More Reasons To Dump The Federal Education Department

Every time you turn around recently it seems you come across some news report or research report that reinforces the reality that the public education process in this country is badly broken, at least relative to the rest of the world. The latest bad news was summarized in an article from The Atlantic, written by Amanda Ripley, that appeared in the December 26, 2010 issue of the St. Petersburg Times. The main feature in the article was a bar chart that displayed the percentage of 15 year olds performing at the advanced level in math proficiency many countries, including the United States, and every one of our fifty states.

The output from the graph was based on the work of Stanford economist Eric Hanushek and two others. They were very careful to accurately adjust and slice the raw data from the testing that was done to exclude the impact of the following factors, factors that had been used as excuses for the poor performance of American kids in the past:

• They only looked at math test scores since math is math, it is not affected by language or culture, as much as language skills.
• They adjusted for household income and wealth using reliable proxies.
• They adjusted for whether or not the there was a college educated parent in the child's household.
• They adjusted for whether or not there was a race impact.
• They adjusted for how much each state spends per student in their states' public schools.

The bottom line conclusion after trying to look at the data from every conceivable angle? Now matter how you cut it, the United States does a horrid job of preparing public school students for proficiency in math. How bad is it:

• Only 6% of U.S. 15 year olds performed at an advanced proficiency in math.
• This places them behind 30 other nations including Estonia, Lithuania, Slovenia, and Slovakia, far poorer countries.
• The top three performing countries, Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, had about four times as many of their students performing at high math proficiency.
• Only two states, Massachusetts and Minnesota, had more than 10% of their kids performing at high levels which were behind sixteen other nations.
• New York state, which spends the most on public education per student, $17,000 per year per student, had only 6.3% of their students perform at high proficiency, trailing 30 countries and 15 other U.S. states.
• A 2010 study found a very high correlation between how well teachers are trained and how well students perform. In the United States, researchers tested 3,300 middle school math teachers-to-be in almost 40 states. They found that these future math teachers performed at about the same levels of would be teachers in Oman and Thailand and far behind teachers in Taiwan and Singapore. (Note: for Thailand, only 1% of their 15 year olds perform at a high proficiency level in math; for Oman, it was not even listed in the graph discussed above).

Pathetic, much like other parts of our government and political class, we spend and waste a lot of taxpayer dollars for very mediocre results. And I know of no plans by the Federal Education Department to fix any aspect of this poor performance and none was mentioned in the lengthy article.

However, although the picture is dismal, there were some small rays of light. Some states are taking long overdue, but solid action:

• Massachusetts made it harder to become a teacher in that state, tightening up the qualifications to teach in their state. They implemented a literacy test for new teachers that had to be passed before these teachers would be allowed into the classroom. The first year of the test, more than a third of the test takers failed.
• Massachusetts required all students to pass a  test before being able to graduate. Although it was met with fierce opposition, it required students to actually be educated before they got their diploma. Those that were having problems were provided tutors to help bring them up to speed.
• The District Of Columbia and and dozens of states reached agreement earlier this year to adapt common standards for what kids should be able to know in math and language arts, standards that were based on what successes other high performing countries are achieving.

The common thread in these small rays of light is the fact that the states have initiated these improvement programs, the Federal government and ruling political class are nowhere to be found in the improvement area. It is the states that are beginning to address the education problem and understanding root causes:

• High budgets do not necessarily make for smart kids.
• Poor teachers do not make for smart kids.
• Poor teacher training to not make for smart kids.
• Not having teacher, administration, and student accountability and proficiency testing do not make for smart kids.
• The Federal Education Department, and whatever they have been spending their annual budget on, does not make for smart kids.

