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C is for Comeback America by David Walker

April 3, 2013 by 3 Comments
unemployment-rate

The national unemployment rate.

Sometimes, I’m a cynic.

For example, I don’t trust that Democrats care as much about the Second Amendment and gun regulation, immigration reform, or gay marriage as they say (heck, I’m not even sure Republicans care as much as they say, either, but that’s another post). I think they’re, largely, cherry picking issues that they can use to pander to various demographic groups and distract from the relatively unexciting business of a slow economy which, by virtue of President Obama’s reelection, they own.  In spite of what political left may argue, little has improved in the economy since the election last year. Unemployment nationally still hovers between 7.9 and 7.7%, economic growth slowed at the end of last year, and personal income is down 2.2% this year.

So why aren’t we talking about economic growth and how to bring about an economic “comeback” for America?

A couple years back, I read an interesting book by David Walker, former Comptroller of the United States. I don’t necessarily agree with everything in it, but I think it can add to the conversation on what needs to be addressed to move our country into a more competitive position than slow growth and stagnant personal incomes.

 

Comeback America

Comeback America: Turning the Country Around and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility by David M. Walker

As the former comptroller general of the United States, Walker knows a little about the fiscal workings of the modern federal government. For fifteen years, he served under both Republican and Democratic presidents, from Reagan to Clinton to the Bushes, and had a unique opportunity to call into question the decisions that have lead to our current fiscal woes. And in Comeback America, he doesn’t hold back.  We are a great country, but we are putting ourselves in a difficult position:

We live in a great and resilient nation. For all of our problems, the United States remains a global superpower and a beacon of liberty for people around the world. We have much to be proud of and thankful for. But I am here to tell you that if we don’t find a way to get spending under control, we will put our nation’s economy and international standing at risk and bequeath to our children a world of severely diminished opportunities.

It’s not too late. But we had better act soon.

After opening the book with describing our current fiscal problems–looking at the America of 2030 if we continue our current trajectory, examining principles from our history, and spelling out the challenges that President Obama faced as he came into office–Walker lays out his recommendations in each major area of federal spending in the succeeding chapters.

Walker skips right over earmarks and discretionary spending, which account for only a very small percentage of our federal budget, and goes right to the heart of  the problem: entitlements, insufficient tax revenues, spending deficits, Defense Department inefficiency, and systemic problems. Each gets a chapter that provides context, history, and recommendations.

Beyond easy accessibility, perhaps the most important reason you should read this book is the lack of partisan taint. His approach, and recommendations, are nonpartisan, pragmatic, and worthy of consideration.  He

David Walker

approaches the problems with one consideration–what is right for America and Americans?

Walker calls for not only the reform of entitlements, review and oversight of inefficiencies in several–large–areas of government, and the reform of the tax code, but also for changes in our very elective processes and to the constitution. It isn’t enough to just change policies–we also need to change the systemic problems with how we got here and make it difficult to get here again.

In the end, Walker makes a compelling case for, in his words, not a “small government or a big government[,]” but an effective government–one that is fiscally responsible, focuses on the future, and looks out for the collective best interest of America and Americans rather than the narrow agendas of various special interests.

As one friend of mine has been known to observe–both parties are glad to spend, as long as it on the program that benefits its constituency. The right will spend on national security, and the left will spend on social programs. Both are spending, just not on the same thing. Indeed, fiscal responsibility is a claim that neither elected major national party can claim–at least not in recent memory or with any measure of integrity.

Despite the current difficulties, exacerbated by the pop of the housing bubble and the subsequent recession, America can “comeback.” Walker’s book is full of great ideas and suggestions to see that that happens. I recommend you pick up a copy soon. You might find yourself asking different questions of your elected representatives than their position on immigration. 

Publius Online is participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, a month long quest to post every day. Each day should match a corresponding letter of the alphabet. Today is C.

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B is for Bankruptcy of Stockton, California

April 2, 2013 by 8 Comments

ca-small-business-routesIt’s a running joke around these parts (Utah) that a successful business plan for a California company starts with leaving California. The cost of living, rising taxes, and increased government regulation are all combining to make California less attractive, the beaches not withstanding.

