BLOG 21125 Elon Musk and “The New Untouchables” www.Barryminkin.com
In 2012, I published one of my nine books The Great Unraveling. In the last chapter of the book Reversing the Tide: Policies for Rebuilding After the Great Unraveling I introduce the America 2020 Planning Guidelines and the need for what I called The New Untouchables to re-imagines government without the massive fraud and waste. Elon Musk merry band of honest dedicated cost cutters should be known as the New Untouchables as the perform government liposuction.
Use World Class Management Talent
This kind of talent abounds in America; we’re blessed with great innovative minds unfortunately they are rarely found in our government bureaucracy.? We must identify and use our best minds to develop a strategic plan for the United States. Top executive search firms not politicians or special interests could select a small independent team of the best management consultants and forward-thinking executives from both the public and private sectors. This group would need to be the moral equivalent to the Untouchables who battled the mob and political corruption that raged in Chicago during the 1930’s.? The Team would bring to their task fresh eyes, no preconceived views, and an “anything’s possible’ perspective. Government interference would be prohibited. The team would have no economists, lawyers, or politicians. It would use a “skunk works” format that allows for circumventing the system to get things done. This approach has been very successful in the private sector.
A no holds- barred approach to slashing through the federal bureaucracy is the dream of every consultant who has found inefficiencies in even the leanest private sector organizations. My experience suggests that old organization designs that evolved over decades duplicate functions while increasing the layers of bureaucratic control. Eliminating, privatizing or reducing centralized bureaucracies would mean billions or even trillions in savings, while increasing access and more efficient delivery of services.
The America 2000 Plan
AMERICA 2020 PLANNING GUIDELINES
We must: Prevent the Great Unraveling and at the same time prepare America for a period of unprecedented prosperity by taking action now.
1-???? Watch our step during a period of economic transition. Our economy is in a pivotal period, changing from one that did government spending shape market driven to one has put our economy on life-support. About one-third of our GDP is affected by government, whether at the federal, state or local level, and about 16 percent of us are employed by the government
2-???? Make jobs available to those whom the economy fails.
3-???? Provide for all Americans a minimum standard of living.
4-???? Include in our priorities repairing our environment and our nation’s infrastructure.
5-???? Explore ways to improve our ability to compete
6-???? Accomplish all goals without raising taxes
7-???? Draw the public back into the system
8-???? Switch from public to private providers of services.
9-???? Turn the government spending and responsibility pyramid on its head Work toward decentralization of services into local, regional, State and lastly federal jurisdiction
?11-Recognize that the existing central government is incapable of change from within
??????? 12 Get our own house in order before tackling the world’s economic problems
Policy 1- Regroup and Get Back to Basics
America needs a time-out to regroup and heal our wounds from years of partisan politics, fiduciary malfeasance and class warfare, and to find a basic vision of how we fix our economy, our infrastructure and our society.?? Let’s decide on our priorities, basic needs and direction. We have too many problems on earth to spend billions in space and too many domestic problems to spend billions on foreign nation building programs. We need sweeping changes in health care to provide cost relief for businesses and individuals. We need a major overhaul of all levels of our education system to provide the United States with the workforce skills to keep us competitive. We need to fix our roads and bridges as well as our spiritual potholes
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Policy 2 - Downsize, Decentralize or Eliminate Federal Departments.
Our nation desperately needs better and more cost-effective basic human services. If you look at the Federal Government from the perspective of a management consultant, you will see a largely troubled centralized organization that is strategically and structurally unresponsive to the needs of its shareholder-the public. Our government has grown larger in the more than 200 years of its existence, but it has not adequately evolved. Having failed to adapt, it deserves to be replaced by a more vital organism-, as would be the fate of a private sector AFE.
But it’s na?ve to believe that bureaucrats, politicians and lawyers would vote to eliminate their own functions. When the government does not provide solutions but is itself the problem, it’s hardly reassuring to have national policies planned by elected officials and technocrats who, regardless of their sincerity, know that reelection and funding are usually surer if they play things safe. Politicians tend to address short-term issues that demand immediate attention and favor policies that are “politically correct” and feasible. Where do you think we got the notion of “political expediency"?
To identify the most cost-effective systems for delivery of basic human services, I favor development of a three-part strategic plan that would involve restructuring and downsizing the federal government, making our private sector more competitive, and increasing public participation in the democratic processes.
Such a plan would begin by dismantling or downsizing most federal government activities. What do we have to lose? Centralized federal agencies are not working for the public though they do work very well for special interests. Over the past decades, we have seen government grow to huge proportions and become centralized and remote. A major restructuring of our federal government would save billions of dollars that could be redistributed to entities that could provide services more efficiently, and the negative impacts of government interference with the private sector would also be reduced. This reduction of government interference is vital to enable the private sector to function more efficiently.
Steps to Downsizing and Decentralization
Identify Federal responsibilities First we need to identify what products and services, if any the federal bureaucracy should be proving in the year 2020. Are there other organizations better suited to providing these services, for example private companies or regional, state or city agencies? How effective is each agencies management and operations in each of the major functional areas? What improvements can be implemented and how much of a savings to taxpayers would result?? These are just some of the questions we should be asking ourselves. The America 2020 program states that by defining our values and goals, our policies can begin to start moving us in the right direction
Elect Politicians Committed to the “America 2020 Program”
Public sentiment should be mobilized through informing the millions of independent Americans fed up with our current state of affairs and are becoming increasingly aware of the economic disaster ahead of us and the need for dramatic change. We should support politicians who understand the seriousness of the problem and are committed to implementing the steps outlined here. We should give the project the weight and importance of the Iraq war or the Manhattan Project, which in response to the crisis of World War II brought together our best minds to develop the atomic bomb.
Policy 2- The New Untouchables
Use World Class Management Talent
This kind of talent abounds in America; we’re blessed with great innovative minds unfortunately they are rarely found in our government bureaucracy. .? We must identify and use our best minds to develop a strategic plan for the United States. Top executive search firms not politicians or special interests could select a small independent team of the best management consultants and forward-thinking executives from both the public and private sectors. This group would need to be the moral equivalent to the Untouchables who battled the mob and political corruption that raged in Chicago during the 1930’s.? The Team would bring to their task fresh eyes, no preconceived views, and an “anything’s possible’ perspective. Government interference would be prohibited. The team would have no economists, lawyers, or politicians. It would use a “skunk works” format that allows for circumventing the system to get things done. This approach has been very successful in the private sector.