But when has the political class and the Federal government ever done a root cause analysis of a problem? They certainly did not do it for Obama Care, they have not done it for the high unemployment rate, and they have not done it for any other major issue facing the country (immigration, energy policy, skyrocketing debt, etc.) so why expect them to start now. Three steps are needed to fix this national disgrace:

1. First, eliminate the Education Department and return its budget to the respective states. At least some of them are beginning to understand the root causes and take appropriate action, something the Federal government has never done.
2. Implement Step 27 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," which would build on some of the cooperative work already done by some of the states. This step would put together a blue ribbon commission of various subject matters experts in many fields, sans politicians and lobbyists, and pull together the necessary analyses, research, and smart thinking Americans, to finally leverage everything we know and what we can learn from others, and finally get education right in this country.
3. Step 34 would force all Congressional members who currently sit on any Congressional committee that deals with public education to step down from their committee posts and be replaced by others. In any other endeavor outside of politics, athletics, the private sector, etc., these so-called leaders would have been removed from their posts long ago for this type of disgraceful performance of our kids' education. Politics should be no different, you don't do the job, you don't hold the job.

I am not saying to axe the Education department blindly just to cut budget. I am saying axe it because if this is the kind of performance we are getting thirty years and trillions of dollars after the Department was established, we have been had.



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:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment.org

The Obscenity, Perversity, And Pervasiveness Of Election Campaign Spending

As the mid-term election campaign season mercifully draws to a close, I thought it would be a good time to do some accounting and show how much money as perverted and pervaded our election processes and provide some steps on how to end this obscenity of spending. Consider the following results:

• A short article in the St. Petersburg Times last week estimated that about $2 billion will be spent on election efforts of those running for national office. This comes out, on average, of spending about $4 million for each Congressional seat that is up for grabs this election season. Thus, for every open Congressional seat that earns about $174,000 in salary a year, $4 million is spent to attain that position, a ratio of $23 spent for every dollar of salary.
• This $2 billion estimate is only for Federal Congressional races, the article provided no estimates for the billions of dollars likely being spent on open local, county, and state political offices and for ballot initiatives. An estimate of that number comes form the Center For Responsive Politics. They estimate that both parties and their aligned advocacy groups will spend over $3.7 billion this year, nearly a billion dollars more than was spent in 2006.
• A short article in the October 29, 2010 issue of The Week magazine, reported that the U.S. spends $1 billion a year on heart disease research, a disease that affects millions and millions of Americans, and $500 million a year for Alzheimer's disease research, of which one out of every three Americans over the age of 80 is likely to come down with. Thus, the money spent on these elections, according to the Center For Responsive Politics,  is more than what is spent in seven years for Alzheimer's disease research and almost four years for heart disease research, even though these two medical conditions are more likely to affect far more Americans than mudslinging political advertisements. Talk about screwed up priorities.
• In Florida, a bitter campaign for Governor has been underway between Alex Sink and Rick Scott. According to an article in the October 28, 2010 edition of the St. Petersburg Times, the two candidates had already spent almost $55 million in their quest to be Governor. This is almost double what was spent in the last Governor race in 2006. The $55 million is $6 million more than what is spent on textbooks in the state's third largest school district since 2008. Since Florida has 67 counties, this amount is more than what was spent on school textbooks in each of 65 counties since 2008. Again, talk about screwed up priorities.
• According to an article in the November 5, 2010 issue of The Week magazine, the biggest single contributor in this year's election campaign season has been the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) labor union. This is contrary to what many DDemocrats would want you to think, they wanted to give the impression that "corporate" and "foreign" money was overwhelming the election process, which it may well be doing but no more and probably less than what AFSCME is doing. That labor union had contributed a whopping $87.5 million to Democratic candidates in order to keep their labor friendly politicians in office.  
• According to the same article, Meg Whitman, who is running for Governor of California, has spent more than $140 million of her own money to run for this office. I do not know what the salary is for the California Governor but I would bet it is substantially less than $140 million.
• And finally, a short article from the November 5, 2010 issue of The Week magazine pulls this all together. According to the article, three Republican candidates, Meg Whitman in California, Rick Scott in Florida, and Linda McMahon in Connecticut, have collectively spent $243 million (almost a quarter of a billion dollars) of their own money for their campaigns. This is more than what the AFSCME union, the U.S. Chamber Of Commerce, and Karl Rove's American Crossroads group combined have contributed to various campaigns.

