Reckoning with Society and Sutherland Springs

I waited a few days since the massacre in Sutherland Springs, Texas to post any thoughts on what happened, because immediate thoughts tend not to be measured, and tend to be overly emotional. There was already enough of that happening before we knew the total number of the dead, so waiting was good.

In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, a common response from people was to offer "thoughts and prayers" and other heartfelt words in reaction to a heartless attack. For the first time, I started to notice people openly mocking "thoughts and prayers" and some were even using foul language to attack politicians who said such things. Many of the online assaults attacked and mocked religion, which was especially poignant given that the massacre took place inside a church and on a Sunday.

After Sunday, there are a lot of questions that continue to be worth asking each time a tragedy like this occurs, and Sunday brought those questions back to the forefront. They probably are not the questions you think need to be asked.

The cynic will ask "what will the thoughts and prayers do?" Well, there are many facets to that answer. We pray for the souls lost, especially to such senselessness. We pray for the families who lost a loved one. We pray for the injured. We pray for a community to stay strong and comfort each other. We pray for more heroes like the two men who confronted the gunman and then followed him to his end. We might even say a prayer thankful that this was not worse than it was, those injured could have been among the casualties after all. And had the killer not been challenged by the aforementioned two men, no one knows what his plan consisted of next.

Our society is ailing. We were ailing before this, we will ail for some time to come. How do we move forward? Are we always going to worry now that no place is safe, that no place is sacred?

Those people who know me know that almost every situation that I discuss always leads me to ask one of three questions: What are the root causes? What would Transformational Change look like? Where does this end? I am not often interested in small solutions.

A brief primer on these questions for perspective:

Root Causes - If we want to inquire as to why so many teen girls get pregnant, we start discussing the availability and affordability of contraceptive options. That is what I consider to be treating the symptoms. I suggest we look deeper. I want to know why teens are engaging in destructive behavior with life-altering consequences. Are too many families breaking apart, leaving single parents to raise children and circumstances lead them to engage in behavior better left to adults? Are parents that are raising children in these times too overmatched with technology and supervision issues? Is pop culture so out of control that teens think real life actually looks like what they see on so-called reality tv or on the Facebook or Twitter accounts of so-called stars?

Transformational Change - This is massive change; not change for the timid. This is the opposite of tinkering around the edges. Tinkering would be like using a teaspoon to scoop water off the deck of the Titanic (or the oft-used phrase of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic). Transformation would be like a school system offering that for each year a high school student graduates early, the school system will direct the money from those "earned" years into paying that many years of college or vocational school. So, graduate in 11 years, get a free year of higher education; graduate in 10 years, get two years of free higher education. I told you it was not for the timid. 

Think about the level of change that happens here. Think about the parental involvement that occurs when parents realize they are helping their children earn toward college/vocational credit. Think about the reduced class sizes once you get the kids that need to move on to the next level, out of the classroom, and allow teachers to focus on those who remain so that the instruction gets more personal, more focused. You see the point, and this post is not about education, so I will move on for now.

Where Does it End (also known as the slippery slope) - We like to help people that have served our country or community in great ways. We like to give these people tax breaks. For instance, perhaps a cap on or an elimination of property taxes for people who have done X, Y, or Z. Well, not long after one group gains this perk, others chime in and want caps or eliminations too. Are we saying that the group that got the cap or elimination is so much better than this other worthy group that we cannot even consider this other group for the same? So we go along. Well then, here comes the third group a while later... before we know it, no one is paying the tax and there is no revenue generation to fund programs. In Texas, for instance, our property taxes fund public education, so if everyone gets an exemption on property taxes, who or what is paying for education then? Public education is not getting cheaper, so it will need funding, there is no doubt about that. The need for education reform can be discussed another time, so I will again move on for now.

Now, back to the tragedy that took place this past Sunday.