Now comes this: Stockton, California, a city of around 300,000, has declared bankruptcy. U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Christopher Klein signed off on the bankruptcy petition yesterday.  It’s the largest U.S. city yet to do so.

Faced with finances crippled by the housing crisis and recession, Stockton has already eliminated retiree healthcare benefits and at some point will need to negotiate with California’s pension system, the California Public Employees Retirement System or CALPERs, about how to deal with pension payments to retired city workers.  Not surprisingly, the city’s creditors opposed the bankruptcy.

During his comments, Klein noted that Stockton’s cost cutting had started years ago, and now 77% of the city budget was devoted to diminished police and fire services. (Ironically, last year saw a record number of murders in Stockton…has police protection has been diminished too much?)

Stockton BankruptcyWhich begs the question: if so much of the city’s budget is devoted to such basic services as police and fire, how did Stockton rack up so much debt that it exceed its ability to pay?  Has the tax base in Stockton been hit so hard?

Apparently so. Klein in his findings of facts said that the bankruptcy was precipitated by

over betting on sustained tax revenues from a real estate boom, bankrolled a downtown redevelopment and doled out generous employee benefits on top of a “multi-decade, largely invisible pattern of above-market compensation for public employees.”

The jokes about people and businesses leaving California for better opportunity may be funny, but the results of overspending are not. Let’s hope that Stockton is no more than a cautionary tale, rather than an omen of things to come.

Ironically, Obama cheer leader Paul Krugman’s column in yesterday’s New York Times, mocking conservatives for decrying “liberal big spending and overpaid public employees” as “bringing on collapse” in California, came out just hours before Klein issued his ruling. Apparently, reality failed to read Krugman, and, unfortunately, reality does not negotiate.

Publius Online is participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, a month long quest to post every day. Each day should match a letter of the alphabet. Today is the letter B.

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April Fools or About Face?

April 1, 2013 by 4 Comments

 

Obama Proclaims April the Month to Teach Young People ‘How to Budget Responsibly’ CNS News

Today is April first, commonly called April Fools day, so like my good friend Shannon warns, “Trust no one.”

Given the inclination of the press to play along, occasionally throwing out outlandish headlines that couldn’t possibly be true, there still comes this, that sounds like it should be a joke, but really, is more likely just bad timing: the White House proclaims that April is “National Financial Capability Month.”

Seriously. Here’s a link to it if you aren’t buying it. It’s neither an about-face of an administration that has shown more interest in raising taxes than in balancing its budgets or an April Fools’ joke.

Never mind that unemployment is hovering around 7.8% (as it has for the last few years), making “financial capability” difficult for many families (or at least 7.8% of the working population).

Never mind that reports seem to indicate that unemployment might be higher than we think because of the number of people on disability payments instead of welfare or unemployment assistance.

No, rather let’s focus on helping young people with what the White House terms ” learning how to budget responsibly to saving for college, starting a business, or opening a retirement account.” Never mind that the Obama Administration hasn’t submitted a budget to Congress on time in three years, that Obama Administration budgets have increased the national debt by $53,377 per household, and that the President has stated that he has no intention of submitting  a budget that balances any time soon.

Never mind all that.

It’s a classic case of ‘do what I say, not what I do.’ And it’s no April Fools joke.

I am sure the do-gooders in the White House mean well, but saying one thing and doing another hurts their credibility. You can’t ask to raise taxes and increase spending on one hand and tell Americans you are an authority on financial management on the other. If the Obama White House wants to make a difference in the national economy and provide for real “financial capability,” they will more seriously consider the heavy weight that out of control entitlement cost growth is having on the federal budget, as well as the very real tax, especially on the young, that the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”) weighs on working Americans. You cannot provide for the poor by tearing down the working, but that’s exactly what the Obama Administration’s policies–especially Obamacare–will do.

This month, Publius Online is participating in Blogging from A to Z, a month long quest to post every day. Each day should match a letter of the alphabet. Since today is the first day of April, that letter is A. Tomorrow will be B, and so on.

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Obama would rather campaign than govern [KSL]

March 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The following is an op-ed that I wrote and KSL published on its site on March 5, 2013.