A no holds- barred approach to slashing through the federal bureaucracy is the dream of every consultant who has found inefficiencies in even the leanest private sector organizations. My experience suggests that old organization designs that evolved over decades duplicate functions while increasing the layers of bureaucratic control. Eliminating, privatizing or reducing centralized bureaucracies would mean billions or even trillions in savings, while increasing access and more efficient delivery of services.
Policy 3-Slash government spending
Hey, a few million here and a few million there is pocket change for these big spenders.? It would be funny if it weren’t our money.? This is what happens when special interests get to the people who control the government’s money press Programs at all levels must be cut sharply or even abolished
Let’s take a helicopter trip so that we can look down at the political landscape of our country and observe the terrible blight growing upon our land.? Special interests, with aid from their government accomplices, are taking ever more control of the federal presses that print our money, using these very funds for their narrow agendas.? Mediocre, overpaid, self-serving bureaucrats and politicians squander our resources on the Federal, State, and local levels.? If we do not pay attention, these parasites will continue to sap our treasury, you might be thinking, “Pork barrel spending, duplication of effort, and mismanagement is a way of life, and so what’s new?? Why the threat now?”? Like our society, our government is becoming fatter and unhealthier.? Record budget deficits, and record amounts of government control over our economy and employment are quickly leading us down a dangerous path
The following Cato Institute recommendations are a good place to start: Also the CAGW current recommendations to cut waste are found in my latest book Reality Checks
Department of Agriculture The Department of Agriculture provides an array of subsidy programs for farmers and imposes extensive regulations. The following Cato Institute recommendations are a good place to start: It operates food assistance programs, such as the food stamp and school lunch programs, and it administers many subsidy programs for rural parts of the nation. The Forest Service also forms part of the Department of Agriculture.
The department will spend $152 billion in 2011, or more than $1,200 for every U.S. household. It operates about 235 subsidy programs and employs 98,000 workers in about 7,000 offices across the country. Here are proposed spending cuts to the department to save taxpayers $131 billion annually.
Downsize This!
Agricultural Subsidies the department provides up to $30 billion annually to farmers of corn, cotton, rice, soybeans, wheat, and other crops. It also aids farmers with research, loan, and insurance programs.
The Department of Commerce is home to important institutions such as the Census Bureau and Patent and Trademark Office. It is also home to unneeded programs that subsidize businesses and fund local development projects. Further, the department administers misguided foreign trade policies that try to boost exports and restrict imports.
The department will spend about $12 billion in 2011, or about $100 for every U.S. household. It employs 43,000 workers and has more than 250 offices in the United States and abroad. It operates 96 different subsidy programs.
?Spending Cuts Summary
Downsize This!
?The Department of Defense oversees a vast array of people and assets at home and abroad. The huge commitment to Iraq and Afghanistan is just part of America's global overreach. We would improve the nation's security by adopting a more restrained and defensive strategy. We should cut the number of military personnel and reduce overseas deployments to save money and relieve burdens on military families.
The department will spend about $721 billion in fiscal 2011, or $6,110 for every U.S. household. It employs 2.3 million people, and it spends about $240 billion a year on procurement, research, and construction.
Spending Cuts Summary
Downsize This!
Refocusing US Defense Strategy, The department's budget is built on an excessively ambitious strategy that tries to do too much, but leaves the nation less safe from true threats. Defense is a core federal function, but much of the work of today's military has little to do with protecting our vital interests.
A plan to cut military spending. U.S. ground forces should be reduced by one-third over time, which is possible without reducing U.S. security. The Navy should be restructured to operate as a surge force, rather than being a permanent global presence. We should also shift more of the burdens of defense to other prosperous democracies.
Rightsizing US Ground Forces. Rising personnel costs have added to the ballooning defense budget. The Army and Marines have grown 15 percent since 2001, driven by the view that future wars will resemble those in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it is not in our interest to topple foreign regimes and attempt long-term nation building. For combating terrorism, we do not need such a large Army as we have today
Education The Department of Education operates a range of subsidy programs for elementary and secondary schools. That aid is matched by rising federal regulatory control over the schools, but federal intervention has not generally lifted academic achievement. The department also provides subsidies to higher education through student loans and grants. Unfortunately, that aid has fueled inflation in college tuition and is subject to widespread abuse.
The department will spend $79 billion in 2011, or about $670 for every U.S. household. It employs 4,400 workers and operates 171 different subsidy programs.
Spending Cuts Summary
Downsize This!
K-12 Education Subsidies Federal intervention into the nation's schools has consumed great deals of taxpayer money and created large bureaucracies to administer the funding and regulations. However, it has produced little, if any, improvement in academic results.
Higher Education Subsidies Federal grants and loans for college and university students have contributed to soaring inflation in tuition costs. Student grant and loan programs have also been subject to high levels of fraud and abuse.
Energy The Department of Energy oversees nuclear weapons sites and subsidizes conventional and alternative fuels. The department has a history of fiscal and environmental mismanagement. Further, misguided energy regulations have caused large loses to consumers and the economy over the decades.
The department will spend about $45 billion in 2011, or about $380 for every U.S. household. It employs about 17,000 workers directly and oversees 100,000 contract workers at 21 national laboratories and other facilities across the nation. The department operates 37 different subsidy programs.
Spending Cuts Summary
Downsize This!
The Department of Health and Human Services administers the huge and fast-growing Medicare and Medicaid programs. These programs fuel rising health costs, distort health markets, and are plagued by waste and fraud. The department also runs an array of other expensive subsidy programs, including Head Start, TANF, and LIHEAP. Growth in HHS spending is creating a federal financial crisis, and the 2010 health care law sadly makes the situation worse.
The department will spend $910 billion in 2011, or $7,710 for every U.S. household. It employs 68,000 workers and runs more than 420 subsidy programs Spending Cuts Summary
Downsize This!
The Department of Housing and Urban Development engages in a range of housing and community activities that used to be the responsibility of local governments and the private sector. Its public housing subsidies, rental assistance, and housing finance activities have proven to be costly and damaging to the economy. The department's poor management and misguided policies have led to fraud, corruption, and much wasteful spending.
