The Beltway Beast: Stealing from Future Generations and Destroying the Middle Class: Abridged Version

By Munir Moon

The Beltway Beast: Stealing from Future Generations and Destroying the Middle Class

The Beltway Beast transcends the anger and frustration of the American people with their leaders failing to solve the country's problems. It documents our current reality and offers transformational ideas, such as shrinking the Presidential Primary process by utilizing technology, reducing healthcare costs through Smart Patient Credits, and using a Value Based Tax system that transfers power from Washington back to the states.

The Beltway Beast is an outsider's prospective of Washington D.C. and the paralyzing politics that have brought progress to a halt. This book offers new ideas to the problems that are suffocating America. Too often we accept the status quo instead of questioning why things are the way they are. For example, why is the working income taxed at a higher rate than the nonworking income? Why do the majority of Americans who are independent have to choose only between Democrats and Republicans for the President of the United States? Why can't we reduce the cost of medical care so that it is affordable for everyone?

The Beltway consists of Washington, D.C. and surrounding counties, and the Beast includes the military-industrial complex, multinational corporations, foreign agents, lobbyists and Congress. The Beltway Beast is directed toward a system controlled by the Democrats and the Republicans representing the ghosts of the past with the Senate being made up of 80% men, 67% millionaires and an average age of sixty-two years. They govern in unison by piling up debt on our children, taxing the working income more than the nonworking income, violating our privacy, and giving the illusion of security while keeping us on a perpetual war footing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Munir Moon
• Release date: Jul 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9780991372119

Munir Moon

Munir Moon is a former financial industry executive, a successful small business owner and an author of three books. Moon spent eight years in the financial industry, starting at Chase Econometrics and ending at a savings and loan association during the 1980s. He was a firsthand observer of the financial crisis in the 1980s, which resulted in the demise of the savings and loan industry, to be repeated in 2008 in a different form. Having a son born with cancer who survived numerous surgeries, he has experienced the best and worst of American healthcare system. As a businessman, he appreciates the impact of over-regulations, taxes and globalization. The recent book, Confessions of an Old Man: How Millennials are Being Robbed is a call to action for the MI generation (defined as those born between 1980 and 2018)—a generation with the most to lose if the United States continues with its current domestic and foreign policies. Baby boomers have much to answer for: a legacy of economic instability, poor job growth, and an environmental disregard. This book is a statement of collective guilt that places the responsibility on the author's generation for dealing a bad card to its children. The first book, The Beltway Beast: Stealing from Future Generations and Destroying the Middle Class, was published in 2014. It transcends the anger and frustration of the American people caused by their leaders’ failure to solve the country’s problems. The book included warnings about cyber security and domestic terrorism by nationalist groups as the most serious economic and national security threats to the United States. The Middle Class Comeback: Women, Millennials, and Technology Leading the Way, counters the negativity of the dominant narrative surrounding the past, the present, and most importantly, the future of the American middle class. It presents a hopeful blueprint for its revival, with women, millennials, and technology being major factors, while addressing the transformation of ever-rising health-care and education costs and taxes that adversely impact the middle class. Moon earned his BS in engineering, MS in economics, and MBA in finance from UCLA. He is married with three sons and lives in Los Angeles County, California.

Book preview

The Beltway

Beast

Abridged Version

STEALING FROM FUTURE GENERATIONS AND

DESTROYING THE MIDDLE CLASS

Munir Moon

MGN Books

Copyright © 2016 by Munir Moon

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author. For permission requests, please write to:

MGN Books

640 Maple Avenue

Torrance, Ca 90503

[e-mail]

Revised 2017

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Moon, Munir

The Beltway Beast: Stealing from Future Generations and Destroying the Middle Class/by Munir Moon.

p. cm.

ISBN 099137214X

ISBN 978-0-9913721-3-3 (Hardcover)

ISBN 978-0-9913721-0-2 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-0-9913721-1-9 (eBook)

ISBN 978-0-9913721-4-0 (Abridged Version)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016908963

1. The United States – Politics. 2. Current Affairs. 3. Healthcare. 4. Economy. 5. United States-Political Parties.

For Atif and Elena

Table of Contents

---

Prologue

Introduction to the Original Edition

Chapter 1     The Case for a Third Party

Chapter 2     Permanent Political Campaign

Chapter 3     The Democratic-Republican Party

Chapter 4     Taxes

Chapter 5     The Debt & Deficit

Chapter 6     Defense

Chapter 7     Education

Chapter 8     Entitlements

Chapter 9     Foreign Policy

Chapter 10   Healthcare

Chapter 11   People’s Party of America Platform

Chapter 12   PPA Business Model

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

End Notes

Prologue

---

The American political system is going through an unprecedented transformational process by having a disruptor and an outsider President Donald Trump. He won the 2016 presidential election by defeating an establishment candidate Hillary Clinton and challenging The Beltway Beast. Candidate Trump used the metaphor of draining the swamp as one of his campaign slogans, referring to Washington D.C or The Beltway Beast as described in this book.

According to a Gallup survey, sixty percent of Americans say that a third major political party is needed because the Republican and Democratic parties do such a poor job of representing American people. Therefore, the time is right for a grassroots movement to start a mainstream third party that represent all Americans and can not only place a check on both major parties but also bring Americans together. That is why this book is so necessary - more than when it was first published.

The aim of this book at the first publication was to make a contribution, however small, to bring the voice of Main Street America back into our public discourse, front and center. The American Dream is threatened by a widening gap between our leaders and average, everyday citizens. The former seem quite oblivious to the grind—the daily struggles and hardships of lower and middle class America. It is frustrating to watch our political leaders, who we are supposed to look up to, behave like children, pointing fingers at each other instead of fulfilling their promise to serve the people and own up to their failures.