 

25055047Of all the political crises coming out of Washington, D.C., in recent years, few demonstrate the dismal state of things like the sequester. The crisis we face is not just the dramatic growth of federal spending, but the inability of Democrats and Republicans in Washington to work together to figure out how to control it.

Worse, it appears President Barack Obama has decided to use the issue to hit Republicans. Instead of working with the GOP to find a solution, Obama instead has hit the campaign trail again to help his party re-take control of Congress in 2014. If Americans don’t understand the budget and sequestration, he will manufacture a crisis and turn it against Republicans.

 Campaigning, not Governing

The president has, at best, misinformed the American public about what the automatic budget cuts, referred to as the sequester, mean. At worst, he has taken advantage of an issue the public does not understand to create a faux crisis. Look at those Republicans in Congress, he says. “What I can’t do is force Congress to do the right thing,” he said last week. “The American people may have the capacity to do that.”

And by “that,” he means restore Democratic control of Congress. So, rather than meet with Congressional leaders in the weeks leading up to the beginning of the sequester on March 1, Obama instead hit the campaign trail.

According to the The Washington Post, it matches a strategy decision made by Obama shortly after his re-election in 2012 to work to put Nancy Pelosi back as speaker of the House. If the president can’t persuade Republicans to his way of thinking, he’ll campaign to replace them.

As Ed Rogers put it in The Washington Post, “The president is most confident and fulfilled as a campaigner. He would rather travel the country and lead the permanent campaign, relying on his relative personal appeal, than take responsibility and govern.” For better or worse, the president has decided that if he cannot impose his will on Congress, he will try to persuade the American people to give him a majority in 2014.

Along with the campaigning has come a torrent of misinformation about the budget cuts that has journalists cringing.

  • In a news conference Friday, President Obama said that janitors and security guards at the Capitol would get a pay cut. On the contrary, according to the Architect for the Capitol, which employs the janitors, Obama’s remarks are “not true.” The Washington Post, fact checking the president, gave him four Pinocchios, which is akin to saying his pants are on fire. Nothing in his statement was even close to being correct, reported the Post.
  • Secretary of Education Arne Duncan went on to CBS’ “Face the Nation” Feb. 24 to scare people with images of 40,000 teachers getting pink slips and children being squished into overcrowded classrooms. Duncan repeated this claim three times. Not so fast, said The Washington Post. The Department of Education couldn’t produce the name of a single school that was sending out pink slips. Another false claim from the Obama Administration, the Post says.
  • Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius threatened in a letter that 70,000 children would lose access to Head Start. The Washington Post balked at that figure, too.

If Americans didn’t understand what sequester meant before Obama took to the campaign trail, we understood even less after.

 The Elephant in the Room

This isn’t to say that Republicans haven’t done their part to spin sequester. Republicans in Congress regularly argue that the cuts to the budget are only 2.5 percent of the federal budget. This ignores the fact that programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and food stamps are largely untouched by the sequester, making the impact on other areas of the budget much more substantial. For example, defense spending was hit hard with a 13 percent cut to its budget. (Not that the budget of the Department of Defense couldn’t use a good look. For example, why do we still have military bases in Germany and Japan? Didn’t World War II end in 1945?)

Behind all of the spin and hot air, few Republicans and almost no Democrats in Washington are willing to address the elephant in the room: the cuts from sequestration don’t touch the major causes of U.S. spending growth. Faced with growing costs of health care, as well as the expensive new benefits endowed by the Affordable Care Act, the costs of America’s entitlements will continue to grow — unchecked by the sequester.

While Republicans have pressed for “smart” cuts in lieu of slashing spending by sequestration — for example, Utah’s two senators, Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee, both proposed alternatives to the sequester — they have failed to organize a plan that can meet Democrats somewhere in the middle. Getting rid of the debt will require raising taxes or cutting benefits to, as Douglas Elmendorf puts it, “people who consider themselves to be in the middle class.” That, or a little of both.

The alternative is to do nothing until America can no longer ignore its spending habits. The sequester may not be the crisis that our politicians are threatening, but it foreshadows what will happen if we don’t find a way to fund the government programs we have created.

As the Bipartisan Policy Center puts it, after predicting that sequestration could cost as many as a million jobs over the next two years, “The lesson … is that we can expect much pain for little gain.” Whether its prediction that jobs will be lost is accurate remains to be seen

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Senator Hatch’s anti-tax hike sequester proposal [updated]

March 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment

, member of the United States Senate.