The department will spend about $61 billion in 2011, or about $520 for every U.S. household. It employs 9,700 workers and operates 118 different subsidy programs. Spending Cuts Summary
Downsize This!
?Labor The Department of Labor's budget is dominated by the unemployment insurance system, which has soared in cost in recent years. The department runs numerous employment and job training programs, but these activities are generally ineffective and duplicate services available in private markets. The department also oversees an array of labor union laws and workplace regulations that restrict freedom and are costly to workers and businesses.
The department will spend $148 billion in fiscal 2011, or about $1,250 for every U.S. household. It employs more than 17,000 workers.
Spending Cuts Summary
Downsize This!
Failures of Unemployment Insurance The UI system is costly to taxpayers and creates numerous economic distortions. Federal involvement should be ended and the states left free to design their own systems.
Employment and Training Programs Federal programs for unemployed workers have never worked very well, are relatively little used, and are unneeded in today’s economy because private markets provide many alternatives.
. Reforming Labor Union Laws Federal union laws that mandate exclusive representation, union security, and prevailing wages are costly to the economy and restrict individual freedom. They should be repealed.
Transportation The Department of Transportation subsidizes and regulates highways, airports, air traffic control, urban transit, passenger rail, and other activities. However, taxpayers and consumers would be better off if these activities were privatized, as has occurred in numerous other nations. Opening up the financing and operation of transportation infrastructure to the private sector would save money, spur innovation, and reduce congestion.
The department will spend about $79 billion in 2011, or about $670 for every U.S. household. It employs 58,000 workers and operates 84 subsidy programs.
Spending Cuts Summary
Downsize This!
Department of Interior- This Departments rip-off of America ‘s resources deserve additional scrutiny??
The Western Outlaws- Fifty-one percent of Senators represents only 17% of the population.? This gives the less-populous Western states disproportionate power in the Senate.? These Western outlaws believe in government for the people, but the people they are interested in, too often, are not the American public.? Western senators and congressmen, mostly Republicans, often with Executive Branch support, sell out the interests of Americans in order to do the dirty work for corporations and businesses that engage in resource activities on publicly owned lands.
?Land Leases-With self-assured arrogance and defiance, these outlaws help companies and developers, with whom they’ve had long, personal, and often professional ties, pay less-than-market rents for access to public lands.? These companies did so well with the help of their Congressional sponsors that a large secondary market in public land leases developed.? As an example, a lessee may pay the government $1 per acre, and then turn around and sublease it’s the land rights to another company for $10 per acre.
Government Land Trade-Land trades between the federal government and private companies are usually not fair to the public.? A Seattle Times investigation found that these transactions are routinely manipulated by special interests behind closed doors.? The manipulators include not only large companies like Weyerhaeuser, but also land speculators, politicians, and even environmental groups.
Crown Pacific got the land they desired, despite last-minute revelations that the US Forest Service had proposed trading 31,000 acres of national forest, including 4,000 acres of old growth, to the timber company. Officials from the Forest Service had actually seen those acres. When they looked, they made the embarrassing discovery: Most of the trees counted as old grow weren’t.? Only a few hundred acres were. Roy Keene a timber expert said “in the real world they would have killed the deal …. But this one went forward without a hitch”.
?Mining On Public Land These Congressional outlaws also use the hard rock mining laws enacted in 1872 as their weapon of choice.? Under a series of Nineteenth-Century variations on the Homestead Act, mineral-rich government-owned land is sold for as little as $2.50 per acre.? In 1994, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt was forced under the Mining Law of 1872 to turn over the title to acres of public land that contained more than $100 billion in gold.? In return, a Canadian-based company paid less then $10,000 in gold as the price for the land.? Babbitt called it the greatest gold heist since the days of Butch Cassidy.? Over the past 125 years, ownership of more than 3.2 million acres of government land has been handed over in a similar way.
The Homestead Act was originally intended for small-scale hard rock miners, to encourage family-sized homesteading in the American West.? It is noteworthy that 23 of the top 40 companies who have used this act, and are now extracting minerals from public lands, are either subsidiaries of, or largely controlled by, foreign corporations.? Again, I ask … government for what people?
Besides foreign corporations, major US corporations are also key beneficiaries of this particular legislation.? For example, Chevron purchased the 2,036 acres that make up the Stillwater Mine, located in the Bear Tooth-Absaroka Wilderness, 40 miles from Yellowstone Park, for a total of $10,180 (i.e., $5 an acre).? The value of the mine’s reserves of palladium and platinum is estimated at a much higher $30 billion.
Timber offers another classic opportunity for the Congressional Western Outlaws to fleece America.? In exchange for logging fees, the US Forest Service builds and maintains roads.? Only rarely do the fees cover the costs.? The US Forest Service routinely loses $1.2 billion annually, for services provided to private logging companies.? This is over and above what they make from the sale of timber cut on public lands.? In effect, the taxpayers pay private timber companies to remove our public trees.? And the rip offs will continue.? President Bush and Congress recently created the misnamed Healthy Forest Initiative, which targets the remaining 4% of our original forests for logging under the guise of forest fire management.?
Public [C3]?[BM4]?forest supply comprises less than 4% of the timber supply harvested from this country, and due to the government welfare given to the timber interests, half the trees cut in the US are exported as minimally processed low return on investment wood, pulp, and chips.
Oilrigs On Public Lands There are 46,000 oilrigs currently operating on American public lands.? The Bureau of Land Management is contemplating the eventual drilling of 50,000 oil and gas wells in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming.? A current proposal would drill 5,000 wells, and would require building 2,500 miles of new roads, along with 2,500 miles of new pipelines.? This plan would ravage 3,600 square miles of predominately public land in Wyoming.?
Ranching on Public Land
Public lands ranchers have permanently destroyed millions of acres of land in the arid regions of the West, yet they provide only 3% of the nation’s beef supply.? The cost for a rancher to use public land for grazing is a mere $1.35 per month for a head of cattle compared to approximately $10 per month on private lands.? According to the Cato Institute, public land ranchers receive $200 million in direct subsidies yearly.? These indirect subsidies and public assets liquidation cost the taxpayers billions per year.
