Posted by
Daniel de Gracia II on Thursday, December 04, 2008 2:05:32 AM
With just a few weeks away to the new year and the inauguration of president-elect Barack Obama, it’s time for Americans to recognize that the task that lies ahead of us is not simply getting out of Iraq, saving a few old companies, or getting people on a healthcare plan so they don’t have to go to the ER every time they get the flu. The difference between our America and the America of 50 years ago is that in the past, both our leaders and our people understood that the best way to prepare for the future is to ensure our place as the ones controlling it. Yesterday, America was competitive among the nations. Today, America is a nation where two things aren’t working: it’s system and it’s people. It’s time for us to get back in business. The mission of the new government, from the Presidency all the way down to the mayor of the tiny town in Somewhere, USA must be unified around one objective, and one objective only: putting America in first place, again.
CUT TAXES AND SLASH REGULATIONS
During the Second World War, Technical Sergeant Richard Redding was stringing wire atop a telephone pole in Sicily to keep communications rolling between US forces. Despite hostile Luftwaffe attack aircraft buzzing overhead looking for targets to strafe, Redding bravely continued his work to the alarm of General George S. Patton who shouted from below, “What are you doing up there?” “Working,” Redding replied. “How long have you been there?” the general asked back. “About twenty minutes,” said Redding. “Don’t the planes bother you?” Patton wondered. “Hell no,” Redding said, “but you sure do!” Patton withdrew, realizing that he best leave Redding alone and let him get on with his work.
Our city, state, and federal government would do well to learn from the vignette of Redding and Patton. Americans are not a lazy people: they work hard, innovate, and generate wealth for themselves and others when given the opportunity to do so. Unfortunately, in recent decades we have developed a system that penalizes success with taxation and restricts freedom with excessive regulation. The combination of these two forces – taxation and regulation – are severely braking our momentum of prosperity. Government is growing at a rate faster than personal incomes can support. Today, Americans must work 120 days just to pay their individual burden of taxes; in 1930 they worked 44 days. By contrast, the average American spends 22 days to pay for his or her recreational habits, 30 days for food, 52 days for health and medical care, and 62 days for housing. We are literally spending most of our lives paying taxes. Worst of all, people who are the least likely to use government programs are often the ones who pay the most for them. In addition to this, the cost of complying with all of the taxes we face is estimated at $310 billion dollars.
In the area of regulation, federal environmental, safety, health and economic regulations alone cost more than $1 trillion dollars per year and constitute forty percent of federal spending and nearly nine percent of the gross domestic product, far exceeding even the cost of the economic bailout offered by Washington. These regulations make business costly and drive up costs for all of us, which has led to a trend for American companies to outsource abroad, thus giving traditionally domestic jobs to workers overseas. Government’s environmental paranoia, social experimentation, and legalistic regulation is absolutely killing business, killing jobs, and killing our American dream. We have got to cut regulation and cut taxes to make it easier to do research, innovate, and generate wealth and jobs for America. When we do that, we will begin to move back to first place among the nations.
UTILIZE ALL OF OUR ENERGY RESOURCES
The key to industrial, technological, and scientific progress is a constant supply of energy. Unfortunately for us, the two dirtiest words in domestic energy policy are fossil and nuclear, yet these two are the most powerful resources available to man, completely unmatched by any alternative energy source. America is a land that has been blessed with many natural resources, yet we have imposed excessive restrictions on tapping those assets. While people are complaining about fossil fuels being dried up and coming to an end, places such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (or ANWR) is estimated by the USGS to contain as much as 16 billion barrels of crude oil. There are many more deposits of oil all around the United States that remain untapped due to environmental restrictions, such as our outer continental shelf which may contain as much as 10 billion barrels of crude. It is estimated by the Heritage Foundation that if we were to increase domestic production of oil by so much as one million barrels per day, we would reduce the cost of imported petroleum by $123 billion, while producing a net gain to the economy of $105 billion and 128,000 new jobs. My question is this: what is so wrong about that?
We should develop alternative energy resources and look for ways to power our industry for sure, but in the meantime, if we have domestic energy resources, we should use them to the fullest extent. More energy means more industry, more industry means more jobs, and more jobs means more productivity and wealth. America has the resources to be energy self-sufficient, and when we get over all the legalism and environmental paranoia of tapping our own energy assets, we will have the power to become first again.
GIVE OUR CHILDREN A QUALITY EDUCATION
America needs future leaders who are proficient in math, sciences, arts, and the humanities if we expect to be first and competitive among the nations. Quality education is the foundation of our future. This means that within the public school system, parents need to have more authority in the education of their children and the flexibility to be able to “shop around” and send their children to schools of their choice where they are able to do best. After all, if you’re going to pay taxes to support government-run education, you ought to be able to have a say in where your children go to school and how they are educated.
When a private business performs poorly, it loses clients and either improves or goes out of business. When a government operation by contrast performs poorly, it hires more people and gets more funding from the taxpayers in the hope that it will fix the problem. Public schools should be operated competitively in which they perform their best in order to get students. When public schools have to compete for students, they will have the best teachers, the best facilities, the best food, and the best programs for our tax dollars, rather than being laboratories for social experiments and cesspools for violence, drugs, and failure.
FREEDOM OF RELIGION
Last but not least, freedom of religion is the capstone in America’s ascent to victory. I believe wholeheartedly in separation of church and state. What I do not believe in, however, is the separation of God and man. Our Founding Fathers understood that faith plays an important role in shaping one’s perception of individual and social responsibility, as evidenced by Patrick Henry’s assertion that it is impossible that a nation of infidels should be free men. Their intent in establishing separation of church and state was to prevent government from creating an official religion and an official church to dictate how an individual believes or what divine power that individual believes in, but not at all to isolate and mortify a man’s belief in God.
I find it incredibly symbolic that the United States of America was the first and only nation to place men on the Moon, and when Apollo 11 landed there on July 24, 1969, Buzz Aldrin paused to take communion and declare John 15:5, declaring Jesus’ words that “I am the Vine, you are the branches; whoever remains in Me will bear much fruit, for without me you can do nothing.” Aldrin’s action implied that God gave America the power to be first to land men on the Moon, and I can’t help but agree with him.
CONCLUSION
The “change” that America should be seeking starting now is the change that puts us back in our rightful place as the head and not the tail among the nations. We need to be first place once more because we have all the resources, all the means, all the people, and all the dreams to do so. It’s time to act upon these principles and move towards that worthy goal. As the late President John F. Kennedy once said, “While we cannot guarantee that we shall one day be first, we can guarantee that any failure to make this effort will make us last.”
I am not ashamed to be an American, and I still believe in the American Dream. Let’s work to be first, and let’s work together.