[Update] Since original publication, Senator Hatch’s Press Secretary was kind enough to both read and comment that the Senator’s proposal is only intended to be a short term fix and that the Senator has proposed more long term solutions to Medicare and Medicaid. The proposal dates back to the end of January and can be found here.

 

[Original post] Senate Democrats proposal to dealing with the sequester is simple: raise taxes. The expenses of the federal government in caring for America are increasing, and so some Americans should pay more of their fair share.

Senator Hatch on Friday responded, with both a legislative  proposal that avoids any tax increase and an op-ed the Salt Lake Tribune describing the proposal.

Our country is $16.6 trillion in debt. Republicans have tried to work with Senate Democrats on common-sense spending cuts so we can begin to get our crippling debt under control, but we’ve been met with virtual silence. Disappointingly, the president seems more interested in continuing his campaign across the country to score political points, all while the country sits disgusted with a lack of action from Washington to fix the president’s sequester.

The cuts represented in the sequester are necessary, but what is not necessary is how they are structured. To essentially cut $1 trillion from our military in a short period of time will place an unnecessary burden on our service members and the workers who aid their efforts. So why won’t the president work with us to restructure these cuts in a more manageable way so the Department of Defense can plan accordingly?

Hatch’s proposal–his “smart spending cuts”–finds $142.2 billion in cuts from the federal budget. That’s $60 billion more than the amount cut this year by the sequester, “but in a much more common-sense, reasonable way[,]” says Utah’s senior senator in his Tribune piece.

A break down of Hatch’s plan on his site shows proposed cuts, based on a 2011 report by Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma called “Back in Black.” Using estimates from that report, Hatch finds ten areas where the federal government can cut back without affecting spending on national security. With the sequester disproportionately hitting defense spending (nearly $500 billion of the $1.1 trillion in cuts over the next decade are coming out of the military spending), Hatch appears to have made special effort not to touch the armed services.

130226-tobias-sequesterNot surprisingly, the list of proposed budget savings include a number of targets for conservative ire in recent years (and decades), including elimination of funding for  National Public Radio, consolidating National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for Humanities under one roof, freezing federal employee pay to match locality, and reducing agency budgets for advertising and travel. Also, fewer limousines owned by the feds.

I’m impressed that Senator Hatch is proposing more specific cuts than the across-the-board-we’re-all-gonna-die cuts that have been threatened by fear-mongering administration officials over the last week. The proposals astutely avoid hurting any particular constituency, with the exception of a few federal employees who will make roughly the same as their counterparts in the private sector in the areas they live, but that seems reasonable–working for the government is not supposed to make you rich.

However, it’s clear that the cuts are not much more than chopping at leaves with little real long-term impact on the drivers of federal budgetary growth.  Untouched are the big costs–Medicare and Medicaid.  In spite of bipartisan agreement that reform is necessary to retain the long-term solvency of these programs for the poor and weak in society, little effort has been made to address their future. I laud Hatch’s efforts on the budget, but I would like to see a more frank discussion of how entitlement spending will be addressed.

The full list of Senator Hatch’s proposal is here:

1. Freeze Federal Locality Pay for Five Years:  The Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act of 1990 created locality pay to align salaries for federal employees with private sector pay scales in their geographic area.  Estimated savings: $71 billion over ten years.

2. Reduce Civilian Agencies’ Travel Budgets by 75 Percent:  Estimated savings: $43.3 billion over ten years.

3. Reduce Agency Advertising Budgets by 50 Percent:  Estimated savings: $5.6 billion over ten years.

4. Combine National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities into One Agency and Reduce Funding by 75 Percent:  Estimated savings: $2.8 billion over ten years.

5. Consolidate Various Funding Programs into a New Office Dedicated to Weather Research with the National Science Foundation and Reduce Overall Expenditures for This Research:  Estimated savings: $11.6 billion over ten years.

6. Eliminate Federal Funding for Public Media (National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service):  Estimated savings: $5.6 billion over ten years.

7. Reduce Administrative Expenses for the Treasury Department:  This would include eliminating printing and mailing of certain forms, publications and inserts.  Estimated savings: $2.2 billion over ten years.