Immediately after the news broke, opportunist politicians and many Leftist Hollyweird-types (like they don't have their own problems right now, problems that continue to get exposed daily) started chiming in with their usual calls for gun control and worse, more government "action," in whatever shape or form they can get it right now. Needless to say, Hollyweird does not have the answers. Just because Leo fictionally died in the freezing cold waters when Rose dispatched him from weighing down her floating wooden door, he thinks he is an expert on so-called global warming. It is not so for him, and not so for most of his fellow script readers.

To think another gun law would have stopped Sunday's massacre is to leave logic behind. It is also worth noting that certain gun laws or gun usage laws, would not have kept a determined Devin Kelley at home on Sunday, and in fact might have prevented the two men who confronted and stopped him from owning, driving with, or using the gun that was used to end the mayhem.

I will go a step further, to make a point. Imagine that we made all guns illegal. Imagine we made all baseball bats illegal. Imagine we made cars illegal (remember just last week in NYC eight people were killed by a terrorist with a car). Imagine we made axes, chainsaws, and knives illegal. Imagine we made metal or lead pipes illegal.

Utopia, right?

We have to reach deeper.

What are we doing about the mentally ill? We may (and I emphasize "may") keep the mentally ill from mass killing, simply by making everything illegal. Well, at that point the mentally ill are still mentally ill and they still need help. So what now? If the person goes out in the world without any weapons and instead chokes a person to death, well, we can hope choking a person to death is illegal...

The absurdity of all of this is to point out that laws have limits. We should make murder illegal! We should make theft illegal! We should make drug use illegal! To show we are serious about illegal drug use, we should fund a "war on drugs" and really go after the users and the sellers and the growers. Maybe we could even grow government in the process.

We have to reach deeper.

I will offer up one such example: Imagine this Sunday church killer. Imagine when he was dishonorably discharged from the military that a local group was contacted and made aware of him. Maybe this was a church, maybe this was a non-profit. Maybe this was somebody to have a casual conversation (or a series of conversations) with this disturbed soul and see if he would talk. People trained properly can identify buzzwords and traits, they know what to look for. At that point, these people know who to notify for further help and monitoring.

Now, this is an isolated incident. We know that Devin Kelley was a severely challenging case, beyond the help of any one single person. There is a case to be made that the type of "after-care" I am suggesting has its limits, but it also has the potential of recognizing those who really need more care than we realize, before they do the unthinkable.

Hollywood "actress" Sarah Silverman tweeted after Sunday's incident that we learn lessons from airplane crashes, and air travel gets increasingly safer as a result. That was a surprisingly coherent and reasonable assessment. Silverman then rode the train right into the ditch in a flaming ball of glory when she lamented that supposedly nothing happens following one mass shooting after another.

What I would suggest to Silverman and the other elites is that we learn even more pragmatic lessons of prevention. Instead of trying to prevent mass killings by demanding more gun laws, let us work toward helping the people who might fit the profile of the most likely of attackers. I would suggest we find solutions that do not cause further harm to people or further reduce freedom for people who did not do anything wrong. I would suggest that if Silverman put the kind of time into developing community-based solutions and involvement that she puts into advocating more gun controls laws, we might actually see the reduction in these tragedies that we all seek.

Mine is not strictly a freedom and liberty and minimal government argument. From that perspective though, there are a lot of tax breaks and loopholes in the tax code for a lot of things that I think could be and should be eliminated. I am more in favor of incentives and tax breaks for the creation of groups and organizations that seek to do right in our country. These are not always religious organizations or even churches, and they do not need to be. What works, is what works. If the religious approach works, then we should encourage it where it works. I have written in the past about a religious approach to drug addiction, alcoholism, and homelessness (here and here). The approach was unorthodox, but its positive results and number of changed lives is staggering. That approach may not work for everyone everywhere. But neighborhood healers can do work at the most minute levels of our society that no piece of federal legislation will ever accomplish.

Instead of showing up after a tragedy and demanding liberty-limiting change, let us try a little prevention which also will not limit our freedom and alienate our communities; done correctly we can strengthen both.

We have to reach deeper.

