The Editors would like to congratulate President Obama, and the American People, on his reelection.

We see that President Obama is an intelligent and thoughtful person who looks at the evidence before making a decision.  He is able to take risks and has thus far show good judgment, leadership, self-confidence, and humility.  As has been pointed out on the campaign trail, “bin Laden is dead and GM is alive.”

While we disagree with the President on certain issues, we hope he is successful, because when the President is not successful, then America is not successful.

Where do we disagree with the President? Energy, the Economy, and Health Care, what we call the “Bio-Humano-Sphere”.

We think we should be moving more aggressively into the efficient use of renewable and sustainable energy, and away from fuel – and waste – based systems. We experienced, in 2011 and 2012 two incredibly large storms, Irene and Sandy. Both reached from the Carolinas to New England. Sandy brought power outages from North Carolina to Maine, west to Ohio, and north to Canada and flooding in New York and New Jersey that will cost hundreds of billions to repair.

This is an effect of 392 ppm atmospheric carbon dioxide.  The storms will only get worse until and unless we move aggressively to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere. The President needs to listen more to Bill McKibben, Al Gore, and others, including ourselves, who can speak authoritatively on energy policy and the long and short term effects of our decisions and actions on our planet.

Our energy infrastructure should be

• 100 gigawatts of offshore wind,
• 100 gigawatts of land based wind,
• 100 gigawatts of photovoltaic solar,
• 100 gigawatts of hydro,
• 100 gigawatts, or the equivalent of geothermal,
• 200 gigawatts, or the equivalent, of insulation and other efficiency retrofits,
• tied together with a “Smart” grid
• 14  million barrels per day of bio-fuel from agriculture and waste rather than 18.7 million barrels per day of petrochemicals from fossil sources.

We are proud and enthusiastic supporters of President Obama’s actions to save the US Automobile industry and regulate the financial industry, we think he should have gone further. We would have liked to see President Obama appoint Senator-Elect Elizabeth Warren to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (but were happy to see her win the US Senate race in Massachusetts and hope to see her in a leadership role in the Banking Committee). However, we think the stimulus should have been bigger and there should have been greater protections against foreclosures and other alleged abuses by the banks and restrictions on the bailouts of the financial industry (which were, to be fair, initiated under President Bush).

Regarding taxes, we would like to see

• Federal Income taxes remain constant on people making less that $250,000 per year.
• The ceiling lifted on Social Security taxes (which would raise taxes on people making more than $110,000 per year and the overall Social Security tax rate lowered because the Social Security funds are expected to be solvent until 2033.
• The Medicare tax rate increased to expand the Medicare program to cover all citizens via conversion of the Veterans Health Administration into a “Citizens Health Administration.”
• The capital gains tax rate increase to parity with the wages, salaries and tips rate.

The tax rate raised to

• 40% on income over $250,000
• 45% on income between $1.0 million and $10 Million
• 55% on all income over $10 Million per year.

Grover Norquist won’t like this. But Grover Norquist is a is not the President, nor is he an elected Member of the House. He is simply a lobbyist.

We also think that the citizens of the United States would be better served if the Veterans Health Administration was transformed into a Citizens Health Administration and if Medicare was expanded to cover all Americans. Obamacare has merits, but Medicare for All, via the VHA or this “CHA” would be better.

We would like to see the President, and the United States, engage with the Israelis and the Palestinians, and the Iranians. We also look forward to welcoming Bob Levinson home. We are confident that President Obama act in a manner that will advance the interests of the United States and the interests of our allies, including Israel and Turkey. We are guardedly optimistic about the democracy movement sweeping the Arab countries in the Middle East, and expect to see the regime of President Bashar Assad of Syria fall.

While we disagree with the President on certain issues, we draw a distinction between criticizing a decision and questioning the President’s judgement on one hand and on the other hand hoping the President fails; a wish expressed by Rush Limbaugh, before President Obama’s Inauguration in January, 2009 and Senator Mitch McConnell. When the President fails, America fails. If various Senators work hard to make the President a “One Term President” they are serving their campaign contributors, not their constituents (which seems to violate their oath of office). As patriotic Americans, we want the President to succeed so America can succeed.

(Note that we began this post while watching the results on November 6, 2012. However, the Hurricane interrupted our posting schedule.)