Obscene, perverted, and pervasive. You might be able to justify, to some degree, the obscene amounts of money being spent on these election campaigns if their advertising and strategies were to inform and educate, and contained some degree of civility. However, at least the campaigns ads I have seen, have not been anywhere close to these three characteristics. They have been mean spirited, degrading, and almost totally non-issue based. They usually are not about how much good a candidate can do but how bad things will be if the candidate's opponent gets elected. Misinformation is the coin of the political realm and lies are the currency.

It is obvious that we have allowed way too much power and freedom to migrate to our political class. Why else would someone spend $140 million of their own money to get elected or special interest groups contribute so much money that the pay back for a successful candidate is $1 for every $23 dollars spent for the vacant seat. (The payback for the loser who also spent millions of campaign dollars is even worse, they do not even get the $1).  The only other reason for the obscene amounts of money to be donated and spent is the desire of our politicians to control that power. Remember how numerous banks contributed millions of dollars in 2008 to the national conventions of the Demcorats' and Republicans' national conventions that summer, only to receive billions of taxpayer bailout money several months back in return later when those same politicians attending those conventions voted to approve those bailouts? The corporations and unions are investing in their futures when they invest these large amounts of money in political campaigns. It is what is right for these organizations, not what is right for the average voter and what is right for the country. Remember the old saying from Ralph Louis Mencken, "Every election is an advance auction of stolen goods." Unfortunately, those stolen goods are our tax dollars and the political class are the auctioneers.

How do we end this perversion, pervasiveness, and obscenity of campaign dollars? Consider a few steps from "Love My Country. Loathe My Government:

• Step 6 - allow only individual citizens to contribute to election campaigns. The Bill of Rights and Founding Fathers provided the right for freedom of speech for individual Americans, not corporations, unions, PACs, etc. If only individual citizens could contribute to candidates' election campaigns, maybe those candidates would start listening to and performing for individual Americans, not the big money campaign donors.
• Step 7 - do not allow campaign dollars to cross Congressional lines for House of Representative seats or state lines for Senate seats. For example, a person running for Congress in a Congressional district in Ohio would only be able to accept campaign donations from citizens living within that Congressional district. No funneling of national party money into local campaign races. Only the people living in that district should be able to affect the results, either by donating money or voting.
• Step 8 - strengthen the Federal Elections Commission by staffing it with experienced law enforcement professionals and not career bureaucrats. I am sure that with billions of dollars flying around, there are certainly campaign finance laws being broken but since the Commission is staffed with equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans, no one is ever prosecuted for infractions.
• Step 39 - institute term limits for all politicians, a step that would at least eliminate the edge that incumbents have in raising campaign cash and allow politicians to vote for what is good for the country and not their individual campaign donors since re-election would be banned.
• Other - although not explicitly mentioned in the book but related to Step 7 above, another step that is needed is to restrict how leftover campaign funding is spent. Last week, news reports indicated that President Obama released $4 million from his leftover Presidential campaign fund to be used for support of Democrats running for Congress. We need a law that says once a campaign is over and the bills have been paid, those funds need to be liquidated, either by returning a pro-rated amount to the original contributors or giving the money to charities, e.g. Alzheimer's disease research! Those contributors expected the money to be used for his election, not to be funneled around the country to affect local elections. Dissolve these leftover pots of campaign money so that they do not poison future elections.

Government of the people, by the people, for the people. Nowhere in that great document where these words appear does it say of the PACs, by the unions, for the corporations. Time to bring campaign spending back under control and make the politcal class more responsive to the needs of Americans.