Land exchanges between the Federal Government and private companies often aren’t fair to the public.? Indeed these transactions are others that are routinely manipulated by special interests, behind closed doors.? The manipulators include large companies; land speculators, and Western Outlaw politicians.? Good examples of Western Outlaw states offending in this way include Wyoming, Alaska, Idaho, and Montana.
?Department of Justice
The EEOC is one of most dangerous organizations in America and should be closed down.? It has done irreparable damage to our businesses, schools, and government institutions.? I first became aware of the EEOC when, as the head of Labor Relations for a New York company, I was asked to appear before the Commission regarding a complaint by an employee who had recently been fired.? The employee, a Hispanic union member, was let go after several months of the normal grievance process, and with the agreement of the union.? His argument was that he was discriminated against because he was Hispanic.? I explained to the Commission members that this claim was nonsense, because about three-quarters of our union employees were Black or Hispanic.
The logic of my argument should have produced a win for my company; it was instead a no-brainer that highlighted that the all-minority panel consisted of no-brainers.? The EEOC insisted that we had discriminated, and that we must rehire the troublemaker with back pay.? These irrational, one-sided, unjust rulings, I was to later learn, were the rule rather than the exception with the EEOC.? The legacy of this worthless department continues today. When Ida Castro, a Latino female, became EEOC chair, it was the Hispanics’ turn to swing with the EEOC paddle and try to break apart an American pi?ata, filled with jobs and cash payoffs just waiting to fall into what the Federation for Immigration Reform (FAIR) called “unclean hands.”? She quickly sought protection for the undocumented workers who illegally entered the country while thousands who followed the law waited for a chance to immigrate legally.? Her policy called for the undocumented workers to be entitled to wrongful termination, back pay, damages, and legal costs.? According to FAIR, this policy “appears to be sanctioning people who have unclean hands, people who break our laws willingly and knowingly, and people who are bidding down the wages of all Americans.”?? ???????
?Payoff for Not Speaking Our Language?? If you’re still not convinced that the EEOC should be shattered and swept into the dustbin of history, the following case will change your mind.
A private Catholic university in San Antonio, Texas did a tremendous favor for its Hispanic housekeepers when it told them to speak English on the job – not because the workers learned to speak the language of the US, but because the EEOC then helped the housekeepers win a $2.4 million legal settlement.? Note that 71% of the students at the University of the Incarnate Word are minorities.? Their tuition dollars now line the pockets of people who couldn’t bear the thought of speaking English.
In this case, it didn’t matter that it is legal for employers to have English work rules; in this wacko world, the EEOC insisted that there was a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act on the grounds that they discriminated against people on the basis of their national origin.? Similar language case boondoggles have shot up 500% over the last few years.? It is another one of the typical EEOC cases, where everyone loses except the people who should have.
??Business Learns To Roll Over
The diversity business has spread like a cancer throughout many industries.? Having a “diversity officer” to assure that minorities get a leg up when applying for a job or competing as suppliers is now the latest form of featherbedding and influence peddling offered by the “un-civil rights” mob offers to their “good fellows.”? Businesses who unquestionably give the most are called socially responsible for allowing part of their shareholder profits to be siphoned off to these unproductive leaches. An exception and another hero is T.J. Rodgers.? When Jessie Jackson tried to shake down T.J.’s company, his board originally said, “Don’t make waves – go along to get along.”? Originally, he was going to adopt the “under-the-desk” reaction like the board wanted him to.? But after listening to Jackson saying outrageous things on the radio, T.J. got ticked off.? He challenged Jackson to a debate about the facts in Jackson’s racial discrimination claims.? Rodgers offered to hire any well-qualified Black candidates Jackson sent him.? But of course, it is not the needs of the Black community in which “Me-first Jackson,” as some call him in Chicago, is primarily interested.?
Policy 3-Combining Municipal Services
The Federal government is not the only one wasting our money; the State and local governments are also poor stewards of financial resources.? As a management consultant, I helped companies save millions of dollars by updating their organization structure.? When looking at organizations, the early logic for the organization design is evident and no longer applies.? Opportunities are usually apparent for eliminating duplication and improving efficiencies.? In Northern California towns and cities, where I have done many studies, there is good cooperation on regional issues, but little support to share resources and eliminate duplication.
For example, every town on the peninsula in California has a costly police force and fire organization. One California mayor estimates the effective cost of employing each police officer and fireman is $180,000 per year, this outrages compensation is emblematic of the inability and unwillingness of local governments to control costs.? In San Jose, police and fire officials make up a majority of the city’s 100 highest-paid employees, while San Jose leads the state cities in disability claims from safety employees.? When you look at the proximity of the facilities and the bloated size of departments, as well as the rarity of serious crime or major fires in this area, combining departments, and reducing bloated payrolls, overtime, enormous pension obligations, and flexible work hours that allow for second jobs and businesses makes obvious sense.? But to all politicians, safety services are a sort of sacred cow that cannot be sacrificed, though the cost of such services makes up a large percentage of local budgets.
I recommend replacing bloated expensive police forces with returning military veterans. The TSA and Border Patrol should also be incentivized to hire vets and the role of the military should be expanded to include infrastructure repair as well as providing safety services where safety unions are unresponsive to police their greed.? ?Cutting pension and salaries by at least fifty percent is a good beginning Where is it written that you have to continue to pay out this budget killing compensation packages just because some foolish politicians and staffs with no skin in the game but safety officer union money and votes gave away the store.? Moreover, all town services should be scrutinized for possible merging, privatization and budget slashing?
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Policy 4 Public Sector Unions should be made illegal
Public service unions are growing so large that they are influencing public policy to further their own interests, rather than serving the public.? I think that the very concept of public service unions is patently unfair.? In California, police and fire unions are large, well-funded, and active in securing unreasonable pay and benefit packages.? The very communities they serve are rarely in precarious condition or threatened by incidences of fire or crime.? Perhaps an all-volunteer force should be considered, since most bureaucrats yield to union demands.
The San Jose bureaucrats have allowed the city to be liable for more than $1 billion in lifetime benefits to employees who work for the city a mere 15 years.? And unbelievably, these elected representatives are planning to meet to talk about giving themselves the same lifetime benefits for even less service.? The unions have dictated their terms to these spineless bureaucrats, and the obtained for their members enough compensation and time off to start second businesses, moonlight, or just play.???
