President Trump is the most colorful, content-rich candidate of all time.  I mean, how many presidential candidates in history have called those in the military who gave their lives “losers” and “suckers?”  President Trump gave 18 interviews to reporter Bob Woodward and told him that he knew how bad the coronavirus was but kept it from the American people because he did not want to create a panic and instead told the American public at a news briefing on April 3^rd that “It is going to go away. It is going away. … I said it’s going away, and it is going away.”  On April 20^th once again President Trump said that the virus would go away like magic.  The “You Would Not Believe He Said This” file for Donald Trump is overflowing.  

Joe Biden can’t compete with the political reality show that Donald Trump puts on every single day.  Because Trump continues to shoot himself in the foot, Biden is running a low- risk campaign and is content to stay ahead in the polls and watch Donald Trump dominate the headlines.   

Meanwhile, back in Realityville, the American people are denied a debate of the most important issues in the land because the presidential campaign is being turned into a circus.  Whether you are a Republican, a Democrat or an Independent, if you had a choice between a circus of lies and name calling or a real debate on the most important issues we face, I am guessing that you would opt for a real debate.  

In the absence of a serious campaign, I thought I would give you Five Serious Issues with Simple Bipartisan Solutions that people of any political persuasion should care about: 

1. Upgrade our nation’s infrastructure system, which is rated a D+ by the American Society of Civil Engineers.  Let’s set a simple goal of rebuilding America with the BEST transportation system in the world by 2030. Pay for it by raising the federal gas tax to $1 a gallon and put millions of Americans to work in good-paying construction jobs.
2. Cut defense spending.  We spend $704.6 billion a year on defense, more than the next eight nations combined.  We make up 4.3% of the world’s population and we spend 35.6% of the world’s defense dollars.  We should all be concerned with our national debt that has ballooned to $26.7 trillion this year.  We simply cannot afford to continue spending at our current levels.   
3. Get rid of government unions.  Pay government employees well and provide great benefits but get rid of the unions.  If you cannot fire poorly performing employees, we will never provide the citizens a high-performance government.  Never.  President Franklin Roosevelt warned against the power of public unions and today, a federal employee’s chances of dying on the job are higher than those of getting fired.  Do you want meaningful reform of police departments across the nation?  Forget it, as long as government unions exist.   
4. Increase opportunity in America.  Our middle class is shrinking, and 12% of our population lives in poverty.  Many Americans feel that the deck is stacked against them and the American dream no longer exists.  We have 13 million children in poverty, who are there through no fault of their own. Let’s provide these kids with the Every Kid Has a Chance program where they would receive three meals a day, free health care until the age of 22, and a free education until the age of 22.  Let’s invest in our kids at an early age to give them a shot at the American Dream and turn them into productive, taxpaying citizens of the future instead of having no hope, becoming addicted to government programs, and having a high probability of ending up in jail.  Let’s do something politicians hate to do, and that is: Actually pay for the program. We can accomplish that by scrapping the cap on how much of our income is subject to the Social Security tax, and having wealthy Americans help those who are less fortunate. 
5. Let’s get healthy! The average American today is 30 pounds heavier than the average American was in 1960. We are eating ourselves to death and bankrupting the country at the same time.  Our health care system is the most expensive in the world and we are getting the worst results.  It would be like the Milwaukee Bucks spending twice as much as any other NBA team, and finishing dead last every single year for 20 years, and continuing to do the same thing.  Just like with smoking in the 1960s, let’s direct the government to take the lead to significantly improve the health of the American people. Publish the calorie count on every menu item and enact a soda tax. Offer a free health risk assessment for all citizens, and let’s publish the results county by county, state by state.  Let us have a national competition to become healthy!!! 

These five Simple Solutions would help to rebuild America, improve our financial strength, provide a high-performance government, increase opportunity to those who have little hope, and significantly improve the health of the American people.  It is time that we demanded more from our politicians and asked for a serious discussion of the real challenges we face as a nation.