Barack Obama will take the oath of office on January 20, 2009. After all the inaugural ball hoopla is over, he and his administration will be facing the most daunting collection of serious issues confronting America since the Great Depression.

Mr. Obama will need to continually communicate and explain difficult issues to the American people as well as solicit the best ideas for specific issue resolution from us. While he has assembled a highly touted brain trust, he will need all of our ideas and support to enact and implement the programs decided upon.

In that spirit, the following action items, in our opinion, are the most important issues President Obama should address to restore and strengthen our democracy and economy.

1. Economy and Financial System
Job #1 is to keep as many Americans employed as possible and to help the unemployed transition to jobs that start the vital work on repairing and reinventing our infrastructure. We have the opportunity to accomplish two things at the same time, repair the infrastructure and upgrade it in a green fashion to provide sustainability and reduce our carbon footprint AND to employ millions of people.

We need immediate support and action for upgrading the electricity grid to capture the electrons generated from solar and wind energy in the West. Place federal mandates on the states for clean, renewable energy production targets (North Carolina already set its own targets). This will ensure that green jobs continue to grow and those industries are supported. We should have the same urgency as we had in building the A-bomb with the Manhattan Project.

Here is another large jobs program. We should be planning and implementing national, regional and local mass transit systems that enable the greatest number of Americans to get out of their cars: high-speed trains that provide service for the entire length of both coasts as well as transcontinental service; and light rail in cities such as systems installed in Portland and Charlotte. Where existing rail lines won’t work, build them right down the middle of the existing Interstates!

This will mean federal subsidies begin to flow immediately to those municipalities (like the Triangle) who have existing plans but gave up on asking for the funds because it would take six years for Washington to send the money. The federal government would be hard-pressed to tell us the price tag is a problem since the taxpayers have already given the enormous sum of $350 billion dollars to the banks with no visible results.

Restore and reform the financial regulatory oversight that has been rolled back during the last 12 years. Modernize the reforms to take account of new instruments and entities. This should include all hedge funds and the rating agencies. Federal regulatory agencies must be fully funded and staffed to accomplish their public oversight missions. The regulators have to be in front of Wall Street’s financial innovations not years behind and certainly not incapable of judging and monitoring the risk created by innovation. For more detail please read The Financial Market Meltdown: Where do we go from here? in the November, 2008 Greg’s Corner.

Real, meaningful help for mortgage holders in distress. Moratoriums on foreclosures should be implemented and changes made to the bankruptcy laws. Judges should be allowed to modify the terms and the principal amount due.

Keep your campaign promise. Congress should pass tax breaks for the middle class… those making less than $250,000 a year. Close loopholes for large corporations and high net worth individuals. Supply-side and trickle down arguments are proven economic myths. What the country needs is a simplified, fair and progressive system of taxation. Implement tax breaks where they will do some good — give them to the small businesses that create two thirds of all jobs and the middle class. America now has the largest gap between the wealthy and poor since the Depression. Over five million new citizens have joined the ranks of the poor since the year 2000.

2. Healthcare
Our current system is a runaway train. Or perhaps it has already crashed. We have the highest per capita expenditures in the world and the worst outcomes for several major measurements… and that is for those who have insurance. America has 47 million uninsured and potential millions more headed that way because of unemployment. Healthcare costs are also unsustainable. Costs have increased four times higher than the rate of inflation and, are in fact a major cause of inflation. Medical bills are one of the leading causes of new bankruptcy filings.

Given these circumstances, it is imperative that we get an immediate start on resolving some of the major deficiencies of this failed system. For a more complete discussion please go to the April and May, 2007 articles on healthcare. We address only three of the deficiencies here.

Allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire, closing corporate and individual tax loopholes and drastically reducing medical administrative costs should provide enough funds for both universal health coverage (like the rest of the industrialized world) and a complete technology upgrade.

Stephanie Ratliff is a political activist in New Mexico, and also happens to be Greg’s sister.