We have the ability to fix every problem that's confronting us as a nation, but until we stop making cosmetic changes and start addressing the underlying, intractable issues that are ruining the country, we're unlikely to make a lot of progress.Town Hall via Hot Air
1) Insufficient Turnover In Congress: Because of gerrymandering, political polarization, and a lack of term limits, Congress has turned into a stagnant pond...
2) A Broken Education System: The primary goal of our education is not to educate our students; it's to sustain the teachers’ unions and fatten the bank accounts of the college professors and administrators at our universities...
3) Unsustainable Spending: It is quite literally impossible to pay off the debt our nation owes along with the commitment we've made to our own citizens via Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security unless inflation dramatically reduces the value of our currency which would erode savings, drive cost-of-living expenses into the stratosphere and generally decimate the economy. Meanwhile, taking even the mildest steps to safeguard the future of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid has proven to be almost impossible in the current political environment. As a practical matter, this means our country is headed towards bankruptcy or runaway inflation so bad that we might as well be bankrupt...
4) Our Immigration Policies: An ideal immigration policy would be based on merit, would focus on adding highly skilled immigrants, would be easily adjustable, wouldn't change the demographics of our country and would be simple and inexpensive for law-abiding immigrants. Our current system meets none of these requirements. Instead, we have a system that for all practical matters favors a law-breaking 17 year old from Mexico with a third grade education over a British neurosurgeon or a German engineer...
5) An Overly-Progressive Tax System: America doesn't have the highest taxes in the Western world, but it does have the most progressive tax system in the Western world. As a practical matter, what this means is that we have large numbers of Americans voting on whether others should pay more taxes in order to give them things. This is a recipe for disaster because it penalizes the most successful Americans, makes it more difficult to get ahead, discourages investment and job growth, and encourages massive spending in order to produce very marginal benefits. Put another way, "if you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can be pretty sure of getting Paul’s vote." Read More
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Town Hall: "5 Structural Problems That Are Destroying America"
"The biggest fallacy in politics is that we need "another Reagan" or more "Tea Partiers" in Congress if we want to save the country. Granted, either would certainly help, but America's structural problems are much bigger than any personnel issues we have in D.C."
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22 comments:
We should reduce tax inequality!
The left see that list as a net positive.
1) Insufficient Turnover In Congress: Because of gerrymandering, political polarization, and a lack of term limits, Congress has turned into a stagnant pond...
In California, "safe seats" were created to lessen the effects of money in elections. This was before the internet age where people got their opinions or influence from centralized media. People still do listen to the media, but less so than they did 15 years ago. Now we laugh at and punish bullshit purveyors. It's time to roll back gerrymandering and bring some fairness back to electoral contests.
2) A Broken Education System: The primary goal of our education is not to educate our students; it's to sustain the teachers’ unions and fatten the bank accounts of the college professors and administrators at our universities...
This is more a problem a universities. I say that because I work with high school teachers and they are as frustrated as some of the parents. The diktats originate in political capitals.
Talking points, not even warmed over.
6. Regulatory agencies that have become so large that Congressional oversight is impossible. These agencies have a larger impact on our daily lives than Congress does.
Between a too powerful Executive branch and the regulatory agencies, Congress is becoming irrelevant.
It's the beginning of the end. Government run schools spend more time and energy avoiding actual education. Many government schools do excel as victim mongering indoctrination factories. The democrat party and the teacher's union are actively protecting their monopoly. The authoritarians actively use their money laundering scheme to stifle any reforms that can and should be made to the status quo.
(see De Blasio as a shining example)
In the long run, the dumbing down of America helps democrats.
sustain the teachers’ unions and fatten the bank accounts of the college professors and administrators at our universities...
Lets bash the teachers unions. Guaranteed to get a big rise from our base. Also guaranteed to make sure our base stays nice and small.
This kind of statement makes the left quite justifiably conclude "conservatives" of not being able to bring anything new to the table, being that they probably did not even graduate from high school.
Also, it's not a "Town Hall", it is an article written by a conservative campaign consultant.
Meaning that thinking and talking in little red-meat wordbites is his communication style.
Douglas county voted and approved a voucher program - giving parents more choice. The entire leftwing machine - (the courts - the pols, the teacher's union) exploded in rage to fight it.
Despising the teacher's union isn't just a thing for the base. I talk to folks on the left and they hate the teacher's union too. Which gives me hope.
It's only the die-hard old-timer bad faith/blind faith left who won't admit the teacher's union is a hindrance to a good education.
It's also a mistake to conflate teachers with the teacher's union.
You can admire the teacher and despise the union.