Irresponsible, large-state transportation unions likewise have enough clout to swing the vote for huge unnecessary state highway bond projects that require debt financing for years in the future.? Teachers’ unions, like all public service sector unions, should be outlawed.? School administrators without backbone to stand up to the diversity and left-wing ideologues should take their fat severance packages and find real jobs.?? You know a system has become troubled when the Left-leaning University of California becomes one of the largest campaign contributors in the state.
?Policy 5 Adopt The Nova Scotia Model
At one time in Nova Scotia, it was mandated that civil servants, security personnel, and public sector / government employees should not be allowed to unionize, and that their compensation should always be lower than comparable jobs in the private sector. After all it is the private sector that provides, the jobs were looking to expand not the government. Government is an expense while the private sector is an income producer. Working for the government should be made a less attractive option then work in the real world
?This policy still makes sense, but public unions have become too powerful.? Rather than defend the public interest, elected officials now simply bend to their pressure.
?Policy 6 Keep the spotlight on if you don’t want to be robbed
Renowned statesman Henry Clay once said, “Government is a trust and the officers of the government are the trustees; and both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people.”? Our politicians echo these sentiments when they campaign for our votes, but the sad fact is that for many in our government, long-term public service is a forgotten concept.? The concept of public service has evolved into a shortsighted, personal, special interest grab bag.? Recently retired Representative James T. Walsh (R-NY), spent taxpayer money to fund building renovations at his alma mater.? Representative Walsh used his power as chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs / Housing and Urban Development to secure a $4.5 million grant to fund a building renovation at St. Bonaventure University.? This amount is 50% greater than the largest single private gift to the University.
While most private schools rely on alumni philanthropists for large donations, St Bonaventure has the benefit of having a “Cardinal” on the House Appropriations Committee.? This big spender has no problem donating our tax dollars, and will probably expect the building to be named after him.? “Cardinal James” is not alone; our public officials are being caught time and again with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar.? When they are caught, they express no remorse, and in fact, many act as if what they are doing is proper.? They are indignant when questioned, as if they believe that taking from the till or rewarding a contributor or friend is a perk of their job, rather than what it really is: a breach of public trust.
When Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) released the first Congressional Pig Book in 1991, the group was a lonely voice in the pork-barrel wilderness.? There was only modest objection to the 546 projects worth $3.2 billion, and “earmark” was virtually unknown.? The one constant since then has been the undisputed reign of the King of Pork, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.).
After Republicans took over Congress in 1994, pork-barrel projects started to be used as a currency of re-election.? Over the following decade, they became a currency of corruption, and the explosion in earmarks to their peak at $29 billion in 2006 helped erase the Republican majority.? The 9,129 projects in the 2010 Congressional Pig Book represent a 10.2 percent decline from the 10,160 projects identified in fiscal year 2009, and the $16.5 billion in cost is a 15.5 percent decrease from the $19.6 billion in pork in fiscal year 2009.
The reforms that were adopted when Democrats took over Congress in 2006 can be attributed to many years of work exposing earmarks, especially the outpouring of public outrage over projects such as $50,000,000 for an indoor rainforest in Iowa and $500,000 for a teapot museum in North Carolina.?
The changes include greater transparency, with the names of members of Congress first appearing next to their requested projects in 2008; letters of request that identify where and why the money will be spent; and the elimination of earmarks named after sitting members of Congress in the House.???
For fiscal year 2011, House Democrats are not requesting earmarks that go to for-profit entities; House Republicans are not requesting any earmarks (although there are both exceptions and definitional questions); not surprisingly, the Senate has rejected any limits on earmarks.? None of these reforms are sufficient to eliminate all earmarks, so CAGW expects there will still be a 2011 Pig Book.
The transparency changes are far from perfect.? The fiscal year 2010 Defense Appropriations Act contained 35 anonymous projects worth $6 billion, or 59 percent of the total pork in the bill.? Out of the 9,129 projects in the 2010 Congressional Pig Book there were 9,048 requested projects worth $10 billion and 81 anonymous projects worth $6.5 billion.
The latest installment of CAGW’s 20-year exposé of pork barrel spending includes $4,481,000 for wood utilization research, $300,000 for Carnegie Hall in New York City, and $200,000 for the Washington National Opera in the District of Columbia.
Following the exit of Alaska porker extraordinaire Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), the state slipped to number four in pork per capita.? Hawaii led the nation with $251 per capita ($326 million).? The runners up were North Dakota with $197 per capita ($127 million) and West Virginia with $146 per capita ($265 million).
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Policy 7-Politicians Make It Worse
Politically, the representatives of the unemployed, underemployed and unemployable are going to push to “make jobs”, in spite of the insolvency of the government. The government will seek to crate work through regulation. These policies will be implemented in conjunction with the industries with falling demand, perhaps by mandating a very short workweek, or requiring that successful firms adapt dysfunctional individuals for “training “
The prospect of another round of counterproductive regulation is one of the strongest arguments for the laissez –faire prejudice in politics. It is not necessarily true that government can never do anything that would be beneficial. Wise and knowing leaders, in theory could encourage rather than retard necessary developments. They could facilitate the liquidation of inefficient firms, and encourage workers to adopt productive values and to adapt to changes in technology and to break free from their intransigent union bosses.
But the political reality is otherwise. There is a strong temptation to use whatever power government has in these transitional moments to retard the progress of the country rather than to encourage it. It many more cases than not, politicians actually encourage constituents to adapt counterproductive values and resist changing their behavior to comply with signals in the market. We would be better off with the old rule that said government should not step in to try to improve things. Nine times out of ten, the politicians will not improve things. Hey will make them worse.
?Policy 8-Term Limits Can’t Get the Bums Out of Office
Career politicians are bad for the country.? Many states have passed laws automatically forcing longtime legislators out of office.? Congressional efforts to limit the terms of members of the House and Senate died, but limits for members of state assemblies are flourishing.? There have recently been a record number of newcomers with little or no political experience.? Opponents of term limits argue that such inexperience will hurt voters because rookie legislators find it hard to navigate the bureaucracy.? They say that limits force out well-regarded politicians, who have formed strong ties with their constituents.? Further, they think limits will erode democracy by taking away voters’ rights to choose their representative.