Our new 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:


http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/

Commitment Vs. Involvement: In A Ham And Egg Sandwich, The Chicken Is Involved But The Pig Is Committed

A recent article in the St. Petersburg Times by Robert Trigaux reminded me of this grand old saying. The article was published on Sunday, April 11, 2010 and it went through the cast of characters that were somehow involved with the market crash and recession starting in late 2007. The majority of the article was based on the testimony a lot of these people recently gave in front of the Congressional committee that was investigating the causes of the economic crash.

A few things struck me as I read the article and looked at the pictures of those listed as involved in the crash. The first thing I noticed, and the most obvious, was that all of these people mentioned in the article were involved in the crisis but none of them want to stand up and commit that their actions or inactions were contributing factors to the disaster:

• Alan Greenspan, former head of the Federal Reserve Board, did not take responsibility for the crash even though many people think that under his leadership, the Fed kept interest rates way too low for way too long. During the hearings, Greenspan stated that he was right 70% of the time in his Fed decisions. While 70% might be good for an NFL quarterback for a pass completion record, 70% is not good enough when the economic well being of the nation's citizens are on the line.
• George W. Bush has not taken responsibility for the crash even the seeds of destruction were sowed and allowed to grow during his administration.
• Barney Frank has not taken responsibility for the crash even though he was the House committee chairman that oversaw the housing market, he did not see the biggest economic crash coming since the Great Depression until it hit him in the face.
• Chris Dodd has not taken responsibility for the crash even though he was the Senate committee chairman that oversaw the housing market, he did not see the biggest economic crash coming since the Great Depression until it hit him in the face.
• Henry Paulson has not taken responsibility for the crash even though as Treasury secretary he also did not see the biggest economic crash coming since the Great Depression and when it did hit, he reacted slowly with no apparent strategy for determining which Wall Street firms were to live and which were to die.
• Bill Clinton has not taken responsibility for the crash even though as President he signed laws that separated commercial banking from investment banking, creating the behavior that led to the crash along with legislation that exempted the dangerous derivative financial products from regulation.
• Christopher Cox has not taken responsibility for the crash even though as former head of the Securities and Exchange Commission his organization watched on the sidelines as the banking system almost collapsed completely due to shady and risky financial dealings.
• Richard Fuld has not taken responsibility for the crash even though as CEO of defunct Lehman Brothers Fuld allowed his company get so deeply into risky subprime instruments that its demise was the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history.
• Raymond McDaniel has not taken responsibility for the crash even though his company, Moody's, incorrectly or falsely rated the subprime financial instruments as financially sound.
• Angelo Mozilo has not taken responsibility for the crash even though as CEO of Countrywide Mortgage his company apparently never met a mortgage customer, no matter how uncreditworthy, that his company would not accept.
• Franklin Raines has not taken responsibility for the crash even though as head of Fannie Mae his big investments in subprime mortgage securities led to a massive taxpayer bailout.
• David Lereah has not taken responsibility for the crash even though as a former economist of the National Association of Realtors, he never saw the housing collapse coming and his book, "Why The Real Estate Boom Will Not Bust" was published just as the real estate boom went bust.
• Robert Rubin has not taken responsibility for the crash even though as Citigroup Chairman he claimed he was ignorant of the risks that nearly destroyed one of the biggest banks in the world, indicating he was either a very lousy executive by not knowing how much at risk his company was at or a very lazy executive who never took the time to understand how much at risk his company was at.
• Charles Prince has not taken responsibility for the crash even though as Citigroup CEO he was just as lousy or lazy as Rubin.
• The Democrats in Congress have not taken responsibility for the crash even though they ran all of the Congressional committees responsible for the overseeing the housing and banking sectors of the economy and consistently rejected dozens of calls by the Bush administration to put stronger oversight onto Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They also rejected a request from John McCain in 2005 to rein in the dangerous lending and security practices of Fannie and Freddie. One reason for this resistance was that these two quasi-government organizations were large campaign contributors to Democratic Senators Dodd, Obama, and Kerry.

