourages war as a form of economic stimulus, 2) move away from our dependency on global trade and global systems of finance that demand massive militaries, and 3) undertake a radical restructuring of the concept of “security” so that it addresses the environment, economic security, the concentration of wealth, and the war of the rich to make commoners into idiots.

·       Tuition Free College: Making tuition free at public colleges and universities throughout America.

Although I feel that college should be tuition free, I also demand that we change the very concept of college. Many youth are compelled to attend college for courses that indoctrinate in neo-liberal ideology more than they teach because graduating from college is required for employment (and they need employment because banks will not finance ordinary citizens, only corporations).

There are alternative approaches that allow people to learn throughout their lives without forcing them into a system that demands a ritual degree. We must ask the more fundamental question of how citizens are educated and for what purpose. Much of education today has nothing to do with either learning the truth, or acting in a moral manner—and is therefore not education at all.

·       Fair Individual Tax Policies: Instituting fair tax policies to relieve the onerous tax burden now borne by the middle and lower classes; closing tax loopholes, especially targeting tax avoidance using offshore tax havens; introducing appropriate parallel increases to capital gains tax rates.

The closing of taxes loopholes is critical, but can we really do so without some fundamental actions such as 1) abolishing the legal system that makes corporations and trusts into entities behind which the rich can hide their assets and 2) ending ability of corporations to establish legal entities offshore that pay no taxes, or very little, while treating them as American.  

Abolishing overseas trusts and funds and severely limiting the use of the legal entity the corporation so as to make the relationship between individuals and assets transparent must accompany these efforts.

If we seize all the money that was stolen from the Pentagon, and from the Federal Reserve, by these rich families who hide behind trusts, most working Americans could have a tax holiday for a few years. Moreover, the manipulation of money by private banks so as to cause inflation is a form of taxation and it must be discussed at the same time that we discuss other explicit taxes.

·       Fair Corporate Tax Policies:  Eliminating tax loopholes, unnecessary tax credits and corporate subsidies, and barring use of corporate funds to lobby Congress; requiring corporations to contribute their fair share to federal revenue needs.

·       Electoral System Reform: Reforming our entire electoral system making voting easier and more accessible, and a more effective mechanism for realizing the will of the citizenry, including but not limited to: requiring valid voter ID; making election day an official holiday; amending the Constitution such that the President is elected by popular vote; permitting same day registration; extending the reach of early voting and ballot by mail; standardizing procedures on a national level for determining electoral outcomes, instituting fully transparent mechanisms for recording, collecting, storing, counting, and recounting votes.

As a candidate for president who has been illegally blocked from participating in the electoral system, I fully support such reform.

I would add to this promise that we must end the domination of the election system by the Democratic and Republican parties which monopolize the collection of money, make policies to block third party candidates from running and otherwise promote an effective invisible dictatorship in which these two parties act as the literal government. But the Constitution makes no mention of these two political parties and they have no authority to play any role in the formulation or implementation of policy. Their role must be limited to discussions about issues among citizens.

In my role as President, I will publicly and in any and all conferences with members of Congress actively advocate for legislation which exclusively supports these measures.

I sign and will honor this as a binding commitment, my guarantee to serve the interests of the citizens of this country, should they choose me as their President.

I sign this agreement voluntarily and with a full appreciation of all its obligations and responsibilities, and a clear understanding of its requirements and implications.

Signed: ___Emanuel Pastreich________________

Date: ___January 4, 2024________________