Proponents like me, however, see career politicians as the greater threat.? The longer a careerist stays in office, the more likely they are to betray their constituents and give in to corruption.? Newcomers need to be encouraged to take risks and enter elections free from entrenched, highly funded incumbents.
The Supreme Court let term limits stand for state lawmakers, permitting California, which has some of the country’s strictest tenure restrictions, to continue enforcing them.? Some states have even tried to limit the terms of their Congressional representatives.? The Supreme Court ruled, however, that letting states establish such restrictions would violate the Constitution and weaken “Congress’ national character.”? By not limiting Congressional terms, “Congress’ national character” will eventually appear on the most wanted posters in our post offices, in my opinion.
?Policy 9- Support Tax Reform
Lower Spending and Higher Taxes
As a fall in Real Estate precipitates an avalanche of cash demands on the Treasury, the market will block the inflationary solution of running the money presses. The only way the government will have to pay their bills is to pay them. What a novel idea! That means taking the scissors to both sides of the spending equation: obligations must be pared drastically, and citizens squeezed for more revenues. Tax rates must be raised by eliminating loopholes and subsidies on corporations and the rich.
As George Schultz. Noted, “The focus of the tax structure should be revenue collection. Attempts to achieve social and microeconomic goals through the use of the tax system must be abandoned.” However, I would like to se new tax incentives for creating jobs. What also would be helpful are broad reforms of the tax treatment of capital investment, including allowing business to deduct the full cost of new equipment in the first year.? The government should put an end to double taxation of dividends. Keep it simple: just cut taxes for the declining middle class. As president Kennedy said in proposing a tax cut that was enacted in 1964, “The largest single barrier to full employment of our manpower and resources is the unrealistic heavy drag of federal income taxes on private purchasing power, initiative. Our tax system still siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power and reduces the incentive for risk, investment, and effort.”
Come up with billions of dollars for investment and economic growth. Raising taxes is not the way to get such sums; the way to do it is to cut, and cut deep, the federal government.
?Policy 10- We Need an Industrial Policy
We need to plan for the long-term future of business to restore our global competitiveness. Our politicians proclaim how America with its innovative companies welcomes competing in the global marketplace.? True,
American brands such as coca cola, Starbucks, Mc Donalds are found in most remote reaches of our planet. However, there is almost nothing that is still made in the USA and though these companies are employing thousands around the world they are not providing many new jobs in the United States.?
? Frankly, as an objective observer of the globally economy, I’m disheartened to watch how quickly the U.S. is losing competitive advantages in high technology, the service sector and manufacturing. Even our hallowed reputation as the world’s leading innovators and inventors of new products is slipping as more business and academic collaboration across borders dilutes our once unique strength.
The depression will cause the government as well as many entrepreneurs who should be thinking about their long-term growth to continue to indulge in short-term quick fix approaches to business. Although our high-tech industries are among the best in the world, America’s technology edge is fast being eroded as other nations invest heavily in science and engineering.
More involvement by the government bureaucracy in business policies is not what is needed. We don’t want the government reallocating resources from one-sector to another. Nor will the na?ve belief that we need to support large government industry consortiums be the answer.
What we need is:
Federal funding for state industrial extension programs such as the one outlined shortly.
Better information on the manufacturing, marketing, and research and development practices of foreign competitors Some countries have been reverse engineering American innovations that have been costly and have taken years of research and development. We need to identify through market research of which unique American products and services are in demand or which a demand can be created and to support aggressive policies to improve America’s balance of trade deficit. No trade pacts with countries that sell us more then they buy.
Though our misguided government policy has indentured our future to borrowing from the Chinese, pressure must be brought to stop them from continuing to devalue their currency for competitive advantage.
America must remember that selling to the world’s largest consumer market is the goal of much of the world. If we are not getting any benefits from a trading partners an option is stop trading with those countries and to bring back manufacturing and services to the U.S.? Do we really need to send our customer call services to India and lose thousands of jobs here?
?Our choices are to try to compete in a low-cost manufacturing economy or to develop a technology and education based competitive strategy. We simply cannot succeed as a low-cost producer with dozens of newly industrialized nations. We will be continually challenged to reduce wages and other costs to stay competitive.
We must work smarter rather than harder, emphasizing our high -technology strengths. Doing so however requires investments in education, science and technology.
To accomplish what needs to be done, we should grant the private sector research and investment tax credits. This approach would be far more effective than another massive red-tape-bound infusion of federal funding.
?Policy – Support regional and State Economic Recovery Groups
Regional and state economic recovery groups know their own problems better than Washington’s one size fits all policies, so they’re in the best position to solve them.? We should achieve measurable results by developing economic recovery plans at a regional and local level. From a helicopter view of the region, one can customize job-specific economic recovery plans on a human scale rather than pontificate in the halls of Congress about using money policy to turn the economy around. Again, to quote xx “is the equivalent of giving oats to the horses to feed the birds.” These regional groups should consist of representatives of the public, private, and independent sectors.
State governments like Wisconsin are attracting new business by adopting good business practices. The pitch to business is not marked by the obsequious giveaways, instead, it features a value-added approach that emphasis quality of labor, capital availability, infrastructure (intellectual rather than highways), ease of doing business, right to work labor laws, and patiently attracting smaller firms rather than frantically going after massive, but often endangered companies.
?A state like California, for example, the basket case for inept economic leadership should free up a portion of the state pension fund from its conservative and politically correct investment regulation to create a multimillion –dollar venture capital fund.?
This fund would support a California modernization service whose “agents” are not state employees –who would not be credible as industrial consultants – but private sector experts who would help midsize businesses with advice, small loans to allow for the adoption of manufacturing and marketing techniques to grow the business with the main goal of hiring new employees.
There would also be a California business ombudsman who continually cut through r red tape to get outdated laws thrown off the books.? Another
?Important point is to get the state employees to take individual reasonability and move to an emphasis on results rather than the usual employee’s emphasis on process.
?Policy 12 – Privatize government functions
With or without the support of government employees, a major area of growth in the twenteens will be the privatization of functions now performed badly by government. The breakdown of order in urban areas will place a premium on security services. The collapse of urban infrastructure will oblige individuals to supplement the quality of public services in other ways. Water purification systems, for example, will be necessities in bankrupt cities.
