March, 2018, Part 3, Political Class Insanity: Reducing our Economic and Personal Freedom and Wasting our Time and Tax Dollars

It is the beginning of another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Let's get started:

1) As Americans, we like to think that we live in a free country. We know that this is usually a false assumption, given how large and intrusive all level of governments have become in this country especially at the Federal level. We have often made the assertion that personal freedom is tightly tied to economic freedom. If we were allowed to keep more and more of our hard earned wealth, we could:

• Expand our kids’ education options.
• We could start a business that was more in line with our life’s desires and preferences.
• We could contribute more to charitable efforts that we have special feelings for.
• We could spend more money on products and services that satisfy our physical, mental, and emotional needs and wants.

Thus, the more we enjoy economic freedom the more personal freedom will come our way.

Every year the Heritage Foundation does an extensive analysis and develops a single index number that ranks and orders every country according to its economic freedom. Their process combines measurements along numerous dimensions including regulatory burden, taxation levels, property rights, etc.

At one time the United States was ranked as one of the top nations in the world when it came to economic freedom. This was not surprising since living in such a free society and nation helped produce the highest level of wealth for our citizens in the history of the world.

Unfortunately, over time that high ranking has taken a beating as our economic freedom has ebbed which has in turn depressed our personal freedoms:

• While the U.S. was once one of the freest countries in the world from an economic perspective, it now ranks as only the 18th freest economic country in the latest analysis.
• Our index has slipped from an index value of about 81 back in 2007-2009 time period, since then, i.e. during the Obama administration, our freedom index as slipped about 7% to 75.7.
• During that time the world’s total economic freedom index value has risen slightly from 59.5 to 61.1, the opposite trend of what our economic freedom index has been.
• If the U.S. had just maintained its index level of 81 or so it would be ranked about the 4th or 5th most free country in the world today, a level that would have vastly improved our economic and personal freedom.
• We are less free from the index’s perspective than two former parts of the Soviet Union, Georgia and Estonia.
• We are less free from the index’s perspective than two Scandinavian countries, Sweden and Denmark, two countries that we usually associate with socialist countries, i.e. countries with suppressive economies and governments.

In other words, the Washington political class in general and the Obama Presidency specifically have repressed both our economic freedom and personal freedom over the past eight years or so, resulting in lower standards of living and freedom for us all.

2) It is not only the Federal government that does insane things and places restrictions on our freedoms and violates common sense. Often it is more local levels of government and politicians that just do stupid things, wasting our time, freedom, and wealth in the process. Consider some recent examples from Reason magazine:

• In 2017 in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, a government probation officer ripped a pair of pants chasing a perp. He asked his department to pay to replace those pants that were damaged while he was performing his government job, a cost to the county of about $60. When the county refused to pony up the $60, he took his case to court where a judge ordered the county to pay the $60 but only after the county government spent and wasted $4,285 of taxpayer wealth fighting the issue.
• In theory, government is supposed to help its citizens. But apparently that is not the case with government and politicians in the city of Malibu, California. There town officials are pressuring a local United Methodist church to stop its twice weekly free meal program for homeless people since it thinks that such a program will attract more homeless Americans to the city. Guess it is better to let the local homeless go hungry than to alleviate at least some of the despair in their lives.
• Crime has gotten so bad in some Philadelphia neighborhoods that local store owners have been putting up bullet proof glass between their cashiers and customers to protect their employees from criminal violence. Rather than address the underlying causes of the criminal violence in the city, Councilwoman Cindy Bass is ticked off at the business owners who are just protecting themselves and their employees,claiming that the glass is an insult to the local residents. She is so upset she is sponsoring a law that would prohibit store owners from protecting their assets via bulletproof glass while not addressing the root causes of the bulletproof glass. In her mind it is better to place local residents in danger of violence in their jobs than possibly hurt a local resident’s feelings.
• We have often written about how badly the Veterans Administration serves veterans. There have been numerous confirmed instances where the long waiting lines and poor medical support of our veterans probably contributed to their early deaths. Well, apparently the VA, according to USA Today, has repeatedly hired healthcare workers who have lost malpractice claims, indicating that possibly many doctors within the VA would not be allowed to practice medicine anywhere else as a result of incompetence but are welcomed at the VA. This practice that not only endangers veterans’ health but is also a violation of existing Federal law.
• Americans spent a lot of taxpayer money to help Puerto Rico get back on its feet after being devastated by a hurricane. But apparently the local political class and government bureaucracy is so corrupt on the island that armed Federal agents found it necessary to raid a local warehouse. There they found taxpayer funded materials and equipment that was meant to restore power throughout the island but instead was being hoarded by the local Puerto Rico Electric Power authority.
• Sometimes government gets so big and so incompetent that it cannot get out of its own way. A bicycle owner in Clearwater, Florida was cited and fined for installing an illegal bike rack outside of his bicycle shop. The sad thing is that the very government that cited him for this violation was the actual entity that had installed the bike rack to begin with, the local store owner had nothing to do with it’s installation.
• Up in Vermont, the Green Mountain Care Board, which I am assuming is some type of government entity, ordered the Copley Hospital’s orthopedic division to stop doing so many surgeries since it does too many operations and generates too much revenue. Apparently there was no issue with the quality of the operations or the necessity of the operations, it is just that some government agency arbitrarily decided that a private business was too successful and in this case, relieving the pain and agony of too many patients, and had to stop the two grievous acts of helping people in need and making money in the process. Horrors.

