Today, our political class is in a frenzied, forced march to remake America, seemingly indifferent to the unprecedented tea party gatherings of protesters concerned about reckless spending and staggering debt; indifferent to the record breaking crowds attending town hall meetings in their districts--crowds fearful and frantic about the economy and jobs; and indifferent to national polls reflecting record low levels of approval for both the President and Congress. A Gallup poll reports the President’s approval rating at the lowest level ever for any President at a similar 10-month stage of his term. And Gallup’s “Annual Honesty and Ethics of Professions” poll discloses for the first time that a majority—in fact 55% of Americans—say the ethical ratings for Congress are low or very low. And as a further sign of the public’s ringing disapproval the “Right Track/Wrong Track” results revealed in a Real Clear Politics average of four polls find only 34.5% feel we are on the right track and a whopping 59.5% worry that the country is on the wrong track.

The political class in Washington is not only indifferent; they are out of touch with their constituents. You see, they are busy jumping from one complex and unfinished legislative bill to another 1,000-plus page, unintelligible bill; rushing from trillion dollar spending bills to burdensome cap and trade proposals; pushing us towards a Leviathan government-run health care. And all the while, like maggots feasting on rotten pork, they are creating new ways to spend and tax, seeking new ways to curry favor with political interest groups, new ways to expand government, new ways to extend control in a broad and comprehensive way over what were previously individual choices.

Thomas Jefferson said: “When governments fear people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.” Today, Jefferson would likely say we have things backwards—our political class does not fear the people. Today our politicians march onward despite constituent concerns and fears. They seem driven, perhaps compelled in search of a fantasy ideology, and the spending rolls on, without regard to constituents concerns, without concern about the pain and the fear they are causing, fear of government action resulting in waves of debt facing the U.S. Government, and a failure of the economy or a collapse of the dollar leading to a coming deficit disaster.

And despite a hint of disapproval from Rush Limbaugh, on his radio show on Thursday, October 8, 2009, as he played a clip of the interview with the two ladies singing a song of love to our President for his generosity, stash is actually a pretty accurate term for the “urgent” dollars fleeced from other Americans or their grandchildren in the name of the President’s emergency Stimulus Bill. And in a related report, Rush even spoke approvingly of the “two entrepreneurs” outside Cobo Hall, described by news reports as scam artists, offering to sell readymade applications for $20, Rush expressing a touch of relief and pleasure knowing that the entrepreneurial spark is not dead, even in Detroit.

Apparently, there were no shovel ready jobs for the able bodied in line so they could retain their self respect and earn their checks. Nor was there likely any thought by the White House of tackling the 50% inter-city teen unemployment by lowering the minimum wage for teens and those taking their first job, creating a way for teens to work and contribute rather than take a hand out, opening up opportunities for local businesses to hire an untrained worker at a salary that better reflects the workers lack of skill, and training, and education, and preparedness to comply with the social requirements of a first job.  

Of course the whole idea of our President and the federal government playing Robin Hood was alien to the founders, Mr. Madison remarking: "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

What should President Obama say this week to a joint session of Congress about health care reform? Should he repeat another version of his previous “111 health care speeches, interviews, and press conferences in which he’s talked about health care?”Should he send Hillary to Russia to get back the “reset” button? Should he try something else?

Judging by remarks from commentators, if President Obama doesn’t try something else, his message on health care reform won’t persuade. Mark Steyn in The Omnipresent Leader criticizes President Obama: “the more he opens his mouth the more the American people recoil from his ‘reforms.’” And in Obama the Mortal, Charles Krauthammer observes the President’s decline: “The charismatic conjurer of 2008 has shed his magic.” And Peggy Noonan in Coruscating on Thin Ice declares Mr. Obama has lost the trust of the center: “But the great mass of Americans, the big center, will, I strongly suspect, not be listening. Mr. Obama has grown boring. And it's not Solid Boring, which is fine in a president and may be good. It's sort of Faux Eloquent Boring, especially on health care.” Eventually, everyone on board —even movie goers at this White House—knew the Titanic was going down. President Obama cannot afford to do more of the same—he must try something else—when he speaks to Congress.

 How could the President change course—turn the ship of state—and fundamentally reset his health care reform goals? One way is to take some basic assumptions and reverse them. In his books, Cracking Creativity and Thinkertoys, creativity expert, Michael Michalko explains that by reversing assumptions you broaden your thinking, you change perspective, you often see answers to problems that were not obvious before. 

