A Contract with our Children

That is the proposed title of a really outstanding set of policy proposals offered on a web site I just found called “On Tap“. Wish I could recall what link I followed to get there so I could give proper credit to them, but I can’t- my apologies to the unacknowledged blogger. Anyhow…

The proposed “Contract” is the result of an effort to come up with ten policy proposal that he calls “9 for 90″, i.e., 90% of conservatives would support at least 9 of them. Each point consists of two parts- a general principle, followed by a specific policy proposal. I’ve copied it all here below, but visit the site and see whether it isn’t something you’d like to bookmark .

A Contract with our Children

ONE. THE PRINCIPLE ON PROTECTING ALL OF US: We can’t guarantee that there won’t be another 9/11-style attack, but we can make it a hell of a lot harder for our enemies to pull off another one. After that day, we looked back and gasped at all the ways we were oblivious to the gathering threat, everything from unlockable cockpit doors to decayed intelligence agencies to wrongheaded “walls” between the CIA and FBI to an unwillingness to raid bin Laden’s convoys over civilian casualties to not checking who’s entering this country – seemingly a thousand and one mistakes, bad decisions, and policy blunders.

No government agency can watch over every street corner, every crowded public place, every cog and joint in our national infrastructure, every inch of our borders and coastlines. (Nor would we want it to.) But an armed and alert citizenry can.

Quoting Tom Ridge in the days after the attacks:

     “I think we’re somewhat obsessed about getting x number of federal air marshals,” the former Pennsylvania governor said. “I think every single able-bodied man or woman, from this point forward, looks at themselves as a potential air marshal… Ridge mentioned the gallant passengers of United Flight 93… “That is the kind of personal resolve that’s magnified across 280-plus million Americans, that says to bin Laden and al Qaeda and all successor organizations and individuals, ‘You may threaten us, you may attack us, you may harm us, you may injure us, you may kill us, but you won’t prevail. You will not win, because every American will rise to that challenge.’”

ONE: THE POLICY: Federal, state, and local governments – as well as private organizations – will provide CPR, first aid, and firearms training for any American who seeks it, forming a civilian corps of “Minutemen” ready to respond to crises in their area at a moment’s notice. In addition, concealed carry permits would be encouraged in every jurisdiction possible. No one would ever be required to carry a gun or know these skills, but potential terrorists will never be able to find a population of Americans defenseless and unable to rise and confront a threat at a moment’s notice.

TWO: THE PRINCIPLE ON SPENDING: We know that the greatest temptation for any politician is to raise taxes. Anyone can think of a million great ways to spend taxpayer money, and there will never be a shortage of good uses and good causes.

We don’t want you to look at your paycheck and despair, or see April 16 as the day the government put its wants ahead of your needs. That’s why we’re pledging to always keep taxes as low as they can be, as long as they can be. A lawmaker should never take a dime from taxpayers until he’s certain he’s weeded out waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse as much as possible.

TWO: THE POLICY: We’re going to cut spending, and our proposal comes from that noted arch-right-wing ideologue… Bill Clinton.

In 1993, in his first State of the Union, Bill Clinton proposed: “Tonight I call for an across-the-board freeze in Federal Government salaries for one year. And thereafter, during this 4-year period, I recommend that salaries rise at one point lower than the cost of living allowance normally involved in Federal pay increases.”

When we propose an across-the-board freeze on non-military federal employee salaries, our opponents call the proposed cuts draconian and heartless, we’ll ask them to take them up with the guy who came up with them.

Similarly, during his confirmation hearings, Budget Director Leon Panetta promised $2 in spending cuts for every $1 in new taxes – to a Democratic Congress! We’ll introduce that as a budgetary rule in Congress; let the Democrats vote against it.

Our goal will be to keep federal spending to 18.5 percent of GDP, as it was when Clinton left office in 2001.