Restricting our economic freedom and personal freedom, wasting our taxpayer dollars, and doing just stupid stuff to the people it is supposed to serve. Yep, just another day of political class ineptness and shenanigans. More to follow.

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.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Our Continued Loss Of Freedom, Part 1: The Loss Of Economic Freedom

One of the reasons why America has been such a wonderful experiment in government is because of the many freedoms that the Founders guaranteed via the Constitution and Bill of Rights. America has lifted more people out of poverty and created a legendary middle class that has never been matched anytime in history. Freedom comes in many different ways and each of those ways helps make Americans wealthier and freer to live their lives as they want.

But for the next few days we will be examining how that freedom mission and promise has been severely impaired by the American political class. We have often discussed on how our freedom of speech, freedom of religion, economic freedom, and other freedoms have been eroded over time by our politicians. And as the next few days will prove, these politicians have continued to impose their will on us and will continue to do so until we will them to stop.

Today will be focusing on how our economic freedom is being stripped away by over taxation and over regulation of the Federal government. And when you think about it, without economic freedom, i.e. the freedom to keep the fruits of our labor, there really cannot be many other kinds of freedom. If you were allowed to keep more of your income and wages, you could:

• Send your kids to better schools.
• More easily start your own business.
• Donate more to charities and needy individuals that you want to help.
• Take more and better vacations.
• Live in a better house or drive a better car.

Without economic freedom, freedom in other parts of your life becomes much more restrictive.

The basis of our economic freedom discussion will be the annual study of economic freedom by country that is conducted by the Heritage Foundation every year. Let’s see where the U.S. falls in their latest analysis:

1) Unfortunately, the latest study shows that the U.S. has slipped all the way down to the 17th position relative to the rest of the world when at one time, not too long ago, the U.S. was one of the most economically free nations in the world. 

2) The top 25 nations look like the following:

1- Hong Kong, trending upward relative to overall economic freedom.
2 - Singapore, trending upward.
3 - New Zealand, trending upward.
4 - Switzerland, trending upward.
5- Australia, trending upward.
6 - Estonia, trending upward.
7 - Canada, trending upward.
8 - United Arab Emirates, trending upward.
9 - Ireland, trending downward.
10 - Chile, trending downward.
11 - Taiwan, trending upward.
12 - Great Britain, flat.
13 - Georgia, trending upward.
14 - Luxembourg, trending upward.
15 - The Netherlands, trending upwards.
16 - Lithuania, trending upward.
17 - United States, trending upward.
18 - Denmark, trending downward.
19 - Sweden, trending upward.
20 - Latvia, trending upward.

3) Observations from the above list include the following:

• Countries with the highest economic freedom overwhelmingly are trending upwards, with the U.S. being one of the few in the top twenty that are trending downwards.
• Many former members (Estonia, Latvia, Georgia, Lithuania) of the Soviet Union, one of the most economically oppressive regimes ever, are comparable or much better relative to economic freedom than the United States which used to be close to the gold standard for economic freedom.
• Even the United Arab Emirates, a macho Middle East country, is much freer economically than the U.S.
• Scandinavian countries like Denmark, Sweden, and others, often cited by Democrats and liberals as countries we should aspire to, all fall below the U.S., indicating that their economic freedom is even worse than the falling U.S. level of economic freedom.

From one of the freest economic powers in the world we are now lagging behind once former backward economies from Estonia, Georgia, and the United Arab Emirates.

4) For the last four years of the Bush administration, the overall economic freedom index was over 80. Since Obama took office, in just eight years, the U.S. economic freedom index has plunged almost 7% down to about 75. 