This is not a time to further empower those with some authority over us. Think of this as a time to find the solutions from within our communities, within our neighborhoods, within our families and most importantly, within ourselves.

So, which of my three questions is at work here? All of them.

We have to reach deeper. When we do this, we can address what ails us in a way that is worthy of America.

Transformational Change Gets Some Coverage, Sort Of

Left-wing columnist Eugene Robinson had an article in today's paper that is a good example of many points I have made here on this blog in several posts this year. Robinson calls for transformational change, yet he obviously doesn't fully understand the real meaning of transformational change and the real changes that are needed in this country.

After World War II, the GI Bill dramatically boosted the percentage of Americans with college degrees. That one piece of farsighted legislation prepared a generation to run the industrial economy that was forged by the war — and helped absorb the excess labor that resulted from mechanization of the agricultural sector. We now need transformation on a similarly grand scale.

On the highlighted sentence, we agree. But, Robinson continues:

And it's important to recognize that while long-term debt isn't the most urgent problem facing the nation, it has to be addressed. Transformation, after all, isn't cheap.

Well, transformation can be cheap, especially if you're cutting. Robinson's leftist leanings tell him that what we really need is more spending, but focus the spending. This is where he starts to show his lunacy.

But our leaders, beginning with Obama, can't settle for playing small ball. As he campaigns for re-election, the president's task is to explain why this is a time to think big — and why we have no choice.

Don't hold your breath waiting for this President to think any bigger than the $1 billion his campaign plans to raise and spend to sell his version of history to the American public.


Robinson had much potential with this column. But he let his devotion to left wing ideology override the points he could have made. Robinson loves him some Obama, and that's fine. But when these hacks pretend to be more than they really are, their writings are little more than the characters printed on paper in China, North Korea, Cuba or Venezuela.

Paul Ryan Proposes Serious Budget; The Left Attacks, Offers Nothing

On Tuesday, Congressman Paul Ryan proposed a serious governing document for America, called The Path to Prosperity (read the plan here), it's a great place to start the national dialogue about so many issues.  The response from the Left is typical.  They have begun to attack Ryan, the GOP and the budget proposal, all of this while never offering a serious proposal of their own.

First, you should read Congressman Ryan's op-ed in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal.

Second, you should read this tweet from Leftist San Franciscan Nancy Pelosi: "The #GOP Ryan budget is a path to poverty for America's seniors & children and a road to riches for big oil #GOPvalues" When you stop laughing at poor Nancy and her standard madlib, fill in the blank template, you should contact your congressman and make sure they are on board with this budget.

Finally, in my recent posts, I have been calling for Transformational Change. This governing proposal is a small step in the right direction. Government will still play too large a role in our lives under this proposal, but this proposal is a step in the right direction.

TX Rep Kolkhorst Moves HB5 Out of Public Health Committee

by Pondering Penguin, this column originally appeared here.

Texas State Rep Lois Kolkhorst is chairwoman of the Public Health Committee. As the Chair of the House Committee on Public Health, she helps manage the state's multi-billion dollar health care system and works to set priorities for the Health and Human Services Commission, which oversees thousands of state employees at five state agencies.

Rep Kolkhorst sponsored HB5 - Relating to the Interstate Health Care Compact and it has been voted out of committee on a vote of 5-0. By coming together with other states, Texas can manage the state's Medicaid mandates as the costs rise in the coming years.

According to Texas Public Policy Foundation, the coming budget obligations for Medicaid in Texas will be staggering.

As legislators are well aware, Article II has consumed an increasingly larger percentage of the state's budget, with Medicaid demanding the lion's share. It is also the least flexible due to the restraints placed on Medicaid by the federal government. Recent changes in federal law with the passage of the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act (PPACA) removed most of the remaining options.

Texas general revenue Medicaid spending, after adjustments for inflation and population, will increase 866 percent between 2009 and 2040. Meaningful opportunities to stem the growth of health care spending are hard to come by because the Legislature has been hamstrung by certain provisions in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and by the acceptance of ARRA funds that restrict lawmakers from making significant changes to Article II, particularly with regard to Medicaid.