Numerous books on the subjects covered here have been written by well-qualified scholars and many solutions have been offered. The Beltway Beast compiles some of those ideas in one place and provides the perspective of an outsider to our public discourse. It is a compendium of the real state of our union, covering a broad range of subjects affecting our lives instead of offering an in-depth analysis of one subject. It contextualizes the current crisis at a macro level and proposes a way out of our current quagmire.

The solutions offered in the book are not an end all to our problems, but a beginning of a discussion for the future of our children. The hope is that upcoming leaders use this book as a framework and a platform to set up a new party, The People’s Party of America (PPA), a party that is fiscally responsible, socially compassionate and represents all Americans. We are facing a crisis of confidence because we have stopped believing in ourselves—and in doing so have stopped leading the world, much of which looks up to us as a role model.

More than anything else, this book transcends anger and frustration with our leaders to solve our problems and revive America with simple common sense solutions. The Beltway Beast documents our current reality and calls for real competition in electing our leaders and transforming our political, healthcare, and tax systems. In every crisis there is opportunity, and this book will mobilize Americans to take back the country. Prosperity will come back once we get our leaders to stop stealing from future generations and destroying the middle class and we can all be part of that change.

Introduction to the Original Edition

---

More than forty years ago, I came to this country on a one-way ticket, hoping to get a quality education. I had no friends or relatives here and barely spoke English. Over time, I was fortunate enough to earn two master’s degrees from UCLA and am well aware that this sort of thing happens only in America. Needless to say, I am eternally grateful—and this book is my way of trying to repay my debt to this country that welcomed and enabled me to prosper.

After completing my MBA, I had aspirations of climbing the corporate ladder and running a large enterprise. However, at age thirty-three, my life changed forever when my second son, Atif, was born with Neuroblastoma, a rare cancer of the spinal cord. Atif fought hard against the cancer from day one, undergoing three surgeries and eighteen months of chemotherapy, starting at the tender age of one month. He conquered the disease, though he was left paralyzed from the waist down and is now wheelchair bound.

I’ve had a close-up view of what this country has given Atif when it comes to healthcare, education, and personal opportunity. I am also mindful that only in America is a story like Atif’s possible.

I am not a pundit, scholar, or expert, but an average American who has experienced a range of emotions from frustration to anger to disillusionment over the last few years with regard to the state of our great nation. I spent the first ten years of my corporate life mostly in the financial industry, where I witnessed the collapse of the housing industry and the demise of the Savings & Loan industry in the late eighties, repeated twenty years later in 2008 in a different form. I have experienced the best and worst of our healthcare system over the last twenty-eight years—much inefficiency is built into the delivery of service, resulting in ever increasing costs to all of us. As a small businessman over the last twenty-five years, I have been at the receiving end of all the government regulations, taxes, and fees that impede job growth. However, my faith in the American Dream has never been shattered. In recent decades, both major parties have failed us. In this book I am making a case for transforming America through a third party that represents all Americans and brings us together.

We have an educational system that fares poorly in preparing our children for the intense competition that awaits them in the global marketplace and a tax system that is grossly unfair to the working American. Our civil liberties are violated by the Big Brother Era—drones are flying over American cities, multiple cameras are watching us at road crossings, and our phone and emails are being monitored—all in the name of security that actually renders us less personally secure.

We are a democracy in which private and public institutions are not reflecting our citizenry in terms of its economic, ethnic, and gender diversity. Our once-vaunted middle class, the backbone of our society, is disappearing rapidly.

The truth is that we are being deprived of our greatest asset—our diversity—because minorities are not engaged in a proportionate share of the decision-making process. We must figure out a way in which all of our voices can be heard. Our objective must be to enlist every citizen as a stakeholder in the future of this great nation. After all, in thirty years, according to projections, no ethnic group will have a majority. If we can do this, we will remain the global leader and role model in offering freedom and prosperity to those who would dare to dream.

Moreover, Washington’s policies over the last few decades have encouraged passive rather than active behavior—a trend that is beneath us and inimical to our historical legacy. Working people, for example, pay higher tax rates than people with non-working income. Patients are required to pay hospital bills regardless of the quality of service or results. Business leaders profit through clever financial engineering rather than by building new factories. Furthermore, Congress has failed to pass a budget in several years and continues to kick the can down the road—an inexcusable abdication of their responsibility and a recipe for a potential financial shipwreck.

This book is not meant as an attack on anyone in particular. Rather, it is directed toward a system that we have created—I call it The Beltway Beast. The Beltway consists of Washington, DC, and surrounding counties; the Beast includes the Military-Industrial Complex, multinational corporations, lobbyists, media, and Congress, among others. Honorable people go to Washington filled with idealism, wanting to serve their country—but immediately find that they are enmeshed in tribal warfare instead, unable to function in any meaningful sense apart from the unwritten rules and expectations of the two-party system. Consequently, some of them at the top succumb to the Beltway Beast and become part of its machinery. The preservation, perpetuation, and enshrinement of the Beast become an end in itself.

According to a Gallup poll in October 2013, only 26% of Americans believe that two major parties adequately represent them, and 60% think that a third party is needed. This book is designed to be a platform for those Americans who are yearning for an option outside the two-party duopoly.

Pundits would call the idea of PPA naïve and an exercise in futility. But if young Egyptians with the power of Facebook and Twitter can start a long road to the transformation of their society by removing a dictator of thirty years in only nineteen days without violence, surely we can transform our political process and simplify our lives. As I tell my kids, we will never know unless we try. Besides, what is the alternative?

CHAPTER 1

---

The Case for a Third Party

Bring democracy to electing our leaders

In R obert F ulghum ’ s book All I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten , the writer poignantly observed. "All I really need