There will be tremendous growth in private educational services, including for-profit and nonprofit schools. The tribalization of society int o hyphenated groups, and the seizure of school curricula in urban areas and our universities by militants pushing “Afro centric “Middle East Revisionism, and Hispanic studies substantially undermines the reason that school systems were operated by the government in the first place.? This was not to secure a better education. Overwhelming evidence shows that private schools are more effective instruments of learning. Schools were kept largely under government management to facilitate indoctrination with middle class culture and the ideas of citizenship. Where “Afro centric and other eccentric curriculum based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation has come to dominate schools are now counterproductive to their original purpose. And they certainly are not doing the job of education, which has now become too important to leave in the hands of bureaucrats.
Policy 13 -Narrowing the income gap requires narrowing the gap in education and skills between the poor and the rich.
Part off the reason this has been slow to happen is that even as the “Occupy Wall Street “screams for more, there is already too much income distribution.? Too many programs and unachievable political promises have not only slowed the speed of adjustment to new realities, they .in part, have subsidized the growth of a counterproductive slum culture. Welfare entitlements encourage too many uneducated, unmarried women to have children. They then lack the family cohesion and cultural values to educate themselves and stay out of trouble.
Another reason for the gap income is due to overindulgence in current consumption, another facet of life in the 2000’s that could not be redressed by more income redistribution. Part of the reason that Americans save so little is the assurance that they will be protected from army of the high-cost contingencies, like retirement security and medical car in old age. The young in America, unlike older generations who laid the foundation of American prosperity, spend every penny that comes into their hands. This is not a lifestyle that will stand the test of time. Nor can it be justified by the exigencies of the moment. Some will say that middle class people are “unable to save.” But this cannot be true with public assistance today’s poor enjoy a standard of real consumption many times higher than poor people in the 1930’s. Many simply fail to utilize their resources- including their time wisely. And the poor they are, the worse they tend to do. The poorest people in Western societies tend to bear and rear children irresponsibly, as well as indulge in crime, drug abuse, and alcoholism more than productive citizens. These behaviors seldom lead to the development of skills or economic success.
The most urgent need to slow the Great Unraveling in the twenteens is to increase the payoff from accomplishment and law bidding behavior. The countries that will best adapt to the depression, will be those with the highest incomes, and most productive citizens- like China, German, Switzerland, Israel, Denmark, Australia, Canada and Japan. Rather then penalizing the successful, and making it more difficult to become and remain affluent, a rational policy for America would aim for the opposite result. It would reduce taxes and the unattainable burdens of transfer payments, income distribution, and the guarantees against failure that are the essence of the welfare state.
Work Programs for the poor
Programs for the poor will be reorganized with the object of reducing costs-and altering the anti-social behaviors of the underclass. Like English Poor law in 1834 to reduce poverty and discourage able body people from seeking relief as an alternative to work, in the Great Unraveling, the poor house will make a comeback in the guise of programs for the homeless and addicted which will require able body people to join government work programs as a condition of continued assistance.? These draconian reforms of 1834, succeeded in cutting the percentage of the population on relief from 8.8 percent in 1834 to 4.3 percent in 1860. The period will sadly rediscover large orphanages and retirement homes .as mounting Medicaid and AFDC costs overwhelms dwindling budgets.
Cut rural subsidies- Subsidies to life in remote areas, like cheap postage, subsidized electricity, water, cheap warm credit should be curtailed. As a result, some small towns that lack sufficient tax base to finance repair of infrastructure or a sufficient market will disappear and there will be more legalized gambling, prostitution and legalized pot in rural areas
Policy 14 Adopt a life boat mentality
It is ludicrous to watch US political and economic leaders meeting with their European counterparts to prevent the coming depression. It is truly the blind leading the blind and both with empty tin cups.? The world economy is sinking but there will be many lifeboats available in this sea of despair. Each country must prepare to take care of its own citizens and that in most cases will be a monumental task. Germany for example, will not be able to continue to save a sinking Europe for the long-term and its citizens are going to make sure that doesn’t happen. China will wonder why they such a poor country should be baling out?? America ‘s financial boat.? Yes the depression will be a global problem but the solutions will be on the local and national level. A worldwide attempt at solutions will be as ineffective as Washington top-down approach to rescue our economy but with exponentially y more devastating effects. The current administration still believes they can reboot the economy. This naivety prevents the hard bottom-up real world work needed for economic recovery.
Policy 15 – The future rests with our Smaller Market- oriented Firms.
Among my heroes are the real market oriented entrepreneurial firms, small and medium-sized businesses. These innovative firms do operate under classic free market rules. These firms need services –real services not lip service, which seems to be the only product of the federal bureaucracy.
Gene Biggi, president of Beaverton Foods, illustrates the problems of small and medium sized companies that are trying to compete in a global economy. He shared some of the problems he encountered shipping to foreign countries. Envision how assistance using a bottom up one – on- approach with business experts able to cut through government red tape could help this company and so many more.
“Before I shipped to these countries, I went to trade shows through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, purchased booths and surveyed the competition. In all the countries we went to – many customers were desirous of companies that manufactured American products. We were unique and had items not available in these foreign countries. However here are the problems that faced all food manufacturers in the United States. Foreigners could ship specialty items into the United States with much less regulation and duty, sometimes ranging from as much as 30 percent difference. It’s much higher in cost for U.S. manufacturers to ship the same product to the foreign countries. “We are required to hand-tag each individual jar when we ship export to all foreign countries, stating the name of the distributor. The United States does not require this when importing. This is a tremendous savings to their importers.”
There are many ingredients we cannot ship. These same foreign companies use the same ingredients; however, we can’t ship them. The United States does not require the same conditions and yet the government says we have e an open market.” In addition, all ingredients are analyzed and they seem to find something to reject. This is risky and very expensive for U.S. companies. Foreigners are not faced with these problems in the United States.
I have personally boycotted all trade shows until doing business with foreign markets is on an even playing field. …The above conditions are the reason the U.S. manufacturers are not doing more exporting.”