Rep Kolkhorst believes that joining in with other states with the Interstate Compact option, it may be the only constitutional shield to be found to fight Obamacare. States can manage their needs better than the federal government. Currently there are 18 states coming together, with the potential for 12 more. After passing in the State Legislature, then the bill would be sent to Congress where it would be voted on. Every state has to work within the same perimeters. Block grants would be distributed.

With the current budget shortfalls facing every state, Interstate Compacts make sense.

I'd like to thank Pondering Penguin for writing this post and allowing me to post it here.  I encourage you to visit Pondering Penguin and engage in the conversation there as well.

Government vs. Philanthropy

In thinking about my recent posts about the need for Transformational Change in America, or an American renaissance. This call came in to Rush Limbaugh on 3-15-11 that really had me saying out loud "that's a great example of what I'm talking about!" Listen to the call here, and be sure to read the notes on the screen:

This call and it's content needs to be considered. Philanthropy needs to be looked at again in this country, and frankly I think philanthropic endeavors need to be reinvigorated. Philanthropy will always, no matter what, do better than anything government does. So, add this to the list of things we need to discuss.

Happy Birthday???

My second niece arrived this morning. She is healthy and already talking about supply-side economics and she has already asked for her uncle to send her some books about Ronald Reagan, she realizes there is no time to waste.

I always see these numbers for what part of the nation's debt a child "born today" is responsible for. A little research reveals that this new beauty just inherited her share of the national debt, which equals $29,178. That number will be $49,694 for a child born in 2020, and it could obviously increase.

Both of these monetary figures are ridiculous. And when you think that in just 9 years, not only will the population increase, but that each person share of the debt will increase 59%, I hope you agree with me that this system is unsustainable.

It's time for real change. It's time for transformational change. As each niece has been born, I look at these little ones, and I realize this is no longer about me. It's about them and one day it's about their children when they become mothers.

So, with that, the ideas I've been working on in recent weeks are still in development and there will be more soon.

In the meantime, I welcome my niece to the world, I hope her 18 month old sister will embrace a lifetime of being a big sister and I hope we get serious about reforming this ridiculous, out of control situation for the future generations.

Happy Birthday little one.

Remove Leftist Jesse Jackson Jr. From Congress Yesterday

Leftist Jesse Jackson Jr. has clearly presented himself as a clear and present danger to America. This uneducated moron is understandably overmatched in the US Congress. This Leftist here clearly puts a voice to the problems facing those of us looking for Transformational Change, as he sees the Constitution of the United States as an open ended opportunity to have government do everything imaginable.



One specific critical point to demonstrate Jackson's mental weakness, he asks "how many schools would such a right build from Maine to California". There is no shortage of schools in this country Jackson. There is also no shortage of money for schools. What there is is a surplus of teachers unions protecting failed teachers and a flawed system. Students in this country are benefiting in places where government is not in charge. Read my recent posts about Transformational Change in Education to understand this better.

The Examples Just Keep Coming

In my efforts to look at Transformational Change in government, this is an amazing time to be a news junkie and writer. This video below of a speech that Leftist Harry Reid actually delivered in the US Senate chamber, is an opportunity to see the largesse that needs to be cut from the things that the federal government spends money on.



Here is the text of that video so that you can actually see this stupidity:

"The mean-spirited bill, H.R. 1,, eliminates National Public Broadcasting...It eliminates the National Endowment of the Humanities, National Endowment of the Arts. These programs create jobs. The National Endowment of the Humanities is the reason we have in northern Nevada every January a cowboy poetry festival. Had that program not been around, the tens of thousands of people who come there every year would not exist."

I do not think you can watch this video, and then read the words, and still believe that government spending is not out of control and that Transformational Change is not needed.

