"Do you have your driver's license and social security card?" the young woman behind the desk asked me. I handed over my passport. "Thanks," she beamed. "Less writing for me."
"Sherman, set the Wayback Machine for 1909."
- Driver's license -- your state government will determine that operating a horseless carriage is dangerous. It will establish standards for operations and issue permits. These permits will become universal. Everyone will have one. Those who choose not to operate horseless carriages will carry alternate identification cards, also issued by the state government.
- Social Security Card -- the federal government will create an endowment fund and everyone will be required to contribute to it. For most people, the contribution will be greater than their income tax (see below).
- The Social Security Card will become a National Identification Number for purposes of banking and insurance, as well as to track income from all sources, whether direct labor, investment, savings, or inheritance.
- I-9 -- It will become standard practice for all employment to certify that you have a legal right to work in the United States.
- Everyone will fill out some kind of application form, giving basic information about where you live, when you were born, etc. In order to work in the United States, you will have to certify that you are a citizen, often on two separate question: Immigration status; to which you can check the box labeled "Citizen" and a direct question, "Do you have a legal right to work in the United States."[**]
Passports -- created in part to prevent people with special technical skills from leaving European countries[*], passports will become nearly univeral for international travel. Some nations will require internal permits for travel. People in the United States who do not have passports, will carry some alternative identification issued by a state government.
The federal government will determine who will be allowed to leave the country. This will apply to ordinary people, not under indictment or subpoena or conviction, but just anyone. Special attention will be given to those who have income about three to five times the national average. However, everyone is subject.
Income Tax -- Originally in 1913, 1% of incomes over $20,000 per year at a time when the median wage was about $1 per day. It rose to about 20% of the median wage 50 years later. By the year 2000, it will be about 15% of the median wage.[+] About one-half to one-third of the federal budget will be met by income taxes. The federal budget will run about $3 trillion. About $1.2 trillion will come from income tax, about the same amount from other taxes, and the rest from deficit via sales of federal bonds. At this time, the median wage will be about $100 per day per person with about 300 millions in the USA. The national economy will generate about $10 trillion per year, of which the federal government will represent just under one-third.
You can see why the government has a direct need to keep track of who is working -- who has a right to work -- and how much money they make.
Where it goes[$]:
Half a trillion ($585 billion) for Defense.
- The United States has been engaged in a 20-year war in "Iraq" (Mesopotamia) to balance the power between allies in "Saudi Arabia" (the Arabian peninsula of the Saud family) and enemies in "Iran" (Persia), which is centered on the existence of "Israel" (Palestine) a state established by Zionists at mid-century.
- All of that on the heels of a 50-year struggle against Russia and eventually China, as a consequence of a horrific 50-year civil war fought by European powers.
- The demise of the Austro-Hungarian and German Empires did nothing for France and the struggle cost Britain its empire, despite massive loans and gifts from the United States.
- The middle third of the century was dominated by socialisms, both Marxist and "Bismarksist." The United States adopted a "centerist" policy between the two.
$1.5 Trillion for Direct Welfare
- $590 billion Social Security (a separate tax) (Payments to Social Security are held by the government and reissued to the individual upon "retirement" from the workforce. The age limits will have changed over the century, from early-60s to mid-60s to early 70s, and are different from women, who statistically live longer than men. Legal details will have been challenged, but most people are forced to quit working after age 65, though some insist on the opportunity via low-paying jobs in restaurants and retail emporia.
- $400 billion Medicare -- health care insurance payment for those who collect Social Security. The government underwrites much of the cost of doctors, hospitals and medications for the elderly. Some payments go to other deserving people at any age.
- $300 billion Unemployment and welfare -- About a third of the way into the 20th century, steering that middle course between Marx and Bismark, the federal and state governments began taxing businesses in order to establish endowment funds from which payments to unemployed workers were doled out. One routine tradition was established among unionized factory workers -- The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations, chiefly, but others as well -- so that when factories shut down for periodicl maintenance, workers received automatic payments from the government.
- $275 billion Medicaid and other health related -- to cover those not insured by the Medicare endowment. This, too, is a tax, collected directly from the pay of workers.
It would take a book to explain the intricacies.
- The federal government provides subsidized food -- directly as foodstuffs, most often as money for them -- to kindergartens, grammar schools and high schools. This was a direct consequence of government mandates for public education ("truancy laws") to control children, to keep them from competing with adults for menial work ("child labor laws") and for other purposes. Food is an easy control mechanism.
- State governments closely define, control, delimit and mandate classes, courses and curricula in schools, as well. For about two-thirds of the century, the only alternative to government education was via schools operated by the Catholic Church.
The purposes for this were many.
- Patriotism -- with the rise of socialism according to the models of Progressives of 1909, children sing patriotic songs and recite a "pledge of allegiance to the flag" every morning for twelve years.
- Economic policy -- as part of that progress down the middle road between Marx and Bismark, the nation's largest entitites in manufacturing meet with the government to determine what kinds of skills their workers will need. The government then mandates this. States receive federal money for these programs. States often have programs of their own as certain manufacturers will be locally or regionally dominant.
1908 was the last year that all US Coins displayed an effigy of Liberty. The Lincoln Cent of 1909 -- originally intended as a one-year commemorative -- became the paradigm for American coinage.
1932 -- Washington Quarter
1938 -- Jefferson Nickel
1946 -- Roosevelt Dime (not Theodore, his cousin, Franklin)
1947 -- Franklin Half Dollar (Benjamin Franklin, not Franklin Roosevelt).
1964 -- Kennedy (John F. assassinated, 1963 ) replaces Franklin
Social action and individual reaction are complicated in a nation as large as the United States. Individualism will have suffered a general eclipse, mid-century, but will have reappeared, as perhaps it had to. It is important to understand, however, that contrarians will come to be perceived as a cultural phenomenon, like the Boston Transcendalists. Those lofty idealists engaged themselves in abolition, as their descendants of 1909 do today in "women's suffrage."
(It's pretty scary, Mr. Peabody! Let's go home!)
Well, Sherman, what do you think? Will freedom of travel will cease to be a right because employment will become a national duty?
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[*] Trains, used extensively from the mid-nineteenth century onward, traveled rapidly, carried numerous passengers, and crossed many borders. Those factors made enforcement of passport laws difficult. The general reaction was abolition of passport requirements.[1] The Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire maintained passport requirements for international travel, in addition to an internal-passport system to control travel within it.
During World War I, European governments introduced border passport requirements for security reasons (to keep out spies) and to control emigration of citizens with useful skills, retaining potential manpower. These controls remained in place after the war, and became standard procedure, though not without controversy. British tourists of the 1920s complained, especially about attached photographs and physical descriptions, which they considered led to a "nasty dehumanisation".[2]
In 1920, the League of Nations held a conference on passports and through tickets. Passport guidelines resulted from the conference, which was followed up by conferences in 1926 and 1927.
Passport -- From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[1] "History of Passports". Passport Canada. Retrieved on April 18, 2008.
http://www.passport.gc.ca/pptc/hist.aspx?lang=eng
[2] Marrus, Michael, The Unwanted: European Refugees in the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University Press (1985), p. 92.
[**] Work permit "visas" will be given to those who have special skills, as attested by employers who "sponsor" them to work for a limited time.
[+] National Taxpayers Union http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=19
[$] 2007 United States federal budget. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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