THREE: THE PRINCIPLE ON TAXES: Our friends on the other side of the aisle complain that our tax system rewards “wealth, not work” – primarily lamenting that the tax rate for investment dividends is lower than the tax rate on income. For some reason, we suspect they’ll prefer hiking taxes on investment instead of lowering it on income.

But in order to reward hard work, we will enact legislation to decree…

THREE: THE POLICY: All overtime pay is tax-free. You work forty hours a week, the government ought to take what it needs from that. After that, your pay is entirely yours and your family’s. What better way to reward hard work?

THREE AND A HALF: THE PRINCIPLE ON HEALTH CARE: Quick, how much does it cost to get a checkup? How about cast for a broken leg?

We know that prices for a good come down as a good becomes more plentiful; as supply outpaces demand, prices drop. In health care, very few Americans know what it costs to have any procedure done, from a check up to major surgery. Medicare has set the fees, and just about every insurance company and managed care contract has keyed off of Medicare.

We also know that our doctors feel like they’re under attack from patients, with every patient who walks through the door a potential lawsuit. This spurs caution, endless tests to ensure no rare longshot ailment has been missed, etc.

THE POLICY: To bring down the cost of health care, we need to increase the supply. The centerpiece of our plan would be a nationwide sustained effort to expand the number of health care providers in every field. With more doctors competing for patients (and a loosening of Medicare’s pricing structure), prices will come down and health care will become more affordable. A revealing anecdote from the National Center for Policy Analysis:

In 1999, only a few years after LASIK was approved, the price was about $2,100 per eye, according to the ophthalmic market research firm MarketScope. Within a short time, competition drove the price down to a slightly more than $1,600. The cost per eye of the standard LASIK is now about 20 percent lower than six years earlier.

Finally, we suggest a simple change to malpractice lawsuits: Loser pays the legal fees for both sides.

FOUR: THE PRINCIPLE ON THE ENVIRONMENT: Many of us on the right hunt. We fish. We swim. We camp. We boat. We don’t need some complicated theory on a changing climate to justify our urge to protect the lands, seas, vistas that enrich our lives, and to pass them on tour children. We think we’d all be better off if we spent a little less time arguing whether the temperature will change two degrees or three a century from now and a little more time picking up litter from our nearest park. We’re willing to pursue efforts to reduce carbon output, but we understand that this is one of several competing priorities.

FOUR: THE POLICY: I quote Jim Manzi, in the June 5 issue of National Review:

Using U.S. or European technology to increase the energy conversion efficiency of coal-fired Chinese power plants is a decidedly non-sexy measure; but it’s probably the single most important action we can take to reduce carbon emissions over the next century…

Our proposal: We upgrade Chinese power plants in exchange for their concessions on trade laws.

Another idea from Manzi:

We can reduce the climate impact of carbon that is emitted, often using such simple techiniques as planting more trees or using more reflective paint… We also need to place a strong emphasis on large prizes for accomplishing measurable and audacious goals. The British entrepreneur Richard Branson has offered a $25 million prize to anyone who demonstrates a device that removes carbon from the atmosphere; what if the U.S. government upped the ante to $1 billion and pledged to make any resulting technology freely available to the world? That would hold the potential for solving any global warming problem that might develop, for a one time cost of less than 0.01 percent of U.S. GDP.

FIVE: THE PRINCIPLE ON ENERGY: Since the industrial revolution, our economy and our lives have required energy in the form of gasoline, electricity, natural gas and other forms. We thought our political leaders would ensure a steady supply of energy to meet the needs of our growing economy.

“It is obvious that the federal government was not prepared. We were caught napping. We got complacent.”
- U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, Feb. 16, 2000

Well, that will teach us to trust the federal government. When President Bush tried to address the issue, we found an opposition party that was anti-everything: anti-nuclear power, anti-drilling in ANWR, anti-offshore drilling, anti-coal-to-liquids fuel, even anti-wind power because they interfere with Ted Kennedy’s view off Cape Cod. The only proposal that seems to get them excited is – surprise! – a tax on carbon.