So all of these important people were involved (the chickens) in the financial disaster but none of them have committed (the pig) to taking responsibility for the results, it wasn't their fault. If it was not their fault, then whose fault was it? This was obviously a big deal since the stock markets suffered extensive setbacks, unemployment is nowhere close to recovering, the Federal deficit has skyrocketed in part due to the large bank bailouts, and the housing market is still in the dump. But no one is responsible. In the above list, no one went to jail, no one paid a large fine, no one went bankrupt, many did not lose their jobs, and no one has an answer of why it went so wrong and why no one in a position to acted to avert or at least mitigate the outcome.

Thus, the first conclusion I draw is that this is just another instance of where the government and the people that are currently running it are not effective and the programs they are responsible for do not work. As stated in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," we need to do a ground up housecleaning of the people/politicians and the processes that are no longer effective in running this country.

The second conclusion I draw from he article is a little more subtle. As I look at the politicians running the hearings looking into the the causes for the economic crisis and include the list of people from above, I see that almost all of them are older white males. There are no females involved, very few younger people involved, and Franklin Raines is the only African-American who is prominent in the discussion of fault.

Could it be that this group of politicians and business leaders are not diverse enough to see a crisis developing or are too cozy with each other to want to do anything to avert these kinds of disasters? This brings us to Step 45 in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," a step we have not talked about often in this blog. This step would require the political class to obey and heed all laws in effect that work to guarantee equal opportunity relative to race and sex. Maybe if we had a little more diversity, fresh blood, and fresh ideas involved in the process of running the country we might get some better results. Heaven knows that the current club of people running the country, both in and out of government, may be stuck in a group think mode, making them incapable of foreseeing the future disasters. Said another way, we need more committed pigs and less involved chickens running the country.



Our new 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.

Who Likes The Obama/Pelosi/Reid Health Care Reform Bills? (Besides Obama/Pelosi/Reid)

I get so tired about talking about the pathetic and dangerous health care reform bills that are before Congress but it seems it is the right thing to do since many, many other Americans do not like the current effort either. Consider the following information that was communicated by a David Broder article of the Washington Post Writers Group as published in the in the St. Petersburg Times today:

• According to a poll by Quinninpiac University, when asked if President Obama would be able to keep his promise that going forward with the current health care reform bills will not add to the Federal deficit, less than one in five of those polled thought he could keep that promise. Nine out ten Republicans, eight out of ten independents and four out of seven Democrats said that he would not be able to keep his promise and the Federal deficit would increase as a result of these bills. The poll was of a cross section of Americans and was conducted shortly after the Senate voted this weekend to move the proposed Senate bill to the floor for debate.
• In that same poll, the majority, by a 16 point difference, said they oppose the legislation currently in front of Congress.
• Mr. Broder cites the findings of the bipartisan budget watchdog group, the Concord Coalition, which says the Senate bill is better than the House version but neither is really a reform bill, they are both a big change in entitlement programs and tax increases.
• Maya MacGuineas of the bipartisan Committee For A Responsible Federal Budget, also feels that the bills will increase the Federal deficit and that Congress will not have the guts to cut other spending or raise taxes to compensate.
• Although not bipartisan, Republican budget experts including Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former head of the Congressional Budget Office, identified budget tricks that kept the total costs of the reform bills lower than they actually will be. In fact, in the Senate bill, there is actually language stating that"federal outlays for health care would increase during the 2010-2019 period." This increase will come at a time when the Obama administration has already outspent its 2009 revenue by $1.42 TRILLION. Thus, before the bills are even passed, the Senate acknowledges it will increase the deficits for the foreseeable future.
• This deficit scenario will get even worse if Congress does not actually follow through with the hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare cuts, cuts they have never had the stomach to do before, that are called for in these bills.

Less than two days after the Senate voted to move their bill to the floor for debate, without a vote to spare, four non-Republican Senators, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln and Joe Lieberman are already balking and threatening to not vote for the bill after debate and amendments because of the bill's faults.