8. Reduce the Number of Limousines Owned by Federal Agencies:  Estimated savings: $115.5 million over ten years.

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Sequester: a trip down the rabbit hole to Wonderland [Contributor]

March 1, 2013 by 1 Comment

white-rabbit-with-watch-3

Rhett Wilkinson is a senior at Utah State University. He is studying journalism and political science. The opinions expressed are his own.

 

The feds ought to follow the lead of a certain rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, who famously said “I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date!”

The first problem with this whole sequester mess is when President Obama and Congressional leaders have arranged to meet about the issue. The first sit-down? Scheduled for Friday—after sequestration already strikes earlier that day.

That being perhaps the finest example yet of a divided federal government, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised.

With the extreme political polarization existing in contemporary America, isn’t the national bureaucracy working exactly as the Founders intended—representative of their constituents?

Aside from the prophetic inevitability perhaps evident in that governmental design, a lack of astonishment perhaps primarily comes most, however, from the ‘we’ve seen this before’ category.

English: U.S. President is greeted by Speaker ...

English: U.S. President is greeted by Speaker of the House before delivering the . (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Less than two months ago, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was speed-dialing Vice President Joe Biden about a deal on the fiscal cliff, after becoming exasperated trying to negotiate with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, perhaps Utah’s least-favorite prominent adopted son. And only several weeks ago was House Speaker John Boehner emphasizing the need for making no long-term increase in the debt limit until a long-term plan to deal with the nation’s fiscal crisis is in place, Reid responding by talking about “gimmicks” from the tea party in negotiations.

This time, McConnell may have consummated the embarrassment by testifying on the House floor much like the nation feels in their cry for help—alone, saying that Republicans “can’t do it alone.”

This sure feels abandoning: $1.2 trillion in cuts will be made this year. We will lose $492 billion from our defense capabilities, making some aspects of the U.S. military its’ weakest since the World War I era. It includes $40 million from Utah. The state’s governor, Gary Herbert, described the disagreement between sides as a “bad marriage,” with “not a lot of good communications going on.”

Certainly not, when nothing of the type may be substantial until after the automatic cuts occur.

The governor’s specification of a need for spending cuts couldn’t have been more right. In 2011, the federal government spent roughly $668 billion on 126 welfare programs. That includes an increase of more than $193 billion since the presidential incumbency took office—roughly two-and-a-half times greater than any increase over a similar time frame in U.S. history!

Yet, the poverty rate has still remained relatively constant since 1965, despite rising welfare spending. In fact, the only significant decline occurred in the 1990s, a time of state experimentation with tightening wel­fare eligibility. Since 2006, poverty rates have ris­en despite a massive increase in spending, yet only 2.6 percent of full-time workers are poor. The “working poor” are a small minor­ity of the poor population.

Even part-time work makes a significant difference. Only 15 percent of part-time workers are poor, com­pared with 24 percent of adults who do not work.

Young Americans for Liberty’s Adam Fowler opined that Republicans aren’t to blame, “despite what Obama may say.” And “not Obama, despite what Republicans may say,” he continued. “The people who vote for this stuff are the ones to blame. Yes, that means us.”

No, it’s not really on constituencies, if a slow and divided Congress is a product of exactly what the government the Framers sought to establish. Sixty-seven percent of those asked in a new Washington Post-ABC poll disapprove of the way Republicans in Congress are handling federal spending—15 percent higher than Obama. Even more liberal Democrats (87 percent) approve of how Obama has handled federal spending generally, compared with 44 percent of self-identified Republicans about those in their party during the same time frame.

With the sequester taking place, the federal budget will actually still grow by $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years. So it’s fine if both sides stab each other in the ribs on Friday.

Given the effectiveness of welfare hearkening back to the last major progressive era in U.S. history, however, it’s not difficult to look in one direction towards those who have primarily advocated for such spending increases. Here’s hoping they receive the harder jab of the rhetorical sword, with a scar as a reminder that literal harm will be inflicted to some who may be paid for 22 days.

Public servants should abandon their tortoise-like negotiating pace (don’t self-described progressives pride themselves on being ahead of the curve?), and run faster than a hare to those hard-working individuals.