And before you attempt to tell me that we need PBS, NEA, NEH and NPR and all this other nonsense, realize that I don't want the federal government funding this sort of leftist propaganda in any case. The Constitution does not call for this sort of heavy-handed intervention. If PBS and NPR are so great, let the marketplace decide that and fund it. Pacifica Radio is also full of Leftists who hate America, but unlike NPR and PBS, Pacifica finds fellow travelers to pay the bills. The same should apply to NPR and PBS. It's time to stop paying for these things. Let us minimize the functions of government, keep more money in our communities, and keep more of our own earnings.

ObamaCare vs. the Post Office - Should Government Handle Either?

There was a great, short post over at The Weekly Standard today that is certainly worth looking at.  So much was said in so little space.

"The problem is, America’s Founders wrote the following words (penned at Independence Hall) into our Constitution: “The Congress shall have Power…To establish Post Offices and post Roads.” Meanwhile, Obamacare may contradict the Founders’ vision of limited government and liberty more completely than any legislation ever passed in our nation’s history. The only good thing about Obamacare is the backlash against it, which has reignited national debate over the proper scope of government and has generated renewed interest in fiscal responsibility, limited government, and our founding principles. But it doesn’t help to advance those principles to suggest that Obamacare is like the Post Office.

It didn’t take 2,700 pages to found the Post Office. The Post Office doesn’t try to run what will soon be one-fifth of our economy. It doesn’t cost more than $2 trillion over ten years. It doesn’t compel Americans to buy health insurance.  It doesn’t consolidate heretofore unthinkable levels of power in the hands of the Secretary of Health and Human Services and other unelected officials."

As my readers know, I think the Post Office has become an unmanageable system for the federal government to handle.  The Post Office has not turned a profit in many years.  But, the larger points here are fantastic and it's good to see validation for what I've been talking about here in previous weeks.

How Many More Ways Could We Possibly Stifle Small Business?

I came across an interesting column today over at OpenMarket.org, discussing how to help small businesses across America. I recommend the entire column, but the three highlighted sections below merit particular attention.

"Paychex, Inc., a payroll service provider that works with many small businesses, recently commissioned a survey. They asked small business owners their thoughts on the economy, and what the biggest obstacles are to growing their businesses. The most common gripe? Regulation. 47 percent of small business owners say that regulations have “slowed or prevented” their business from growing."

This is where bureaucracy gets in the way of real economic growth. Damn, just get out of the way and let those with initiative and drive and capital investment put people to work.

"If Congress is genuinely interested in helping small businesses while speeding up economic recovery, it’s time for a different approach."

Can you join me in saying "Transformational Change"?

"Federal regulation alone costs $1.75 trillion to comply with. Congress should lighten the load. 47 percent of small business owners say that regulation has made their business grow more slowly. Letting that 47 percent grow more quickly would go a long way toward getting the economy growing again."

Almost $2,000,000,000,000 (yes, that's 12 0's) just to comply with regulations!

What To Do About Rising Gas Prices

You have no doubt seen gas prices on the rise in recent weeks and months. What solutions do you have for bringing down gas prices?

You do realize that rising gas prices make consumer goods rise in price too, right? While gas is getting closer to $4 per gallon, will you like it when it gets to $8 per gallon? All the transportation costs of consumer products will increase.

Book Review - A Chance To Make History

A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn't in Providing an Excellent Education for Allby Teach For America founder Wendy Kopp is a current look at a positive force for education improvement in America. Education books about various educational programs are released each year, but as numbers change, the books become outdated and less accurate, or less applicable. So, A Chance to Make History, released in 2011, and with stats reported from the latter part of 2010, is a very good current snapshot of the education system in America.

Right at the outset, I wish I had the book in electronic format so I could easily count the number of times the words “transformation” or “transformational” were used. I think this word was the right choice for the needed reforms in American education. I do think those word uses were incorrectly applied in some instances, where the words were another way or saying “better”, “different” or “changing”. What American education truly needs is Transformational Change.

Calling for such change is another way of saying that the current system is beyond being fixed by piecemeal measures, or tinkering around the edges. As was pointed out in this book, more money and more funding is not always the answer. In many cases we are simply spending more for the same, mediocre results.

