No matter who gets elected as the next US President, we hope that the President will keep an open mind to listen to the American people while sitting in the Oval Office. This election was distracted by too many negative smears which overshadowed many important issues. This letter discusses citizens’ views on some important issues in a form of an open letter to the next President of the U.S.
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This letter is written while the country is sitting on the edge about the Presidential election on November 8th. The two candidates are running such a close contest with different pollsters giving Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton each a lead of a few points over the other. The author of this column may have his own hunch but can’t be certain enough to make the prediction who will be the US President. One thing is pretty certain that the winner will be either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Hence this letter is addressed to both.
Dear Ms Clinton,
Since you have 30 years of political experience and you are proud of your career record serving our government, you would be running this country your way and the old way. In campaigning for the top job of this nation, you presented yourself as the best candidate for the Commander-in-Chief job. You said repeatedly in your campaign speeches, you knew what you were doing and you know how to continue the work of the past 8, 16 and 24 years to make the U.S. stronger and better. But from this citizen's point of view, our country has not been on a positive trajectory, we need some real changes, serious changes. So, if you became the next US President, I would not be hopeful that you would be a “Change’ President but I sincerely wish that you will pause and ponder what were the voices that disagreed with your campaign speeches, by at least reflecting on this letter on its entirety. The remainder of this letter is addressed to Mr. Trump on many issues you sure will face as the first woman President of the U.S.
Dear Mr. Trump,
You claim that you are not a politician; in many ways you are not but you do have some political senses that got you at least 50% of the popular support. However, as the President of the U.S., you must become a polished politician. Taking the Oval Office is very different from taking a Trump Tower Office, negotiation skills and acute financing capabilities are necessary but not sufficient to run the White House. We hope that with your smarts you will climb a fast learning curve and be humble to surround you with many capable people from all walks of life cross party line, since your cabinet must work in a non-partisan manner to make the U.S. great again. A new book, titled JFK and Reagan Revolution -A Secret History of American Prosperity, written by Lawrence Kudlow and Brian Domitrovic, is a good bedside book to read. It discusses how tax cuts, elimination of tax loopholes and bi-partisan support lead to economic growth and American prosperity – a goal you (and citizens) would like to achieve.
Mr. Trump, you have got a number of things right that attracted a solid support; that is impressive. However, this election was distracted by too many negative smears which overshadowed many important issues. Your debates and campaign speeches were not nearly as solid as the votes that you received. Therefore, we present you with our views on a number of issues which were scarcely covered by the media on your campaign trails.
(1) American Economy
You knew our economic ills, deteriorating manufacturing capability, dwindling challenging jobs, and a problematic economy, but neither the cause nor solution is a simple one. One cannot blame it all on free trade or NAFTA or cheap Chinese imports. Sure, trade negotiation must be done smartly for US benefits, but what kind of benefit and who gets it, do we know? When the U.S. economy was the world strongest, capital flew into our productive economy. The US currency remains as the most desired and sought after currency worldwide. When we misuse funds for nonproductive causes bloating our budget running up a huge debt year after year, things changed to create our economic ills. The government spent more on weapon development, military alliances and foreign wars and never made adequate investments in productivity enhancing infrastructure and human resources development. The government allowed our economy to become a hedge or bubble economy led by financial industry and used monetary policy, allowing the Fed to print and pump the market with greenbacks at a record speed never seen before, to fix recessions and financial crises, still hoping to draw capitals to the U.S. to continuously cover our debts and deficits. This model no longer works as foreign countries have become wiser and begun to trade with other currency than just the dollar. We cannot accuse China, Japan or Korea manipulating their currencies, since the soundness of a currency is tied to the nation's GDP. Mr. Trump, we must change our economic model, hopefully your tax cut will also cut the tax loopholes and regulations to bring corporate cash stashed abroad back home to stimulate growth and make the U.S. great again.
(2) Foreign Policies
You are right about our failed Middle East policies. We wasted too much money in wars that got us nothing. Your idea of asking Japan and NATO to pay more for their defense sounds reasonable. However, the issue is deeper than negotiation and accounting. We must review our fundamental strategy of building military alliances all over the world. Do we really need them? Is our security really at stake? What happens if we don't have these alliances and thousands of military bases in the foreign land? The new President of the Philippines, Mr. Rodrigo Duterte gave us a wakeup call on the alliance issue, a longtime ally finally realized the alliance didn’t do any good to them (and us!?). The Cold War was over 26 years ago, now we are facing a rising Asia, not just China, it is Japan, it is India, it is South Korea, even Malaysia and Vietnam. Does ‘Pivot to Asia’ with military presence and adding more military alliances help our national security, GDP and world prestige? Mr. Trump, to be a real change agent President, we urge you to probe this type of fundamental issues.
(3) Supreme Court Justice, immigration, Healthcare and China Issue
You have recognized them as important issues. People will thank you for appointing a conservative judge for preserving our constitution. Repealing Obamacare with a new healthcare insurance law to stimulate open insurance competition across state line to mandate accountability, productivity and efficiency and to keep the healthcare cost from ramping above the general inflation rate is right on. As for immigration, building a strong ‘virtual and physical’ wall by enhancing existing immigration and naturalization laws are the right directions. This country does need good immigrants.
Both you and Ms Clinton made hostile rhetoric about China although from somewhat different angle. A correct China policy is vital for the U.S. to let us revitalize our economy and avoid futile military actions. The present 'target China' strategy has no valid justification other than hinged on an old legacy 'anti-communism' doctrine. China not only long departed from the Soviet style communism but earnestly embraced capitalism making such economic progress causing us nervous. China’s progress is no justification for us to plot an anti-China foreign policy. Many countries (for instance, the U.K.) want to collaborate with China for mutual benefits and world peace, so should we! We urge you to forget rhetoric and focus on reality.
Finally, in closing, no matter who gets elected as the next US President, we hope that our President will keep an open mind to listen to the American people while sitting in the Oval Office.