Policy 16- Bringing Back the Public
A few decades ago, my former Stanford Research Institute colleagues the late Hewitt D. Crane and Doug Engelbert, were actively searching for tools to help increase public participation in solving significant social problems such as those we are facing today. The two geniuses were among the early pioneers who helped develop the “power tools” and systems for knowledge workers that evolved into the information systems that today we take for granted. These include, of course the computer and the Internet. In his book –The Social marketplace –Notes on Effecting Social Change in Americas Third Century, Crane looks back in our history at the systems and structures that increased public involvement in making the decisions that shaped their lives then. He sought to find an analog that could be used today.
?“Early society was composed mainly of individuals and their small associations: the private sector was a highly decentralized system of small –scale entrepreneurs, and the national government was an almost invisible force, in daily life. Modern America, standing now on a vast base of semi-autonomous corporations and a very large government, is a much different society. Many people maintain that our current problems can be solved by greater consciousness and social responsibility within the private sector and by a committed, resourceful, streamlined government sector. Even if this was possible, it neither would nor alter the nature of the interactions of the major systems within society.
The New Independents
According to Alexis de Toqueville, the Frenchman whose writing in the early 1800’s remains without peer for their perceptive insights about the American people. There is a “
characteristically American tendency “to form groups and myriad civil associations and that these convey such an enormous power to the people that they can counteract the overwhelming power of government.
Crane believes that one key to a new structural evolution is the reintegration of voluntary/not for profit organizations, what R.C. Cornuelle in Reclaiming the American Dream calls the” independent sector” of society. In the nations early years, Cornuelle notes, this sector took on the major burden of individual and local problems, from the care of the sick and underprivileged to education. However, with the growth of population, advancing technology, massive industrialization, and the increasing scale of both public and private organizations, the independent sector has grown weak and disorganized. Although its dimensions are fantastic and its raw strength awesome, it has been performing badly. Like the public and private sectors, the independent sector would not be capable of planning and implementing the massive restructuring of government that I believe is essential for our prosperity in the twenteens.
Although the independent sector has its limitations, it can provide a major contribution toward restructuring. It does open new channels of communication and it could be a positive force to help move the nation in new directions. The “Tea Party’ could be such a force if it would focus on the economy and not the social conservative agenda of the right –wing which turns off many of the growing numbers of independent voters.
To break the hold of big government, the independent sector could be expanded to include all those including those in Occupy Wall Street Movement understand that our current two-party system can’t and won’t reform itself but who don’t want to join the extremist fringes of the political spectrum. Such an independent sector could provide planners with a public mandate required for modernizing, downsizing and restructuring our outdated central government and developing new approaches to solving our economic and social ills.
First, the newly expanded independent sector must elect people who can provide a mandate for developing “America 2020” and will provide support to make it stick.
Second, the independent sector can perform the important task of monitoring its constituents’ values and issues; it can tell planners what constituents think about the process and what should and should not be included in the plan.
THE SOCIAL MARKETPLACE
How these social ideas can be effectively developed, negotiated, and communicated is something to which crane had given considerable thought. Like physical goods such as neckties and shoes that are traded in our free market, Crane tells us that social goods (ideas) are shaped by their proponents and must eventually be sold and bought in the world of social commerce, where voters and legislators examine the goods and select among them. For social policy to be reasonably founded, the public must have a clear idea of the trade-offs between competing ideas and limited resources.
To provide the public with a clear understanding of the options, we must extend the marketplace for knowledge and information.
Until recently, crane explains, our social planning model was similar to the professional/client relationship. The “pros”, our representatives in government and large business, were the presumed keepers of competence who “knew best”. We, the public, were the clients who lived with the decisions made for us by the pros. I agree with crane that now the public wants to be more involved in making the decisions they live by. In fact, the public is becoming the third leg of a triangle that includes the government and business sectors.
However, as a public we lack the kind of expertise most of us bring to buying shoes or neckties. Nor is there a Consumers Report we can consult to let us “bone up “before we are forced to buy or reject an idea that is bound to impact us, for better or for worse, far more than any necktie ever could! Unlike commodities markets that have brokers and a highly developed distribution system, individuals have few vehicles for learning about and distributing their ideas.
Crane has some innovative suggestions for remedying this situation. They include establishing media knowledge centers, regional exploration –brokerage centers, and-my favorite – using traveling shows modeled after the old-time Chautauqua shows that crisscrossed the country at the turn of the century, bringing culture, knowledge and entertainment to small towns linked only by our dirt roads and train tracks. Of the Chautauqua, Joseph Gould in The Chautauqua Movement notes: “It was praised for having done more toward keeping American public opinion informed and alert and unbiased than any other movement…Traveling Chautauqua brought to the attention of millions of Americans an impressive number of new ideas and concepts, many of which might never have received the popular support that guaranteed their acceptance. The Graduated income tax, slum clearance, juvenile courts, pure food laws, the school lunch program, free textbooks, a balanced diet, physical fitness, The Campfire girls and Boy Scout movements – all these and many more are concepts were introduced by circuit Chautauqua.”
?To educate today’s public, Crane purposed modern traveling shows that would facilitate face to –face interaction between various specialists and leaders, planners, individuals and communities. He envisions a broad base of interactive exhibits, booths, video theater, mobile bookstores, talks and debates. In this age when watching television and the Internet have replaced interacting with real people, Crane’s idea has great merit and deserves to be tried. On TV, it’s all too easy to dismiss poverty, crime, and violence; if a commercial doesn’t temporarily intervene, you can always switch the channel. Hearing real people tell it how it really is and suggest how much better our lives could be would be a novelty. I think people would listen.
I wrote this book to bring my ideas into the social marketplace. I’m looking for buyers or people who want to trade their ideas about policies that will shape America.
I’m a realest, however, and am pessimistic about the public’s willingness to tackle the major problems. Most people do not care what’s happening in politics, nor do they know much about political events or share in making decisions they just want to survive another day. Americans have always been lethargic voters and this has allowed special interest groups to define and legislate in the “public interest.” But as Robert Dahl in “The Makings of Public Policy points out, “An individual is unlikely to get involved in politics unless he believes the outcome will be relatively unsatisfactory without his involvement. The percentage of voters rises sharply in depression years.”
Wouldn’t it be ironic if the legacy of the Great Unraveling and the Obama /Biden disaster were to bring our country a period of great prosperity as well as greater participation in the democratic processes?
?Cheers!
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