Combine these facts from Mr. Broder's article and the potential rebellion of the above four Senators, with the poll from the Rasmussen Group last month that showed 54% of Americans were against the current bills, far out polling those that were for it. Add on the fact that the Massachusetts law to provide universal health care to its citizens, along the same lines as the current Federal bills, is already awash in red ink just a few years after it started. (see past posts for details about both). These are bad bills in so many ways:

• They will break the budget or result in onerous tax increases on all of us, our children and our grandchildren and not just on the rich.
• They are anti-freedom in that the government will impose its will on it citizens by forcing everyone to pay for health insurance even if they do not need it or are willing to take the risk of not having it.
• Obama/Pelosi/Reid never identified the root cause(s) of escalating health care costs and crafted legislation to address the root causes. Without identifying the underlying problem, you have little more than a crap shoot of solving the problem.
• Neither bill addresses tort reform in the medical malpractice area, an area that several states have seen massive drops in health care costs once they instituted tort reform.

The only solution is to start over since the current effort has degenerated into a political morass with the Democrats wanting to pass any kind of bill, regardless of how bad it is, and the Republicans trying to do anything they can to stop them. The problem and the country are now a secondary concern to the political class. It is best to start over again as proposed by Step 28 in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government." We need to get smart Americans involved to tackle this problem and get the politicians and lobbyists out of the equation.

Visit our website at www.loathemygovernment.com to order an autographed copy of the book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government -Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom and Destroying The American Political Class" and to sign up for the cause. The book is also available online at Amazon and Barnes And Noble.

Politicians Who Get It Right

It is not often that the words, "politicians who get it right," are ever uttered by myself but I do not want to miss an opportunity to recognize politicians who surprise me with their competence. This post is based on a story in the September 27, 2009 issue of the St. Petersburg Times that was written by Janet Zink. It focused on the people running the city government of Miami Gardens which was created six years ago. The mayor is Shirley Gibson and the city manager is Danny Crew, both of whom should be given a medal for what they have done. Despite the deep recession, Ms. Zink reported that:

• The city payroll will grow by 17 positions this year.
• Staff members will get cost-of-living and merit pay raises.
• Staff members will get matching contributions to their retirement plans.
• Rather than reaching into financial reserves to pay operating costs, the city government expects to increase the reserves by $300,000.
• Several years ago the city established their own police force with a lucrative recruiting package that quickly reduced violent crime by 19%.
• The city upgraded four public pools and 17 parks.

How could they possibly do all of this in these dire economic times? If you have read previous posts to this blog, you know that I tend to be pessimistic about any member of the political class achieving results like this. However, it is obvious from the quotes and actions from the leaders that they understand that no person and no government can live beyond its means:

• The mayor and the six council members SHARE three legislative aides.
• City Manager Crew shares an administrative system with two others and does his own typing.
• All city employees are used to help others, with Manager Crew indicating in the article that he has substituted as a crossing guard.
• When the city was formed, the leaders decided to spend money only on vital government functions and as a result, they do not have a lot of luxuries, mentioning that they do not have such luxuries as a poet laureate, graphic designers and a city television station.
• "We were not going to be a bloated government. We pride ourselves on the fact that we have necessary staff to get the job done," said Mayor Gibson.
• "We were very cautious about how we built the city. You tend to only hire those people you actually need,", said Manager Crew.
• "There are things you really don't need. We run a tight ship," said Manager Crew.
• And my favorite quote in the entire article, also from Manager Crew: "A city can't be everything to everybody. You have to have a council that knows how to say no to their constituents sometimes."

Can you imagine how more efficient the Federal government would be, how much smaller the budget deficit would be, and how much lower our tax burden would be if these two people and their associates in the Miami Gardens government ran the country? Politicians who shared resources, politicians who budgeted only for vital services, politicians who focused on critical needs (police and parks), politicians who actually said no to stupid or frivolous programs? It appears it can be done if only the politicians involved are respectful of the tax burden its citizens are under. Kudos to all in Miami Gardens who are not only surviving the rough economic times but who are thriving and delivering value to their citizens.