5) Back in 2006, Hong Kong was also the most economically free country in the world but the difference between Hong Kong and the U.S. index values were only 7. But by 2017, that difference in index had doubled to 14. Thus, while Hong Kong has maintained its index quite steady over time, the U.S. has steadily lost ground to Hong Kong.

6) Fifteen years ago the U.S. was the 6th most economically free country but has allowed 11 other countries to surpass it in that timeframe.

Thus, given the deterioration in our economic freedom, is there any doubt why we have had to endure the following anemic economic malaise over the past eight years:

• The worst economic recovery from a recession since the Great Depression.
• Eight years of GDP economic growth that never broke through to 3% or higher nor attained the long term historical trend line of GDP annual growth.
• Wage and household income growth that has been stagnant during almost the entire Obama Presidency.
• Job creation during the Obama recovery has included mostly temp, contract, and low paying service industry type jobs.

During the Obama administration, the tax burden went up, thousands and thousands of Federal government regulations were added to the economy, and the national debt doubled which led to less and less economic freedom which led to the above horrible economic realities. It is all related and tied together. Unfortunately, as our economic freedom went down, as measured by this economic freedom index, so did our political and individual freedom. And that sucks.

More on our loss of freedom tomorrow.

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.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

January, 2014 Economic Crises Update, Part 4: Less Economic Freedom, More Government Regulations, More Pessimis About The Future

We were only going to do three posts this month on the economic crises facing the United States but three pieces of information have popped up over the past couple of days that should be included in what we have been discussing, namely that the nation’s economic situation, for the vast majority of Americans, is not good and is generally trending negatively: 

• There are a record number of Americans, over 20 million, that are either unemployed or under employed.
• There are a record number of Americans that are receiving food assistance from the Federal government, almost 50% than when Obama took office.
• Over half of the recent college graduating classes could either not find a job or could not find a job in their area of interest.
• A very high percentage of jobs created over the past few years have been only part time or temporary jobs.
• Household income has dropped steadily over the past five years despite the fact that the recession ended well over three years ago.
• Until recently, official national unemployment levels (U3) had been at record highs for record lengths of time.
• Increased costs of health insurance as a result of Obama Care will likely result in less disposable household income available in the coming years to expand the economy.
• The national debt has jumped to about $17 TRILLION, up over six TRILLION dollars since Obama took office in 2009.
• Monthly trade balance deficits with other countries continue at very high rates.

The first set of new/recent information comes from the latest release of the annual Economic Freedom Index analyses. This index on economic freedom has been done every year by the Heritage Foundation in an attempt to quantify what countries’ citizens live in the freest economies of the world. Over time, there has been a very strong correlation between economic freedom and economic growth and wealth creation, something that is good for the citizens of a nation.

The criteria used to measure economic freedom in the index includes the follwoing parameters:

1. Rule of Law which includes the subcategories of property rights and freedom from corruption
2. Limited Government which includes the subcategories of fiscal freedom and government spending
3. Regulatory Efficiency which includes the subcategories of business freedom, labor freedom, and monetary freedom
4. Open Markets which includes the subcategories of trade freedom, investment freedom, and financial freedom

The website that coontains the details of the entire analysis and which allow you to personally play with and graph different aspects of the data can be found at:

http://www.heritage.org/index/country/United States

For years, the United States Was in the top five of economically free countries int he world, a category that the Heritage Foundation calls "Free." Unfortunately, we have been n a freedom slide for a number of years now, currently residing in the "Mostley Free" category. Highlights and low lights of recent less than stellar performance in this area include the follwing depressing details:

• Since 2006, the United States has seen a substantial drop off in economic freedom, suffering a dramatic decline of almost 6 points, from a an index value of over 81 o the current level of 75.5.
• The main drivers of this declining level of economic freedom have been the especially large losses in property rights, freedom from corruption, and out of control of government spending.
• We are the only country in the world to have recorded a loss of economic freedom in each of the past seven years. 
• The overall U.S. score decline from 1995 to 2014 is 1.2 points, the fourth worst drop among advanced economies.
• According to the Heritage analysis: “Substantial expansion in the size and scope of government, including through new and costly regulations in areas like finance and health care, has contributed significantly to the erosion of U.S. economic freedom. The growth of government has been accompanied by increasing cronyism that has undermined the rule of law and perceptions of fairness.”
• From a top five ranking just several years ago, we now rank number 12.
• We now embarrassingly trail such “economic powerhouses” as Chile, Estonia, and Mauritius.

