Southampton Man Says He Has the Key to Economic Recovery

By day, Randy Dobler is a mild-mannered operations director for the Southampton School District.

But by night, Dobler is an amateur economist who has personally designed a recovery plan to restore the U.S. economy, balance the federal budget and “provide for a better future for all Americans.”

He’s sent the four-page plan to the country’s leaders to no avail but is pressing on, believing his plan can safeguard American prosperity.

“I’m not some sort of political activist,” he said during an interview last week. “I don’t go on any marches. I just got fed up with everything I’m hearing on television.”

Dobler is a Huntington native and the son of a floor waxer and elementary school teacher. He graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on an ROTC scholarship in 1978 with a degree in engineering and a minor in economics and served four years in the Navy. He said he is an independent voter, not registered with a political party. He is married with three adult daughters and has lived in Southampton for eight years, ever since he came to work for the school district.

He said he has always had a little interest in politics and the economy, but as the deficit grew worse, “and everything went to hell in a hand basket,” he decided to do something about it himself.

“I think most of my plan is a little bit common sense stuff here, and I don’t understand why we wouldn’t do it,” he said.

He said politicians have it backward in promoting raising the Social Security retirement age. “We should be doing what corporations do, which is offer early retirement.” He wants to take the money that’s being spent on unemployment and welfare, and give it to 64-year-old retirees. When they retire, jobs will open up for young people starting families, he said. Not only will the young people be gainfully employed, they will also buy cars and houses, stimulating the housing market and auto industry, he predicted.

To put even more people to work while providing national security and protecting the country’s borders, Dobler wants to expand the size of the military, thus offering training to men and women who otherwise might not have the skills to obtain a good paying job.

To create jobs and reduce shipping costs for manufacturers and businesses dealing in raw materials, Dobler wants to see a federal matching fund for road, bridge and rail improvement projects. “This would encourage local governments to spend more on these areas instead of merely replacing their own expenditures with federal funds,” the plan reads. To pay for the matching fund, Dobler wants a $10 per barrel tax on Middle East oil from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. “OPEC is a monopoly that has been allowed to exist without any penalty and the time has come to recognize this monopoly for what it is,” the plan reads.

To free America from its reliance on OPEC oil, reduce energy costs and create domestic jobs, Dobler wants the federal government to invest the same amount of money the country spends on foreign oil in a year in natural gas infrastructure, such as pipelines, compressed natural gas refueling stations, home heating conversions and the production of CNG vehicles. “We’re short of jobs, so why are we sending this money overseas?” he remarked.

He is also concerned that when he walks into a home goods store he finds that everything was made in Asia. He said if he were an office holder he would have a fact-finding summit with manufactures to discern what exactly is preventing them from being able to produce something as simple as a wooden spoon in the United States and be competitive. “We don’t know what percent of the problem is taxes, what percent is regulations,” he said, also pointing to salaries, pensions and unions.

For tax relief, his economic recovery plan calls for reducing the corporate tax rate by 5 percentage points and reducing the personal income tax rate for Social Security to 5 percent, down from 6.2 percent, but apply it to unlimited income, instead of cutting it off at the first $106,800 of income.

To prevent research and development jobs from migrating overseas, Dobler wants a tax credit offered for R&D equal to twice the money spent. Additionally, his plan calls for 50 percent tuition reimbursement for engineering and hard sciences students.

To ultimately balance the budget under his plan, Dobler said that as revenues rise spending should be frozen and a supermajority vote of both the House and Senate should be required to raise the federal debt ceiling.

He put together the first draft of his plan and sent it to President Barack Obama when he was first sworn in and other leaders in Washington, including Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell.

 “I never heard anything back,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting a call from the White House, but I thought maybe a post card thanking me for my thoughts.”

Though discouraged, he did not give up on his plan.

“With the last election cycle, I dusted it off and revised it I sent it out to a whole litany of people once again,” he said, naming John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Hillary Clinton and of Southampton as just a few examples. “And I never heard anything back again.”

Dobler did, however, have a face-to-face meeting with Bishop in January regarding his plan during . Bishop also said at a Q&A session at Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton earlier this month, where Dobler posed a question, that he considered Dobler's plan and shared it with colleagues.

Dobler said he took the time to write a four-page plan and a cover letter, and the elected leaders didn’t even acknowledge receipt. “What is that saying about our whole political process?”

The experience left him feeling disenfranchised, Dobler said. “You were taught in school that you had one vote — that everybody was equal — but the reality is that the American people don’t control the agenda … the agenda is controlled by lobbyists, by people that can afford to go to a $10,000-a-plate dinner, people with political power.”

He admitted that his plan may not be the best, but he said it is better than what politicians have offered, which is nothing.

“Go to any of their websites and you see if you can find a plan,” he said. Not one has a plan as comprehensive as his, he said. “They have a whole staff to come up with plans, and they have nothing.”

He personally has no plans to run for office. “If I ran, then I’d have to become one of them.”