PLATFORM SUGGESTIONS FROM

AN ORDINARY CITIZEN!

by Franklin J. Sissons

Dear Republican National Committee:
Dear Oklahoma State Republican Party:


Hello, my name is Frank Sissons. I want to propose an idea or platform if you please, for Republican candidates to run on in the upcoming mid-term elections in 2010. Below I have listed some ideas that, if put before the people, will help Republican candidates to be elected. The ideas will not be popular, but they are common sense ideas that most Americans want. I believe that Americans will vote for candidates that have the courage to run on this platform. I hope you will strongly consider these ideas as part of the Republican platform.



1) Term Limits: We need term limits for our elected senators and representatives. Once they have served two terms, they need to return to become a citizen again. Some of our senators and representatives have been in office so long they have lost touch with what it is to receive a paycheck from working an hourly job and what it is to pay social security taxes on every dollar of pay. We don’t need any more career politicians in Washington D.C. making decisions for the ordinary citizens with whom they have lost touch.



2) Social Security: The law needs to be changed so that it will require all elected senators, representatives and federal employees to pay into the social security system just as every other hard working individual in this country does. It is time they should have to give up 7.65% of their salary to support this meager entitlement retirement program. The government agency should also have to pay the 7.65% just as all businesses have to on their employees.



3) Government Retirement Programs (Civil Service): The guaranteed, plush retirement offered to government employees (especially senators and representatives) needs to be replaced with a 401K type saving and retirement system that will match the employee’s contribution up to 4% of their salary. This is the retirement program most companies offer their employees. If the government employees contribute 4% of their salary, the government employer will match the contribution up to 4%. You see, our elected senators and representatives have no idea how many of the working folks have been hurting because they have lost as much as $200K out of their 401K retirement programs, all because of some companies that ran wild with the greed of their executives. They need to see it, feel it and hurt along with all the other ordinary working citizens. If they do, they will not allow such greed to take place. It is time to end their guaranteed and lavish retirement plan that they do not contribute any money to earn.



4) Salaries: No more salary increases voted on by the senators and representative to give themselves a very nice raise. There needs to be an oversight board that decides if senators and representatives salaries should be increased. This oversight board could be made up of: one senator, one representative, six businessmen (women) appointed by the national governors' association, one appointed by the Democratic national committee and one appointed by the Republican national committee. This committee would be responsible for deciding if the senators and representatives were to receive a raise and if so, how much. No more voting themselves a raise.



5) Tax Reform: Tax reform can be accomplished by doing away with the capital gains tax. Why tax the money I risk by investing in companies, using money I have already paid taxes on, and again tax the gains I make from taking that risk? Move to a flat tax or a national sales tax. I read that the original internal revenue code was 13 pages, now it is several thousand pages. Make it simple.



Now as I stated earlier, these issues may not be popular but if Republican candidates will run on a platform similar to this, they will be elected. You see, the ordinary citizens are tired of our senators and representatives having all the special treatments and forgetting about representing their constituents that elected them to office. Once they are elected and again have the majority, they must stick to their platform and enact these changes. When that is completed, other issues can be tackled such as national security, immigration, English as the official language, smaller government, health care reform, foreign affairs, and national energy policy. Politicians must run on a platform that applies the same rules as the common citizens are required to accept. It will take integrity, character and honesty for you to step up to the podium and present a new and fair platform which represents equal treatment for all citizens.


Respectively submitted,


Franklin J. Sissons
Duncan, OK
Ordinary Working and Proud Citizen of the USA from Oklahoma