What A Change to Make History clearly demonstrates is that private enterprise can achieve better results than can any level of government, such as local or federal. There are several instances where not having to deal with any government bureaucracies allowed innovators and investors the chance to get in and do the work of educating children. One great quote to illustrate this:

"Post-storm, there was no bureaucracy left, and it really was an open opportunity for people to come down and get schools open quickly, schools that could be designed to close the achievement gap right from the start." (p. 96, in reference to post-Katrina New Orleans)

I understand that Teach for America does get some federal funding, but that most of its funding is philanthropic and received from donors. I object to the federal government being involved in education at all. If government has to be involved, I would prefer to see them solely fund organizations such as Teach For America. Get the bureaucrats who look at numbers and studies and decide the fate of students across the country that they have never seen and will never see, out of the way of state and local education authorities.

The federal government has proven it can not manage large, complex systems well. Look at the post office, which recently had to be bailed out to the tune of $11 billion. If the federal government had to go to a rational bank and apply for a loan to fund the Department of Education, and if they presented the current model for education as their business plan, they would be laughed out of the building, denied the loan, and shut down for good.

Specifically, A Chance to Make History is an enjoyable read, it is a narrative, with stories that the author comes back to time and again. It is a hopeful book, and a positive book when you see the positive results. I felt the book, at 218 pages, was a quick read, and frankly I could have kept reading. Fortunately, the book is loaded with some great footnotes for further research. Finally, this book might be seen very much as a sort of brag sheet for Teach For America. I’d advise readers to get over that fact and focus on the results oriented focus of the book instead. Whether it’s through Teach For America or similar efforts, let’s start transforming education in this country by unleashing the entrepreneurial spirit that can be found in our 310 million citizens. Let’s start at the local, community level and build up from there.

I'll close with this quote from page 113:

"I believe part of the reason that the achievement gap has not narrowed in an aggregate sense over the past two decades, despite all the energy and resources invested in education reform, is that our policy makers and influencers have been so obsessed with finding a quick fix that we have gone lurching from one silver-bullet solution to another rather than embracing the big idea of transformative education and engaging in the very hard work of implementing it. Equally distracting, we have also spent inordinate amounts of energy blaming one group or another-"silver scapegoats," we could call them - when there are clearly larger systemic issues at play. The fact is that our system was not initially designed with an understanding of what it would take to change the path predicted by students' socioeconomic background."

The time for Transformational Change in American education, is now.

National Start-A-Business Month

I can't speak to anything specific about LegalZoom.com, I have never used their services and frankly I don't know anyone else who ever has. But March is National Start-A-Business Month over at LegalZoom. Find out more about it here. Even if it's just a set of reduced prices for their services, the idea of someone encouraging entrepreneurs to try something new is a good idea to me.

WSJ Blurb - Brief Post for Now

Tuesday's Wall Street Journal had an interesting little blurb in one of it's two editorials that I'm going to come back to in an upcoming post, but I figured the blurb was worth posting now.

Medicaid isn't in trouble because it is badly run, though of course it is. The problem is that it has become so vast and is meant to fill so many political demands that no one can truly control it. Given the Obama Administration's rigidity, this is not the best reform moment, but unlike his predecessors, Mr. Cuomo seems to recognize that these liabilities can't be repaired at the margins. The real test will be if he starts to do the politically difficult work of scaling Medicaid down.

My readers will note that their reference to "repaired at the margins" sounds a lot like the "tinkering around the edges" phrase I often use. It all means the same thing. Again, I'll come back to this editorial in a day or so, but I felt this was worth posting now. The final point of focus, is that Medicaid has simply gotten out of control. As the editorial suggests, this is no time to make marginal changes, to "tinker around the edges", it's time for an overhaul. More later.

Transformational Change in Education Might be the Place to Start

A great column appeared in the Houston Chronicle today.

As we are watching Professional Leftists in their true form carry out their childish acts in Wisconsin, we see some good examples of what happens when adults are in charge.

