What I'm for.

I've spent some time already talking in very harsh terms about Glenn Beck and his Army O' Teabaggers. I think, though, that I should spend a little time talking about what I'd like to see done with the country. After all, a very valid criticism of the Republican Party and its associated loonies is that they don't have any ideas - that they are the Party of No. You could call them the G-No-P - the Grand "No" Party. Because of this, I feel it's incumbent upon me to outline some of the things that I'm for, rather than spending all my time railing about things I'm against. Just off the top of my head, there are several things I can mention. These aren't in any particular order; I think that each of these is needed.

First, I think that some things really need to be done regarding taxes. For one thing, get rid of the Bush tax cuts. That tax rate didn't stop the economy from being extremely strong during the Clinton years. Remember when we actually had a budget surplus? Reducing tax rates has allowed the rich to concentrate wealth to an incredible degree. Reagan was where this all started - and from 1979 to 2004, the top 1% went from controlling 20% of the wealth in this country to controlling 34%. When money flows upstairs, it doesn't trickle back down. I mean, that should be fairly obvious; if trickle-down actually occurred, surely you wouldn't have seen this kind of growth in wealth concentration. This isn't a good thing. This means that 99% of the country went from having 80% of the pie to having 66%. In other words, except for the top 1%, we've all got less. Therefore, I think we need to reverse the wealth redistribution that's happened since Reagan. Yes, I said wealth redistribution. It's been redistributed upwards to the top 1%. I think the rest of us ought to take steps to get it back. I call this wealth restoration. We need to restore the wealth to the middle class that's been redistributed to the rich by Republican policies. When you take wealth out of a society in this fashion, you limit social mobility... and social mobility is basically what people mean when they talk about the "American Dream." Wealth distribution is not a Communist or Socialist idea; it's been around a lot longer than either of those philosophies. It was a Roman practice. Jesus endorsed it. Sir Francis Bacon wrote "Above all things good policy is to be used that the treasures and monies in a state be not gathered into a few hands... Money is like muck, not good except it be spread."

Second, we absolutely have to do something to restore our manufacturing base. We aren't a country that produces things, at all. I view this as a national security issue. It wasn't military brilliance that won the Civil War. It was the North's manufacturing base. Same thing applies for the United States and WWII. With the entire country geared for war, we had an absolutely incredible manufacturing base. We had tanks and ships rolling off the line like crazy. That's how we buried Germany and Japan and actually won a two-front war on both fronts; not with tactics, but with materials. There's no way in the world we could replicate that now. Additionally, these kinds of manufacturing plants produce generational jobs. People go to work for the plant in town for 40 years after high school. That was the option that the "Greatest Generation" had. This generation, and the last generation, didn't really have it.

And it's been management that has been the problem. I find it really ironic that Republicans spend so much time talking about how much better the private market is at anything/everything than government, because in the name of Profit, the manufacturing base of the country has wasted away. The private market's solution has been "buy cheap crap from China." Outsourcing has been going on for a long time; it's only been the past few years when a name has been applied to it. Manufacturing has been outsourced for decades, and it's put us in the unenviable position of going from the world's greatest creditor nation to the world's greatest debtor nation. Believe me: it's all been in the name of Profit, and the bean-counters and management have been the source of this. There's no loyalty to employees or communities or the nation, only to the bottom line. Republicans complain about the Post Office and cite it as a model of inefficiency. Well, if the Post Office was privately owned nowadays, our stamps would be made in China for 2¢ and cost $2, there would be illegal immigrants doing the heavy lifting in the back of every Post Office, every vehicle would be a Hyundai, and you'd be able to track your mail by calling someone in India, for a fee. Oh yeah, and the Postmaster General would make $500M a year and everyone you actually saw in the office would make minimum wage and no benefits.

Third, we absolutely have to do something about the education system in this country. The first step to this is abolishing No Child Left Behind. It's becoming pretty clear that school is becoming all about preparing for tests, which works very well for the testing industry. You'd better believe there's a testing industry; they're the ones who have made colleges feel that the SATs are indispensable, when in reality, they're not a reliable predictor of success in college. However, NCLB doesn't work for the students. They're great at taking a multiple choice test, but other skills are suffering. It's also a strictly punitive measure for educators. It sets a goal that is impossible for today's system by expecting the same results from every school system. As so much school funding is locally based, richer districts get more funding that poorer ones, but the same things are expected from schools that have less funding, less materials, and don't get to recruit the best teachers with pay. NCLB has not managed to quantify what makes a good teacher. It simply manages to select teachers that teach to the test. Now, let me be clear: I don't mind a little standardized testing - it can manage to spotlight classrooms that are in bad shape. Sometimes that is the teacher's fault, sometimes not. However, the assumption with NCLB is that it's automatically the teacher's fault, and that's just not the case all the time.

If you want to improve the quality of teachers, there's a very simple solution: pay them more. I remain constantly surprised that Republicans are all about free market principles, but one of the biggest principles is that you have to pay for talent, and they want to ignore that in education. Why does anyone suffer through the abject misery of medical school or law school, and internships/associateships that make them work absolutely ridiculous hours? Because they are in it for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If you increase teacher pay, you will have more applicants for teacher ed programs. When you have more applicants, you can become more selective, and you can really ratchet up the rigor of education programs, because people will suffer for a career that pays well. With NCLB, we've tried the stick, and it does not work. Perhaps it's time to try the carrot. We also need some of the type of infrastructure that the legal and medical professions have; e.g., review boards composed of professionals. There should be a minimum teaching requirement for principals and members of school boards (both local and state). Would you allow some moron local politician to have power over your doctor? Then why do you tolerate it for your child's teacher?

Fourth, we need higher expectations from government contractors, and fewer of them. There's a tremendous amount of waste when you look at corporations like Halliburton. Who remembers hearing about $600 screwdrivers and $900 toilet seats back in the years when Reagan was throwing money at defense contractors? Tighten up. Demand market value from contractors, or, alternatively, demand use of American-made products. The former saves money, and the latter creates jobs. And we sure need to stop privatizing ancillary services for the military. You can't tell me that Halliburton does a better job than the US Armed Forces. For one thing, there are accountability issues; put the ancillary services in the chain of command, and the first time a soldier gets electrocuted in the shower, someone's head rolls. For another, if the people in the ancillary services wear the uniform, their loyalty goes to the uniform, and not to profit.

Now, however, I'm tired of writing. I'm going to close, but in the future, I will post more things I'm for. Examples include but aren't limited to: campaign finance reform, re-establishment of the Fairness doctrine, abolishment of corporate "personhood," transparency in government, and more. I consider any and all of these just as important as what I've mentioned - frankly, campaign finance reform and abolishment of corporate "personhood" pretty much trump anything I've mentioned and I will have to devote single posts to each of them. Thanks for reading!