You heard it here first folks, my future plans are as follows...

I've recently become quite interested in the political process, trying hard to get myself more informed on issues and establish my own thoughts and opinions. I spent most of my life ignoring it all, completely uninterested in all of it. As I get older, I realize how governmental decisions will affect my life, as well as my families. This recent interest in politics has got me wondering what I would do if I were president. What changes would I make, who would I surround myself with? The following is a list of 3 "issues" I would deal with during my presidency.

1. Change cable to a pay per channel system. Currently, at our house, we have damn near 300 channels. Necessary, no, we watch about 15 of them. I would advocate for a pay per channel system, where each channel would cost $5.00 per month. If you only want to have CBS and FOX, you only pay $10 per month. You only pay for what you want, not for a ton of channels you will never watch. This would guarantee viewership, presumably increasing ratings, which would be a good situation for not only the individual channels, but also for advertisers. You would know exactly how big of an audience you have at your disposal. This too will loosen the budgets of people all across this fine nation, giving everyone a little more money per month to dump back into the economy. Winners all around.

2. Working with the FDA, I would eliminate corn subsidies, and encourage more organically grown and farm raised products. Corn subsidies have lowered the cost of corn so low that companies are fiscally encouraged to use the super unhealthy high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which has a direct link to our collective growing waistlines. HFCS is used in an increasing number of snack foods, as well as many other processed foods. I would like to see us, as a nation, move away from highly processed foods and move toward a more natural menu. Think about it, the less genetically altered foods and chemicals we put into our bodies, the better our overall health will be. I'll put it this way, if instead of having a candy bar we snacked on an organically grown carrot, we would be taking much better care of our bodies, and our overall health care costs would go down.

3. I would legalize marijuana. Now, before you say anything, it's not for any of the reasons you are immediately thinking. As I wrote in a previous blog, California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano has proposed a bill to tax and regulate legal marijuana, which he says would generate $1 billion in revenue for the state's upside down budget. Now think about that being done nationwide. Sounds to me like a pretty fast and easy way to balance some out of whack budgets, and there is no need to raise property taxes, or charge higher road tolls. I would suggest that retailers can set their own rates, as with most every product, but I would charge a 10% tax on each marijuana purchase. This would be a huge boost to state economies, getting many out of the red. And let's be honest, people are smoking marijuana whether it is legal or not, and more people die from smoking tobacco then pot, so where is the problem here?


Now, obviously, these aren't issues of the same magnitude as health care reform, but I feel like they are all items that can help the American public. Lowering monthly bills, more affordable organic foods and avoiding raising taxes, I think these are something we can all agree on. I'm just saying...