But it can get depressing, considering the track record of our current set of politicians:
- Government operations lose hundreds of billions of our tax dollars a year to waste, inefficiencies, and outright criminal fraud.
- The economic ignorance of our politicians has resulted in the worst economic recovery in the past hundred years, leaving tens of millions of Americans under employed or unemployed and has negatively impacted the wages and earning power of most Americans.
- Their inability to run an efficient government n Washington has resulted in a national debt of almost $18 TRILLION, imposing a theoretical debt of about $57,000 on every single American, young and old alike.
- They have trampled on our freedom via such acts as the NDAA, the Patriot Act, using the NSA to spy and collect all of our electronic communications, using the IRS to stifle our First Amendment rights of free speech, using other pieces of legislation to stifle our freedom of religion rights, etc.
- The government operations they are supposed to operate are cesspools of inefficiencies from the Veterans Administration that cannot service the medical needs of our veterans to the IRS that cannot collect the hundreds of billions of tax dollars a year that go unpaid by tax evaders to the government immigration organizations that cannot secure our borders, etc.
However, before we get to The Bad and The Ugly, let’s spend some time today talking about some of The Good that is actually going on in America today. Today’s discussion is a hodgepodge of feel good stories that individual Americans are working on and succeeding at, efforts that are making life a little better for those around them.
As would be expected, these efforts do not include the political class since to do so would probably turn these feel good stories into just another set of government disasters. These Good stories are not meant to be all inclusive. I am sure there are millions of other good things being done by individual Americans today that would be impossible to document in this blog.
But let the following efforts make for a nice diversion away from the failures of our politicians and a reconfirmation that Americans are smart, hardworking, and can solve many of our problems without the “help” of government or politicians.
1) Suvir Mirchandani is a 14 year old middle school student from Pittsburgh who put together a science project that uncovered an ingeniously simple way for the Federal government to save an estimated $138 million a year with one simple change in government operations. He calculated that printer “ink is two times more expensive than French perfume by volume” according to news reports covering his discovery.
Suvir calculated that if the Federal government simply forced all government operations to switch its print font from Times New Roman to Garamond, the efficiencies gained from using this different but still perfectly fine font style would save the Federal taxpayer $138 million a year in ink costs. His discovery and findings came out of a science project that sought to reduce operating expenses within his Pennsylvania middle school.
His process apparently evolved from the following logic trail:
- By analyzing different typefaces, Suvir found that Garamond would take up far less space on a page than other fonts.
- Taking up less space meant using less ink and saving money.
- He then researched the huge amount of material that the government prints using less efficient type fonts and found that the annual Federal budget is $1.8 billion for printing-related expenditures.
- After analyzing five different government documents, Suvir found that using Garamond reduced coverage (the space covered by ink per page) by about 29% when compared to the original font used on each document.
- Since a Government Services Administration study estimated that ink costs constituted 26% of all government printing costs, $467 million in 2014, he determined that by implementing his recommendation, the Federal government would save $136 million in ink costs every year by a simple font change.
- He took his logic and calculations a step forward and took it down to the state and local government level where he found another $97 million in annual savings for the taxpayer.
2) If a 14 year old American can save government operations $200 million a year by simply changing print fonts, what can a dedicated 19 year old do? Consider the work of 19 year old Boyan Slat. Boylan was worried that our oceans have become giant garbage dumps for all types of debris but especially plastic debris that never decomposes and contributes to huge swaths of oceans turning into giant plastic dumping grounds.
As a result of his concern, he developed an ocean cleanup process and apparatus that he is estimated to have the ability to remove over 7 million tons of plastic from the oceans every year. Details of his brilliance and his invention include the following highlights:
- His invention consists of an anchored network of floating booms and processing platforms that could be dispatched to garbage patches around the oceans of world.
- Rather than moving through the ocean trying to scoop up debris, the array would span the radius of a garbage patch, acting as a giant funnel.
- The angle of the booms would force plastic in the direction of the platforms, where it would be separated from plankton, filtered and stored for recycling.
- While in school, Slat started an effort that analyzed the size and amount of plastic volume in the ocean’s garbage patches.
- His final analysis and research paper went on to win several prizes, including Best Technical Design 2012 at the Delft University of Technology.
- He continued to work on and further develop his concept during the summer of 2012 and went on to establish The Ocean Cleanup Foundation, a non-profit organization which is responsible for the development of his technologies.
- By removing ocean debris, his solution annually could potentially save hundreds of thousands of aquatic animals and reduce pollutants (including PCB and DDT) from building up in the food chain.
- It could also save millions of dollars every year in clean-up costs, lost tourism, and damage to marine vessels.
- He estimates that cleaning up all of the oceans could be done in as little as five years, using his invention.
More details of this effort can be accessed at:
3) Spencer Collins is a nine year old from Leawood, Kansas who wanted to share his love of books and reading with his friends and neighbors. Given that desire, he set up a book trading operation in his front yard, a process also referred to as “take a book, leave a book” for people that wanted to trade reading material with each other.
Collins’ "mini library" started operating on Mother’s Day after his grandfather gave him the colorful, handcrafted box as a gift made out of reused and recycled materials. The box where people could exchange books is about twice the size of a freestanding mailbox. Thus, it was nicely done and not overwhelmingly large, just the right size for Spencer’s library or book exchange passion.
His effort was an overnight success: "When they put it up I thought it was kind of cool," neighbor Ken McGregor told local TV station KCTV. "I would see the grandparents sit there and read to their kids. Kids will look around, pick up books, and read. Seems like it's kind of fun."
Kids reading, parents and grandparents reading to kids, a community service from a nine year old. How cool is that. Well, apparently not cool relative to the local set of politicians. The local politicians decided that Spencer’s library had to be shut down and removed since his box violated the town’s building code, which prohibits freestanding edifices in front yards. The nine old kid was also threatened with a trip to court and a fine if the library was not removed.
Fortunately, Facebook and other forms of social media exist. Later news reports indicated that public pressure via tens of thousands of social media contacts shamed the local Leawood politicians into allowing an exception to the ordinance and saving nine year old Spencer from prosecution and a criminal record for helping people find pleasure in book reading.
Three kids making great and positive contributions to other people’s lives via saving taxpayers money, cleaning up our valuable oceans, and helping get people and families together to read vs. playing video games. Imagine how much more good our kids could be doing to help the world of the political class in America stepped up their game to fix our broken public school systems and processes in this country.
These three kids are shining examples of what can happen with an empowered and educated set of citizens. A set of citizens that are not taxed and over regulated to the point of oppression and exhaustion by a government bureaucracy that crushes free thinking and solution based approaches to the major issues of our times.
Good deeds and good intentions exist in this country. They just do not seem to exist in the hearts and minds of our politicians, whose only priorities always seem to be their own perpetual reelection and their own self enrichment. These dual, selfish priorities prevent them from doing good things and deeds like what three kids, Spencer, Boyan, and Suvir, have done for us.
Unfortunately, we must leave “the Good” behind after today and revert back to “The Bad” and “The Ugly” of the American political class over the next few days. Savor the elegance and efforts Spencer, Boyan, and Suvir as we go forward with the less ineffective, less than elegant missteps of our politicians.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:
www.loathemygovernment.com
It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
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