Open Letter to the President from the Catholic Left

President Obama,


Congratulations on getting a second term to live among us in DC. As a fellow person of faith, might I take the liberty of suggesting a few progressive agenda items for your second term:

Sell Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the Federal Reserve, who can then write down mortgages to the value of the properties held so that the borrowers can sell their homes and the economy can get moving again.
Use your pardon power to Free Leonard Peltier - not at the end of your term but now. Also, let out the non-violent drug offenders or at least release them into mandatory treatment. Work to remove the criminalization of marijuana.

Consider personal accounts in Social Security, not to hold index funds but instead to hold employer voting stock so that eventually workers might become sole owners. You don't need Wall Street donations anymore, so now you can do what is right.

Free DC! Take a stand for statehood.

Shut down polluters, don't wait for carbon taxes to simply penalize them.

Rewrite the Partial Birth Abortion Act to protect all children after assisted gastrulation and ban all abortion techniques after the first trimester except induction (and baptism prior to death).

Increase the Child Tax Credit and make it refundable with pay. $500 per month per child (with state level matches) should about do it and make abortion rare. Very rare. Also, have that cut come from employer paid consumption taxes so that individual employees no longer have to file unless there is a mistake (like overreporting or double payment).

Add serious investigative resource to end human trafficking in both Food, Inc. and in the sex industry. Put federal boots on the ground. End peonage in farm, factory and brothel.

Be more liberal on defending the rights of gays to marry by begining civil actions against states whose constitutions prohibit marriage equality. Its your responsibility under the 14th Amendment.

Respectfully yours,



Michael Bindner