A pathetic performance that is getting worse, in all likelihood with of declining economic freedom contributing to record high unemployment, declining household income, and other economic maladies. 

But our economic condition should not surprise Heritage. With the Obama administration adding a TRILLION or so to the national debt every year, with taxpayer wealth being wasted on dozens of crony run and ill fated alternative energy companies of Obama, (e.g. Solyndra), the multitude of new taxes and the resulting depression of consumer spending and economic activity because of Obama Care, etc., it is no surprise that the current administration has driven down our economic freedom while driving up our economic pessimism and negative condition.

How pessimistic are we? Consider some recent Gallup poll findings from their periodic “Mood Of The Nation” poll: 

• The poll asks a representative sample of America adults if they are financially better off or worse off than they were a year ago.
• In the latest round of polling, 42% of the respondents said they were financially worse off than they were a year ago while only 35% said they were financially better off.
• The 42% worse off finding was up from 39% in the previous round and up from 34% in the round of polling before that, i.e. financially pessimism seems to be growing.
• The 35% better off finding was down from 40% in the previous round of polling and down from 38% in the round before that, I.e. fewer Americans think they are better off financially than the year before compared to the past two rounds of polling.
• The 42% worse off financially is substantially above the historic average level of worse off financially, about eight percentage points.
• The 35% better off financially is below the historic average level by three percentage points.
• Looking forward to the year ahead, only 55% expect 2014 to be financially better for them, down from 57% in the previous round of polling and down from 63% in the round of polling before that, I.e. optimism of the future is trending downwards
• Looking forward to the year ahead, 42% expect their financial situation to stay the same or get worse, up from 39% in the previous round of polling and 23% in the round of polling before that, I.e. pessimism about the future is growing. 

Economic realities are bad today and our view of our financial status over the past year and one year into the future is not good either.

One last depressing economic fact before we wrap up this four part discussion. In 2013, the Obama administration introduced over 3,500 Federal regulations into our lives. This comes out to almost ten new regulations EVERY DAY for the year 2013. The Federal Registry which tracks government regulations is now over 79,000 pages long.

I contend three things about this atrocious regulation situation:

• 79,000 pages of regulations force businesses and business owners to spend inordinate amounts of time understanding and complying with regulations, taking time and energy away from them improving and expanding their businesses, thus, increasing the job market and the economy.
• The Federal government has gotten so large that probably the vast majority of these regulations are not about protecting the health and interests of Americans but are about creating work and self importance to protect bureaucrats’ jobs and positions.
• The Federal government has been around for hundreds of years. It is highly doubtful that up until this time all previous Presidential administrations were blind and ignorant to the need of having an additional 3,500 regulations put into play in just the past year.

Businesses distracted doing stupid stuff for unnecessary regulations that exist only to justify the existence of highly paid bureaucrats in Washington. More regulations mean less economic freedom, less economic freedom means less economic growth, less economic growth means more pessimism about the financial future, and that is how we get chronically high unemployment, meager job creation, and over 20 million Americans unemployed or under employed. See how it all ties together.

And the saddest  part of all, those in the White House and Congress just do not get it or see how it all ties together. Because if they did, they would not have gotten us into this mess, killing off our optimism about the future, stifling our economic freedom, and killing off growth and initiative with stifling regulations.

The worse thing about their economic ineptness is that where there is no economic freedom, there is not political freedom. And when there is no political freedom, we cease to be a free people enjoying the virtues and benefits of liberty.

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

Retro 21 - United States of Purple - Solving Our Disasterous Public Educaiton Problem

Due to family visits and obligations, for the next couple of days we will be reposting some previous posts. These will include some of the major issue positions we had written about in February. These positions laid out how the United States of Purple Presidency would finally get around to resolving some of the major issues facing the country, issues that the exisitng political class has never had the nerve, the intelligence, the means, or desire to resolve.

You can learn more but our movement and how to get involved, including the intitiative to install term limits on all Federal politicians, at:

www.unitedstatesofpurple.com

Consider some statistics that were researched in the development of our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government:"

•In 2006, the Program For International Student Assessment (PISA) conducted their tri-annual study of educational attainment by fifteen year old kids from fifty seven nations.

•In science literacy, the United States finished below the overall average and trailed the scores of kids from twenty two other nations.

•In mathematics literacy, the U.S. finished well below the overall average and trailed the scores of kids from thirty one other nations.

•Countries such as Estonia, Slovenia, and Macao finished higher than the U.S. in both categories.