FIVE: THE POLICY: Remembering the law of supply and demand as we did with health care, we will encourage the development of multiple, overlapping sources of energy. We’re pro-everything – wind farms, no matter how much Teddy Kennedy whines about their effect on his view, or animal rights activists complain they may kill a bird. Drilling in ANWR. We want new nuclear plants. We want to help Mexico upgrade and update the equipment its state-run oil producers use to increase efficiency and expand their supply to export north. We want customers to have several competing energy suppliers for their home electricity, and consumers’ ability to choose their energy source to drive down prices through competition. We will give appropriate federal “seed funding” for research to develop alternative fuels; hopefully someday drivers will have their choice of gas from corn husks, switchgrass, oil shale, or used vegetable oil, all at the same highway exit.

SIX: THE PRINCIPLE ON IMMIGRATION: Border agents are good, but our southern border requires at least a fence and perhaps a wall. Those walls and fences will have doors and gates, and we will continue to welcome those who wish to help our country prosper. But to protect ourselves, we must first know who’s coming in, and prevent anyone from coming in without our approval.

SIX: THE POLICY: All of the above policy aims will be enacted, and when the borders are secure, we will consider a path to citizenship for those who have come here and behaved as “good citizens”, after they have paid appropriate fines, paid back taxes or our best calculation/estimate and demonstrated capacity to speak, read, and understand English. Drug dealers and gang members will be on the first flight out of here. Each proposal above will be introduced as a separate piece of legislation; none of this Rube Goldbergian 400 page five provision monoliths. What passes, passes. What works is continued; what doesn’t is refined. If we find that six months after securing the border that oranges cost three dollars each, we establish a guest worker program quickly.

SEVEN: THE PRINCIPLE ON EDUCATION: Some parents are thrilled with their schools. Great. But for many others, America’s public schools range from mediocre to an outright failure, most notably in preparing students for what happens after that last day of school. Where do they go then? What are they prepared to offer society?

SEVEN: THE POLICY ON EDUCATION: Adopted from Newt:

We therefore need to foster and encourage teacher specialists who have mastered a subject matter, such as engineers and mathematicians. They should be allowed to teach after taking only one course on the fundamentals of teaching. They should be allowed to teach part-time so that more professionals can have the opportunity to share their knowledge and experience in the classroom. Moreover, every state should pass a law establishing an absolute preference for part-time specialists with real knowledge over full-time teachers who do not know the subject.

When you’re in high school, post-high school life seems an eternity away. Teachers, particularly those with eye-opening life experience outside the classroom, need to reinforce that after senior year, real life begins for these students, and they will need to be prepared for college or work.

Another interesting idea from Newt:

Graduates willing to stay in math and science fields should pay zero interest on their student loans until their incomes reach four times the national average income. This would encourage students to stay in these needed fields and continue to pursue knowledge.

EIGHT: THE PRINCIPLE ON OUR CULTURE: There are times when being an American makes you proud: watching immigrants take the oath of citizenship, watching children sing the national anthem at baseball games, or seeing families of all races, creeds and colors gathering to celebrate the Fourth of July.

Then there are times when you look around and feel like a stranger within your own culture. When law professors and cartoonists suggest Catholic Supreme Court justices are ipso facto violations of the separation of church and state. When Madonna laments that American culture is too materialistic, blithely ignoring that someone identified as the “MATERIAL GIRL” may have had something to do with it getting that way. When sexual violence is reenacted in a Super Bowl halftime show, and those who object are considered prudes. When our nightly news seems to offer a cavalcade of misbehaving starlets largely avoiding consequences of their misdeeds, or when star athletes seem to believe that achievement on the field gives them the right to break the law off it.

We will always recognize Americans’ right to free expression. But we’re willing to make little efforts to create a common culture that enriches us and inspires pride instead of shame, or head-shaking laments that “we’re going to hell in a handbasket.” Even the libertarians among us would probably agree that there’s a tide of cultural rot determined to celebrate the worst in our culture and to smear, slander, and spit upon those who choose to live according to traditional values. Vacuous nihilism, exploitative materialism and worship of celebrities is no bedrock upon which to build the next generation of American culture.

