Issues That Matter

With the election cycle heating up and with so many candidates fighting for public attention it is natural to see issues pop up in the media that startle us.  One such is Scott Walker’s drastic restrictions on unions among government workers. He earned traction and extreme notoriety in his state of Wisconsin, but now that he is waning on the national stage he is attempting to gain traction nationally by playing the same anti-union card only this time addressing unions among federal workers.

I submit that this is not an issue worthy of our attention at this time. It wasn’t worthy in Wisconsin, either, but unfortunately he won a legal point and has begun the destruction of unions among state employees in Wisconsin. That legal point is bogus and should be reversed. Besides, unions are not the problem in Wisconsin or America.

The high cost of government so many republicans say they are fighting, is not caused by unions. Other more potent topics are the high cost culprit.  Here are the ones I think matter and should be reinvented to lower cost standards.

First, public education is out of control on two fronts: it is ineffective and we keep throwing money at the old education format to fix it without really fixing it, thus worsening the cost basis; and we avoid the hard work of actually re-engineering or re-inventing the entire education system so it can be at last effective AND adaptable to social changes. The more I ponder the role of education the more I realize it is the very cornerstone of how our society works and ought to work. Invest in education and many other problem issues are solved or eased. And that will reduce public costs, too.

Second, military/defense budgets are horrendous and expanding. Both the defense initiatives and foreign affairs directions need to be coordinated to conserve public resources. Wasteful or dated defense systems should be dumped in favor of more efficient systems. Waste in the military and defense establishments are historic. It is time to trim the beast using tested management techniques without harming the nation’s ability to defend itself.

Third, infrastructure investments are sorely needed to replace dangerously out of date installations as well as revise transportation systems and public utility delivery mechanisms that are efficient and cost effective. Investing in ourselves is always a good ‘first’ investment in our future. Do it now to save even more expense in the future. The added bonus is significant employment gains that will put our worker populations back to work productively.

Fourth, social welfare costs need intelligent examination. Some are employment benefits paid for by each of us during our working lives. We pay taxes and ‘premiums’ for these benefits (Medicaid, Medicare and Society Security, among others) and they ought not to be counted as welfare programs provided free to the needy. The needy are us! and we earned the benefits and paid for them. Unemployment benefits and other welfare programs are also earned benefits that are paid for by the public as safety nets for those who are left out of earning a living for reasons beyond their control. These safety net programs have good reason for being and we need to respect them and support them accordingly.

Fifth, the economy is not owned by captains of industry or stock holders. All of us ‘own’ the American economy. We subsidize it with public infrastructure that supports distribution of goods to market, raw resources to manufacturing sites, and employees commuting to and from work. The corporations did not pay the full price of public infrastructure, nor should they. We all benefit from it and so should share in the cost of providing it. Similarly, corporations and all employers do not pay the full cost of public education. The public does. In this sense employers are subsidized by all of us.

Accordingly, the economy should be managed by policies that help support the common good of the entire society. Free markets should be respected, but it should also be recognized that free markets are rare in a managed economy. We should recognize this reality and stop claiming free markets are the norm. They are not and haven’t been for many generations.

If politicians wish to be seriously considered for public office, they need to focus on these five topics and treat them seriously. All other blathering is noise and without value. The first clue is the ‘sound bite value’ a politician’s utterance has. If it is catchy it is probably a sound bite and without value. It should be rewarded with silence.

Silence for junk. Attention for worthwhile discussions and ideas. Only the latter ought to be in the public forum when we are doing the serious business of electing trusted citizens to positions of leadership and trust.

Perhaps this will also reduce the cost of election campaigns? Wouldn’t that be a delight?!

September 16, 2015