Doug Gray (@DougGray)

This isn't real. I've got no intention of running for President. I'm too old. I'm too ugly. And I'm too tired. But if I did, this is what I might say. And by the way, it's long, so if reading isn't your thing, you may want to give it a pass. My fellow Americans, and I use that term loosely. Before I stand up here and lie to you with broken promises of what I’ll do for you as your next President, allow me to do something that’s never been done in the history of American politics. I’m going to tell you the truth. The cold, hard truth. Many of you don’t want to hear the truth because you obviously find comfort in the lies you’ve been told since the day you were born by a host of Republicans and Democrats who never quite came through on their promises. But guess what? Their lives became remarkably better. They got richer. Their big donors got richer. And our veterans continue to commit suicide at an alarming rate, and those who survive do so in the dark alleys of our most populous cities. And you still think we can vote our way back to righteousness. You’ll let some well meaning schmuck stand up here and fill your head with promises. You’ll go vote for him. You’ll elect him. Then you’ll find out just how much power he DOESN’T have to make your life better. And there’s always someone else to blame. That’s politics, folks. And you should be sick of it. Ladies and gentlemen, you’ve been lied to. Your government does not care about you. If they did, I wouldn’t be standing in front of you right now telling you the truth. There would be no need for me or anyone like me. If your government cared about you, you wouldn’t be in a taxation stranglehold as we speak. You wouldn’t be worried about the cost of fuel, or groceries, or child care, or health care, or any number of other nerve racking burdens you face because they care so much about you. You wouldn’t be pressing 1 for English. You wouldn’t be locking your doors at night, or your cars during the day. Your children wouldn’t be reading at a third grade level in high school. Oh, they care about you alright. They care so much about you that they won’t hesitate to put you in prison if you can’t pay their extortion fees, otherwise known as income taxes, property taxes, state taxes, retail taxes, taxes to fish, taxes to hunt, and taxes to drive. Is there a single activity you do on a daily basis that isn’t taxed? Let me be perfectly clear. I’m the least important piece of this puzzle. I have very limited power to make promises of any kind. That power comes from the Congress. THIS is who you need to concentrate on. This is who you need to worry about. Without a sitting Congress who shares my goals, I’m just an empty suit. I’m just a politician. I’m the guy you expected to stand up here and lie to you like everyone who came before me. You give me a Congress who will help me, and in your wildest dreams, you’ll never see a more perfect union being formed before your eyes. Together, we will eradicate the scum that has formed in this town that grows like weeds over our entire political structure. The bureaucracy. The corruption. The waste. Downright theft. With the right people in place we can remove the activist judges, from the Justice of the Peace to the Supreme Court. We can outlaw political parties. There should be ONE political party in this country. Just point to the Constitution. I’ve got news for you. If you don’t love this country, then you need to start packing because you’ll no longer be welcome in a place you hate. We can outlaw lobbyists. No longer will corporations write policy based on how much they contributed to someone’s campaign. That’s another thing. Campaign reform. No more political action committees. No more corporate donors. Every American will be allowed to donate up to $1K to their chosen campaign. If you lose the election, you lose the money. If you win the election, you lose the money. All leftover campaign contributions will go to the Treasury Department. Every dollar tracked. Every dollar accounted for. By federal mandate, no person over the age of 60 will pay property tax, income tax, state tax, or any other tax, except for retail. If you buy something in a store. If you need service on your vehicle, your plumbing, your air conditioner, or any other situation where a technician provides a service. You’ll pay the appropriate tax for that. You won’t need a license to hunt or fish, and by the time you reach 60, you’ve paid for those roads and bridges. You’ll still be required to have a driver’s license if you choose to drive, but you’re no longer financially obligated to do so. As for healthcare, first let me make it clear the three groups we hold the most dear, our youth, our seniors, and our soldiers. No child, from birth until graduation from high school or college, providing you attend college full time within a year out of high school, until graduation, will be obligated to pay for healthcare. Most parents will cover their children under their family plan, but in the event that plan isn’t present or available, you’ll be covered until the age of 25, unless you are employed with a healthcare option. Once you reach your 60th birthday, unless you choose to continue working and you’ve got a healthcare plan at work, you’ll no longer pay for healthcare of any kind. Your government should be ashamed of themselves for setting retirement age so high that many people never reach the point where they can just breathe, and enjoy their retirement years without the burden of astronomical costs associated with staying alive. As for soldiers, from the day you enter basic training until the day you are discharged, you’ll pay no healthcare costs. If you’re a veteran who served a total of 6 months in a combat zone, or you were permanently injured within that 6 months in a combat zone, you will be fully covered until the day you die. All other veterans will be covered until they gain civilian employment. It will be up to the veteran to choose employment with a healthcare option. Otherwise, the best option may be to stay in the service until your 50th birthday. All veterans of military service who serve continuously until their 50th birthday, providing they have at least 25 years of total service, will pay no further healthcare costs until the day they die. The only exception is the veteran