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The American Flag Deficit Reduction Program

The US deficit is estimated at $1.5 trillion. In Washington, the debate is between raising taxes or cutting spending. Neither is necessary, if we take advantage of America’s greatest asset, the Star Spangled Banner.

In dire straits after the Wall Street debacle, many governments across the United States and throughout the world are being pressed to sell public assets – buildings, utilities, trains, even highways. Just last year, Governor Action Hero tried to sell off California courthouses and other historical landmarks to a private consortium for $2.33 billion. Naming rights on sports stadiums and convention centers have always been a revenue strategy for municipalities and closely associated private firms like Anschutz Entertainment Group, which wants to build a football stadium in downtown Los Angeles. In addition to seeking tax breaks from the city, the firm has already sold the stadium's naming rights to Farmers Insurance for $700 million.

Why not rent some or all of Old Glory on a daily basis to pay off the debt we have racked up to bail out Wall Street?

Here’s the math.

There are fifty stars on the flag (each one added when a state entered the Union). So if those stars were to be made “available” on a daily basis, there would be at least 18,250 “opportunities” every year (50 x 365).

Divide the deficit by 18,250, and we could eliminate the federal debt in one year if each star were offered up at the price of $82 million ($82,191,780.08, to be exact).

Sure, that’s hefty price, you might say. Who would pay it?

Answer: the folks who got America into this mess in the first place.

So let’s say J.P. Morgan Chase wanted the highly prestigious opportunity to occupy the entire flag for one day each year. Here’s what that might look like:

As a special inducement to pay $4 billion, companies that agreed to take the entire flag for a day could also be given the right to put some text on one of the stripes. It could be the company's most important message:

Or anything its CEO might desire:

Some may object that it is inappropriate to put the American Flag in the hands of big corporations. First of all, like the United States Supreme Court said in its Citizens United decision applying freedom of expression to corporations, all Americans will have equal freedom to buy access to the flag for $82 million per star. Corporations are Americans, too. Second, these companies own the United States anyhow, so what’s the biggie?

What about foreign countries? Should we rent the Stars and Stripes to our trading partners, the Chinese? If so, should we require them to write in English, or should we allow them to use Chinese characters?

That’s a tough question, and like all decisions concerning the American Flag Deficit Reduction Program, should be decided by the United States Congress.

Which, by the way, has a spectacular building in a prime location that would be highly attractive to certain firms. Consider this on the East Face of the Capitol Building:

"Congress. Brought to you today by Goldman Sachs."

Just think about it.

The 4th of Awry

When I grew up in a suburb south of Boston in the Sixties, the Fourth of July was distinctly the greatest day of summer. Preparations would begin well in advance. First, a trip to Chinatown where we’d pay ten times the fair price for a brick of firecrackers and as many cherry bombs or M-80s as we could afford. The night before, one of our gang’s parents would drive us down to the shore to watch the magnificent fireworks displays, while AM car radios would play patriotic tunes like the Star Spangled Banner. I can still smell the gunpowder that would waft in clouds around us. The next night, we’d conjure up our own smaller version in our backyards, occasionally evading the police when our displays raised the neighbors’ ire.

The times were contentious – the Vietnam War had engendered a national divide – but at the peak of our youth the future seemed limitless. We were about to land a man on the moon! The red glare of the Saturn V rocket as it heaved its gargantuan frame into space symbolized to us kids all that was great about America. Freedom was such a powerful force that it could break the bonds of gravity. As a nation, we would not be restrained.

That all seems like dim myth now. Savaged by the financial collapse and the cost of endless wars on the other side of our planet, there is no budget for fireworks here in Southern California, though some towns have lifted the ban on private sales of firecrackers to grab a little extra tax revenue. Our dreams of pressing the boundaries of space have likewise been downsized. Next Friday, the space shuttle will make its last journey, and “after that, there is little glory to look forward to,” the New York Times notes this morning. The universe has receded from our grasp.

Something has gone profoundly awry in America. Our Supreme Court has defined freedom to mean the ability of big corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money in behalf of their private political agendas, while the rest of us wield our personal freedom in obscurity and servitude. Awash in money from the powerful and wealthy, our elected officials have abandoned the majority of us. We are left to contend with rising health insurance premiums, disappearing jobs, $4.00 a gallon gasoline, a collapse of social services, and the deeply disturbing prospect that we are leaving our kids with fewer options and worse prospects than we enjoyed.

And fear has set in. Around a third or more of all Americans now fear for the basics: their ability to start a family, buy a home, put their kids through college, and retire. Through the tyranny of greed, we have lost our liberty to make a better future for ourselves. We have been robbed not merely of our savings, but of our personal and national sense of possibility.

We can recover these – we must. But we cannot do so alone. We can no longer hope to be led. We must, ourselves, lead.