Houston has attracted entrepreneurial educators from across the globe, many, like Tarim, drawn by the University of Houston, Rice and nearby Texas A&M. Other educational entrepreneurs were not new to the country, but were new to Houston. Feinberg, Levin and Barbic were among an army of young, idealistic TFA corps members from out of state drawn to Houston to save urban schooling. Houston has the nation's largest TFA chapter. Unlike many cities, Houston welcomed TFA rather than seeing corps members as taking jobs from locals.

So what makes Houston different? First, the Houston Federation of Teachers never had the power to keep out TFA or hamstring KIPP and other charters. But that still left a bureaucracy, which, as Jay Mathews writes, resented KIPP's notoriety and success. Before KIPP became a charter, the Houston Independent School District central office investigated KIPP, and at one point reassigned its classrooms. Political leadership saved the day. HISD Superintendent Rod Paige publicly praised KIPP and intervened when bureaucrats attacked. Paige also had HISD serve as an incubator for YES Prep. As Barbic recalls, "A lot of superintendents would have seen that innovation and tried to kill it, but Paige did the exact opposite." Paige's successors have followed his lead, fashioning a public school system that can compete with the charters.

In a couple of my recent posts where I have discussed some ideas suggesting we need Transformational Change, this article highlights two sections where I think this absolutely applies.

Highlighted in yellow, entrepreneurial and entrepreneurs suggest the type of thinking and the type of people we need to transform the nations education disaster. This is the new thinking we need. This is where the new solutions that work will come from. Highlighted in orange, is the old thinking, the continual path to ruin and inefficiency. The orange highlights are the way to stop progress.

Newt Gingrich has discussed a newer model, called Entrepreneurial Public Management to replace bureaucratic public administration. A more scholarly paper on Entrepreneurial Public Management can be found at AEI. As I have been thinking about how we reform, and therefore transform the current system(s) in America, this seems like a very logical place to start. Obviously the teachers unions will be the biggest problem. Anyone who has seen the documentary Waiting For Superman knows what I'm talking about. Think about that "rubber room" in New York. And think about the all-out assault the Professional Left launched against Michelle Rhee, for the crime of, hold your breath, WANTING CHILDREN TO LEARN, gasp. Fortunately, Michelle Rhee is able to do her own thing now.

So, I see a clearer path now than I did a few days ago. I'm still working and thinking about how we get to a point of Transformational Change and what that looks like. I hope you're working on it or thinking about it as well and I welcome your ideas and collaboration.

The Time Is Now

Friends, the time is now, to figure out where this country is headed. I figured I would say this at some point during the Obama Regime's Reign, but I figured it would be closer to the Marxist-In-Chief's re-election run, and not now, in February 2011. Shoot, it's not even April 15th, Tax day. It's just a Tuesday night in America.

I don't yet know the format this will take; meaning I don't know what the blog posts will look like, what the graphics will look like or what the overall approach will be. It might vary and not flow well at all, but the theme will be the same.

The bottom line is, we can no longer continue down our current path as a nation. We cannot keep spending on everything that our government views as necessary for one reason or another. But, saying "stop spending" is not enough. What does that really get us? Cut a few billion dollars here or a few billions dollars there; drops in the ocean. This is what I refer to as using a teaspoon to clear water off the deck of the Titanic.

What we need is transformational change. That means tough decisions. No, it won't be easy, certainly not as easy as continuing the spending that got us to this point of disaster in the first place. If you want more tax increases, we'll you've gotten them. Have you paid attention to the prices rising all around you? Everything you buy has increased in price since January 20, 2009. So your cost of living has increased, you want to pay more taxes on top of that? What are you getting in return for your taxes each year? Where does is stop? When does it stop? The time is now.

I think the first question needs to be; What do you view as the fundamental role of the federal government? I think we'd all agree that a military is necessary. But, I'm not even willing to make that assumption definite. In my mind, we have to get back to finding out what the basic functions of the federal government need to be, then we build up from there. So, you tell me, let's start with that.

The time is now.