who is discharged with the intention of civilian employment, who can’t land a job with healthcare. He/she has one year from discharge to search for employment. If none is found, he/she may reenter the service and carry on with their cost free healthcare. I’m certain there may be exceptions to these rules. They will be addressed on a case by case basis, with emphasis placed in favor of the soldier whenever possible. Military service is voluntary folks, and we intend to take care of our soldiers using any means necessary, unlike the treatment they’ve received in the past. Regarding the healthcare industry, changes will occur. If you’re a healthcare worker who personally tends to the health of a patient in any capacity, you deserve to make a salary that’s proportionate to your role. If you’re the corporation in the healthcare industry, you won’t be getting filthy rich on the backs of sick patients any longer. The same goes for Big Pharma. You people sitting in your boardrooms, sipping on your lattes, planning your next exotic vacation, need to rethink your role in this industry. No disrespect, but until you work full time saving lives or discovering the cures for things that ail us, you have no right to reap the rewards of the people that do. This form of flagrant disrespect doesn’t apply to senior surgeons, working department heads, and those whose presence is required for keeping the machine operational. Fat cats sitting in corporate boardrooms, doing nothing constructive, and swimming in money from the backs of your workers need to take notice. The American worker is the most important cog in this wheel of capitalism. We’ll be taking an in depth look into the workings of the Stock Market and how it affects the average American worker. Corporate bloat in the upper floors of those tall buildings will be under a microscope. You won’t be forced to work after the age of 60, and the days of the greedy 70 year old boardroom stiffs draining the profits while the workers slave for embarrassing wages are coming to an end. No, this isn’t Socialism. Our economy will still function on a supply and demand basis. You’ll still compete for jobs. And if you own a company, you have every right to get rich. But Market Capitalism and the $50M bonuses for twiddling your thumbs 8 hours a day is NOT the intended outcome in a free enterprise system. There are entirely too many Chiefs and not enough Indians, and the pay gap between CEOs and the people who actually perform the work is ridiculous, IN SOME INDUSTRIES! Not all, but when it comes to keeping us sick with just enough medicine to keep us alive instead of curing what ails us, we’ve got some major problems. We’ve got problems when it comes to heating and cooling our homes. And providing the most important resource known to man, WATER, at a cost that doesn’t require a part time job to be able to afford. And insurance. Oh, let’s not forget about insurance. Highway robbery is the most appropriate phrase I can come up with at the moment. Between exorbitant taxes, basic utilities, insurance, and simply staying alive, not to mention the cost of housing and driving to work in your own vehicle, it’s a wonder ANYONE can make ends meet! Maybe, just maybe, all of this combined has something to do with the skyrocketing homeless population in this country. Did you see the movie Trading Places, starring Dan Ackroyd and Eddie Murphy? Take your average successful businessman, truck driver, teacher, cop, or a host of other professions, throw in a divorce, which is another major concern, and the loss of a job. It doesn’t take much to land on the streets with nowhere to go and nowhere to turn. Not all of us have a tight knit family to pick up our slack when we fall, and it’s like pulling teeth to get government assistance when you work for a living. Hell, it’s no wonder they turn to drugs and alcohol, and crime, and yes, even suicide. What kind of country lets their citizens fall so far? The one you’re living in right now, that’s what kind of country, the one that doesn’t give a damn about it’s own citizens. Politicians care about a few things, like VOTES, and POWER, and GETTING RE-ELECTED, and MORE POWER! They care more about importing voters, legal or illegal, if it will keep them in POWER. And the amount of money they pay for THAT is unbelievable! Take the fraud alone in the federal government, TRILLIONS are wasted year in and year out. We spend more money on foreign countries than we spend on our own citizens! Any combination of that waste would more than pay for all the stuff I’ve discussed so far! Bottom line. Don’t elect a President who’s willing to fix this stuff if you don’t give him the support he needs to get it done. Stop with the Democrat and Republican nonsense. There’s a reason there’s a tiny space between the majority and the minority in Congress ALL THE TIME. The powers that be maintain just enough wiggle room to pass the bills that favor the government and trash the bills that favor the people. Are you really surprised we don’t require IDs to vote? Do you think in all these years we haven’t found a cure for cancer? Can we really not find a way to get more than 35 miles to the gallon of fuel. Is there really not a battery out there that will power a flashlight more than 15 consecutive minutes? And why does every single so called earth shattering classified document released to the public by the government look like a page for testing black magic markers? Look, you’ve gone out on a limb. You elected a black man. You elected a businessman. You elected every smooth talking politician under the sun. There’s no doubt some of those men could have been a great President. But you had to deal with Democrats and Republicans in Congress who had no intention of letting them succeed. No, the power has always been hiding somewhere out of sight. The Deep State. The Establishment. Permanent Washington. Pick your poison. Until you put a Congress in place with a President to lead the charge, you’ll never see a better America than the one you almost saw under Donald Trump. Unfortunately, and fortunately at the same time for 47, he was the first. He was the pioneer. He put a huge crack in the door. With your help, and your promise to seat a Congress full of pit bulls, together we’ll kick that son of a bitch down! God Bless You And God Bless America