EIGHT: THE POLICY ON OUR CULTURE: Libertarians who fear the right may wish censorship may rest easy, because we have something a thousand times more powerful than censorship: Ridicule.

In the process of mocking traditional values, organized religion, patriotism, and the quiet, unglamorous, difficult daily work of ordinary folk, the manufacturers of our pop culture have sought to set themselves up as new authorities and role models. They think of themselves as the new ministers, new Popes, new teachers and arbiters of right and wrong. They tell us who to vote for and how to think. Their belief in their inherent authority knows no bounds: Sheryl Crow wants to tell us how to manage toilet paper use.

Would anyone consider Madonna a role model on much of anything in life, other than how to hype albums? Would we eagerly trade places to experience life as Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, or Britney Spears have? Does anyone recognize Kanye West as an informed authority on anything, much less the president’s dedication to racial equality? Would any of us rely on Michael Moore to fix a flat tire, much less the nation’s health care system?

The right has significant communications capabilities that it did not a generation ago, over a variety of forms – the web, talk radio, Fox News, and even somewhat conservative television programming, i.e., “24.”. Today, we can be the deflators of pompous egos and irreverent doubters of these new authorities. Hollywood, Madison Avenue, arrogant celebrities of every stripe… we can go to the American people and ask, “Why do these people think they know better than us?” In the vein of libertarian skeptics like Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Dennis Miller, and Colin Quinn, we will be the ones declaring that the emperors of our trash culture have no clothes.

NINE: THE PRINCIPLE ON INFRASTRUCTURE: (Here’s where I get geeky.) One of the most underrated changes in American life in the past century was Republican President Eisenhower’s creation of the Interstate Highway System, guaranteeing a fast, efficient way to move goods and people around the county. American ingenuity even managed to defy logic and geography by creating an interstate highway in Hawaii.

When the system was authorized in 1956, the U.S. population was 168 million. Today it is more than 300 million, and America’s economy demands more options for its citizens to get around. Somewhere along the line, America’s transportation system slipped behind that of Europe.

In Europe, trains now go 200 miles per hour, and a trip from London to Brussels takes less than two hours; a trip from London to Paris barely over that. The French have successfully tested trains that can travel more than 350 miles an hour.

With air travel a hassle, fuel prices rising, and congestion increasing on the highways, it’s time to give Americans another option for their non-cross-country trips.

NINE: THE POLICY: It’s time to get the five major high-speed rail corridors off the drawing board. Acela is the first step, and in fact a floor. We ought to be planning to upgrade it until it equals that French engineering marvel. Blogger Ace of Spades suggests Amtrak, or whatever entity manages the passenger rail system in the future, partner with air carriers so you can get roundtrip discounts for taking the train one way on your journey, but a plane back.

Beyond that, the technology that will allow a train to move hundreds of passengers at 200 to 350 miles an hour will provide breakthroughs in moving goods at comparable speeds – revolutionizing the freight market.

TEN: THE PRINCIPLE OF THREAT RECOGNITION: Not all of us fly, but all of us have heard the ludicrous tales of grandmothers getting frisked in random searches.

The policy of the TSA is explicitly to not profile, but most Americans believe it is done anyway, and even more, Americans support it – by a wide margin.

Acting as if a terrorist is as likely to be a Floridian grandmother as a young Muslim male is insulting and forces us to pretend to ignore everything we know and have experienced regarding terrorism.

TEN: THE POLICY: We change our national policy to explicitly authorize TSA to use common sense and abandon random searches, and instead adopt the Israelis’ techniques of threat recognition, passport and behavior profiling. As Dennis Miller put it, “Searching every tenth person makes a lot of sense… if you’re at war with every tenth person.”

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That’s it. I like them all- what do you think?