The Heinlein Plan

As far as the bailout of the banks is concerned, I agree with most of America that the bailout so far has done nothing but put taxpayer dollars in the hands of those who created the recession. While the banks are now solvent, most of the rest of us aren't. And credit is still increasingly difficult to find and get just like jobs.

I can't claim this idea as mine, but did anyone in Congress consider Robert Heinlein's idea of opening up military service to anyone interested? How Heinlein's plan could work now is that we have military support needs stateside, bookkeepers, data entry, secretarial functions, and service industries. These positions were the mainstream of our pre-recession economy, and they still are.

Why not allow stateside functions to be handled by those out of work now? Induct them, and put them to work. Yes, this will increase military payrolls, but by doing that tax dollars would be going back into the economy where they belong. And it would definitely help with the health benefits situation, simply by providing health care benefits to the new inductees and their families.

This could provide the much needed Public Option for health care and make the obscenely huge, ridiculously difficult to comprehend Health Care Bill next to unnecessary.

Are you an out of work mechanic, truck driver, administrative assistant? Can you cook and clean? Push a broom? Sign up brother(or sister, as the case may be)!

I'm not talking about fitting grandma out in combat gear. I am talking about the government taking over what is rightly theirs; the Commissaries, the information staff at military hospitals, and all stateside administrative functions to put civilians back to work under the same terms and code as the rest of the military except combat duty. This will help on the civilian side by putting people to work as well as free up able bodied troops for deployment. Like it or not we will always need combat forces, and unpleasant truth be told, they are now, and always will be young. Right now the only real military crossovers with the civilian world are medical personnel. And we civilians need a wakeup call, and military discipline is a perfect fit for that.


I don't claim this idea is perfect. I do however claim that this plan would have benefitted out of work Americans, and ultimately would benefit big business by putting the money where we know it will be spent to support businesses and banks - in the hands of Joe and Jane American. The other main benefit is that we stop giving things to people or businesses for free.