A December 26, 2010 issue of the St. Petersburg Times also addressed the poor performance of our public school system. 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.

But these poor test results should not be a surprise to anyone in the political class or in the industry if educating our kids. Consider a quote from a Reagan expert panel from 1983, the National Commission On Excellence In Education, that was commissioned to study the failure of public education in American almost three decades ago:

"The education foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a tide of mediocrity that threatens our future as a nation and as a people."

The commission produced a detailed blueprint on how to remedy the deficiencies in public education, circa 1983.

Fast forward ahead to 2012 and we see that the entire Federal political class and the Federal Education Department has failed miserably to fix a thirty year old crises, even though they had a custom, detailed blueprint on how to do it. After three years, it is also pretty apparent that the Obama administration will be no better or more motivated to fix this national disgrace than all of the Congresses and Presidents since 1983.

The nation cannot afford to wait another thirty years to see if the political class can eventually get around to solving the problem with a top down, Washington-centric approach. The rest of the world is advancing faster and faster when it comes to modernization and education. We cannot expect to remain a world leader across the board if we continue to allow countries like Estonia, Slovenia, and Macao to out educate our kids.

Thus, we need a serious, coherent upheaval to the education process in this country if we expect anything to change and we stop wasting about $70 billion a year via the Federal Education Department. Such an upheaval would include the following principles:

•Within four years, the Federal government would be totally out of the education process in the United States. After thirty years of failure, the Federal political class, government, and Education Department no longer deserve to spend $70 billion a year with nothing in return.

•In year one, most of the $70 billion budget would be directed to each state in block grants to improve their state and local education processes. In the second year, the $70 billion would be reduced by one third to about $46 billion which would also be block granted to the states. In the third year the states would get one third less, or about $26 billion, to improve their local and state education processes.

•After the fourth year, the states would be on their own, but in a much better position to improve their own schools and education processes.

•The savings from eliminating the Federal Education Department would be set aside to either reduce the national debt or would be rebated back to taxpayers. Under no conditions would the savings be allowed to flow back to the political class in Congress and the White House to be wasted like the sitting politicians would almost certainly do.

•In ten years, the Federal government's spending would be reduced by more than half a TRILLION dollars under this plan, reducing our deficit spending habit. In the next ten years, we would have permanently removed about $700 billion from the government's expense stream.

•The state and local school officials could use the block grants for any number of purposes including updating education supplies, updating and enhancing current teachers' teaching abilities, enhancing and improving the education curriculums at the state's universities, exploring non-traditional teaching approaches (home schooling, remote teaching, charter schools, etc.), updating technology capabilities, and refurbishing school infrastructure.

•The conditions of receiving the block grant money would include 1) the elimination of traditional teacher tenure programs (i.e., jobs for life regardless of teaching ability and effort), replacing it with an approved performance review process, 2) the money could not be used to increase teacher salaries since this effort is to improve the teaching environment, not the teaching salary structure, 3) the money could not be used to increase the salaries of current administrators or increase the number of administrators and 4) the number of non-teaching staff in a school would have to be below approved thresholds before the money would be granted.

•High performing domestic schools and foreign countrys' schools would be extensively benchmarked and investigated to identify why successful schools, both in the United States and across the world, are successful while most of our pubic schools are not. These benchmark studies would be compiled into a blueprint for success and be made available to local and state school entities for incorporation into their respective teaching processes.

How would these processes be implemented? The political class has already forfeited their right to be involved, given their lack of success and expertise in this field over the past three decades. Step 27 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would provide a vehicle for such a task. This step establishes a panel of education experts from a series of diverse fields of study, much like the successful expert panel that President Reagan put together in 1983, which would implement the benchmarking findings, tenure replacement programs, curriculum updates, etc.

These are definitely radical changes. But what other approaches are viable? Business as usual just continues the current process of under educating our kids. Business as usual wastes of $70 billion for little in return. Business as usual allows the political class to have another political football to pass around and eventually fumble. Business as usual does not work.

This approach makes for better trained teachers, better training of teachers, better teacher performance reviews, better teaching facilities and equipment, better curriculums, and benchmarks for excellence against the best in the United States and in the rest if the world. The nation's resources are much closer to the source of the problem without the inefficiencies, waste, ineffectiveness, and bureaucracy of the Federal government.

Taking the Federal government and the politicians that operate it out of the education equation has to be better than what we have today. The above plan gives us at least a fighting chance of catching Estonia, Slovenia, and Macao when it comes to giving our kids a better education.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Albert Einstein


We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

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/