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Our problem isn’t the taxes, but the spending

December 10, 2012 by Leave a Comment

“Spending car” by Mike Lester

Is it time for Republicans trying to avert the fiscal cliff to give up on protecting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in exchange for entitlement reform?

Maybe, says former Senator Bob Bennett in an opinion piece in the Deseret News.

President Barack Obama wants to raise revenue by increasing taxes on households earning more than $250,000. The financial arguments for his position are weak — there aren’t enough such households to have a big impact on the debt — but he will prevail because all he has to do to get his way is nothing.

No deal, and taxes go up automatically on Jan. 1, giving him what he wants for the rich. Then on Jan. 2, he can propose that Congress immediately pass a law putting rates back down for the non-rich. If Republicans don’t pass it and there is a new recession, he will claim that it was their fault.

Maybe a better question would be: do Republicans still have a choice?

In many respects, the debate over taxes–raise them on the rich! Lower on the poor! Middle class! Get rid of deductions! Close loopholes! Reform the tax code!–is important, but really misses the point of what is behind the fiscal problems our country is facing. At the root of it all, the problem isn’t the tax code–though I’m all for reforming it, simplifying it, and making it more flat–the problem is that we are spending more than we are paying in taxes.

Let me repeat that with some emphasis: we are spending more than we are paying in taxes.  It’s a national problem carried and caused by each and every American. It isn’t about the rich–who are paying more and more–or the poor–who aren’t paying at all, but are more reliant on the government than ever before: it’s about all of us.

  • The Democrats: “Raise taxes on the wealthy!” comes the hue and cry from the Left, regardless of the fact that taxes cannot be raised high enough to avert future fiscal crises. In fact, they may aggravate them. No matter how many times the left side of the political spectrum tries to attack the wealthy, to say that they are not paying their fair share, the fact is that the wealthy are paying an increasingly large percentage of all taxes received by the federal government.  As I’ve noted in an earlier post, the 1950s, which saw record high tax rates on the very wealthy, also saw the wealthy supporting only 27% of the government’s budget. Today, the wealthy support 51% of the federal budget.
  • The Republicans: “No tax hikes!” is a great slogan, and indeed, Republicans are right that taxes slow the economy and hurt entrepreneurs, employers, and families. But they can’t fight tax growth with one hand, and spend more with the other.  One of the major mistakes of Republicans during the George W. Bush Administration was the passage of Medicare Part D, a massive expansion of government spending without corresponding revenues (also known as “taxes”). It didn’t help that we decided to invade and occupy Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time. My point is that you can’t fight taxes and create spending at the same time and expect the books to balance at the end of the day.
  • And the rest of us Americans: Like it or not, whether you are political or not, whether you voted  or not, you too are part of the problem. Our culture’s changing priorities is a part of the problem. Think about your own spending and lifestyle habits:  do you go to the emergency room instead of the physician? Do your lifestyle choices keep you healthy and physically fit? Did you take a job–any job–during the recession, and then, when it wasn’t enough to pay the rent or put food on the table, seek help from family, church, or charity first, before seeking government aid?  Are you saving for your retirement or are you expecting that Social Security and Medicare will provide for you in your “golden” years? And to the wealthy: do you give to a lobbying group that assures your industry gets sweet-heart deals, tax carve-outs and deductions, or protection from competition? For all of us: do you make an effort to be aware of the effect local elected officials actions will have on your home, neighborhood, city, or state?

In large part, I believe that the growth of the mountain of debt our country faces in the coming decades is not merely the fault of politicians in Washington, D.C., but also the result of changes in American culture where we demand more, and more, and give less, less not to our country, but to our neighbors and to our communities. As we fail to prepare and practice self-reliance and interdependence with our neighbors, we hand government bureaucrats more responsibility for things that would have, just a generation ago, been handled by neighbors helping one another.

The costs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are among the heaviest that our country will need to burden in the coming decades, but reforming them is the work of politicians, and work that they can feasibly accomplish. The long-term future of American prosperity depends on it.

On the other hand, the effects that are created by an American culture that creates people that ask “what can my country do for me?” is an effect that can be deterred only by asking “what you can do for your country.” And that question can only be answer by some serious introspection–and personal change.

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