Ditto on Third, but I'd expand amend 2 - the dumbed-down educational system is intended to keep people voting for the next "cool" Lefty Messiah to come down the pike because they don't know any better.
1. Would term limits solve this problem. I think so, but they would create other problems.
2. A broken education system is due to the government run education system. If you wanted to know why government healthcare, aka The Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare would fail, then all you had to do is look at the single payer mandate system of education which is now a haven for teachers unions.
3. Unstable spending is a direct outgrowth of unchecked spending. When you make entitlement payments that are nearly 70% of your yearly budget, you have a serious problem. Everything else becomes meaningless in the face of that kind of spending. Actually stopping spending in some peoples minds is way more risky than simply hitting the gas and going full beast mode spendaholic.
4. Immigration policies are a result of not being vigilant where it counts; on your borders. When you start letting anyone in without repercussions, well, then the news goes out that it's a free for all. Then by the time you've been sufficiently invaded, you are left with the only thing left to do and that is to legitimize those that are illegitimately here to begin with in the hopes that normalization will occur. We have had numerous amnesties in the past and they have done what exactly? Made the problem only worse.
5. The tax system in this country is a horror show that shows no signs of abatement. The only way to solve this problem is to kill it where it stands and prop up either a fair tax system, aka a vat tax or to institute a flat tax. Both are not without their perils. First of all, the current tax system is the devil we know and we as many americans do is find ways around it. Not so with either the fair tax or a flat tax because they tax you either on consumption or flat rate on your income. The secondary problem with both is setting the appropriate rates. What will they be for either? How do you stop the feds from raising them at will? What's to stop them from instituting both? At the same time. Now you see the problem.
You can despise the teachers union all you want, but don't kid yourself into thinking your hate isn't interpreted as focused at the individual teacher.
The author does not mention the real money holes of our education dollars: to the bureaucracies of the DOEd and the 50 states BOEs, and to the standardized testing and curricula development industry that feeds off our tax largesse, with also much syphoned off by universities. The battle for our kids unformed minds takes place at these levels, not at the schoolroom, its already fait accompli by then.
The repubs do not do any better when they control any of these agencies. I think they tend to do worse since 1) they don't reduce overall funding to outside groups, but bring in their own educational cults to push things like creation "science" in the school curricula, and 2) they consolidate their power through expanding their scope and budgets (same as the dems.)
john said...
You can despise the teachers union all you want, but don't kid yourself into thinking your hate isn't interpreted as focused at the individual teacher.
The author does not mention the real money holes of our education dollars: to the bureaucracies of the DOEd and the 50 states BOEs, and to the standardized testing and curricula development industry that feeds off our tax largesse, with also much syphoned off by universities. The battle for our kids unformed minds takes place at these levels, not at the schoolroom, its already fait accompli by then.
The repubs do not do any better when they control any of these agencies. I think they tend to do worse since 1) they don't reduce overall funding to outside groups, but bring in their own educational cults to push things like creation "science" in the school curricula, and 2) they consolidate their power through expanding their scope and budgets (same as the dems.)
Then we are truly fucked, since you will have an ever increasing diminishment of successive generations that will produce the rational critical thinkers while the rest descend into the hole of idiocy to never see the light of intelligence again. So what you will end up in this country is meritocracy of the smart while the slags feast on each other. I weep for my country.
Me, I'm a slag.
What's for dinner?
Every serious attempt at changing course will be shot down as racist, sexist, or simply really really mean.
There won't be any correction. There will be an economic implosion the likes of which most cannot even imagine. What happens after that is anybody's guess.
Recently enjoyed a lovely dinner with my friend from Germany and her husband. She is smart and well educated. At one point the topic of education came up and she described how education works in Germany.
Don't quote me -- I'm going off stressed memory and good wine.
Germany has a three tiered system based on your drive, intelligence, interest and achievement. You can stay in school longer and go on to university, you can finish early and go to a specific trade school, or at the bottom tier, you just finish early and stop wasting everyone's time.
I thought it made sense.
If people are not smart enough to separate the destructive and corrupt actions of the teacher's union - from actual teachers - then they are idiots.
Merit and competition should be at determining factors, not the democrat party and their campaign machine.
Third coast is right. It is regulatory agencies that tell us what kind of light bulbs we can have, what kind of toilets and showers, the mixture of our gas, who can braid hair, what school lunches can be, what must be printed on menus, what kind of head lights can be in cars, where we can talk on phones and where we can't, and a myriad of others. These are not laws, but they are regulations that we can go to jail or be fined for violating. That's just wrong.
If we can't disconnect the teacher's union and the democrat party from each other's tits - then WE WILL NEVER have education reform in this nation. Government run schools will continue to decline, and the fight to educate our future will die.
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