When Alfred Sloan took over General Motors on the verge of bankruptcy, he reversed some assumptions. At that time, Michalko says the assumption was that “you had to buy a car before you drove it.” But by reversing the assumption “to mean you could buy it while driving it,” Sloan pioneered the concept of installment buying for car dealers. Michalko notes, “Many creative thinkers get their most original ideas when they challenge and reverse the obvious.”

Two of the key assumptions President Obama has been clinging to during his health care reform campaign are that reform needs to be comprehensive and that it can be paid for by taking money from Medicare.

But does health care reform need to be comprehensive? Why can’t the White House reverse the assumption? Why can’t Mr. Obama pursue a series of actions? Why can’t he achieve closure through a series of small wins, building a coalition as he goes along, gaining the confidence of the opposition, enhancing his power to persuade? Why not begin with issues like portability of insurance or an authorization permitting the purchase of medical insurance nationwide, issues where he should be able to get a majority of Republicans to join him?

Part of the “power to persuade” is as old as Aristotle; it is the ethos of the speaker. The President’s poll numbers more likely reflect that the President has lost the public trust than that the public doesn’t understand the health care plan. Health care is too important to have a two-tier discriminatory system. The elderly should be cherished as national assets, not given a “blue pill” and told to take one for the Gipper!  Reverse the assumptions: America can spend more and we can keep our promise to provide quality health care to the elderly—does anyone really believe the cash for clunkers program is a better expenditure of taxpayer funds than 5 more years for granny?

President Obama apparently promised—“YOU WON'T BE WAITING IN ANY LINES'—at Portsmouth, N.H. on July 11, 2009. But by every conceivable metric, we see no reason to be sanguine about his ability to deliver on his promise. We see only a shrinking number of physicians. Reduced physician compensation plans for Medicare in the reform bills (increasing the health-care wedge) and other changes will inevitably make the practice of medicine less attractive to foreign trained doctors who presently immigrate to the U.S.; to foreign trained students graduating from U.S. medical schools that currently remain here to practice medicine; and to college graduates contemplating graduate school. In short, with the contemplated reform, where will the doctors come from if Congress is to keep the President’s promise—no waiting in lines?

How can you avoid delays, rationing, and a less than compassionate government system if you don’t first set a goal to increase the number of physicians? As a practical matter, I believe that any medical reform that fails to first address physician shortages will fail to capture the confidence of a majority of Americans. For example, Deroy Murdock (Government Medicine Kills) reported the following about waits in Canada:

In 2008, the average Canadian waited 17.3 weeks from the time his general practitioner referred him to a specialist until he actually received treatment,” Pacific Research Institute president Sally Pipes, a Canadian native, wrote in the July 2 Investor’s Business Daily. “That’s 86 percent longer than the wait in 1993, when the [Fraser] Institute first started quantifying the problem.

 France claims it long ago achieved much of what today's U.S. health-care overhaul is seeking: It covers everyone, and provides what supporters say is high-quality care. But soaring costs are pushing the system into crisis. The result: As Congress fights over whether America should be more like France, the French government is trying to borrow U.S. tactics.

…

In France, "If you are in medical care for the money, you'd better change jobs," says Marc Lanfranchi, a general practitioner from Nancy, an eastern town. On the other hand, medical school is paid for by the government, and malpractice insurance is much cheaper.

In 2000, the World Health Organization ranked France first in a one-time study of the health-care services of 191 countries. The U.S. placed 37th.

To recruit doctors our military has long had a medical education program. Upon graduation the doctor is required to serve on active duty for a number of years. Why can’t Congress create a program to fund medical school and malpractice insurance for those who commit to accept Medicare, Medicaid and public option patients for a set number of years? Why not a goal to at least double the number of providers, thereby ensuring an increased number of providers who will willingly accept patients covered through government programs?

“Work Hard. Be Nice.: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America” is the story of Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg—founders of the highly successful charter schools known as KIPP [Knowledge is Power Program]—two young teachers starting out in Houston with a two year commitment for Teach for America. The KIPP story is an impressive one: inner city 5^th graders, after one year in KIPP, essentially double their scores over their 4^th grade performance in reading (from 32% to 58%) and in math (from 42% to 84%).

The Levin/Feinberg story is one of inspirational dedication to their students. There are daily evening phone calls from students with homework questions. There is an uncommon effort to teach subject mastery by requiring longer class days—school days begin at 7:30AM and last to 5PM, with periodic half days on Saturday and three weeks of school each summer. There are also struggles and campaigns with supervisors and administrators to get adequate class space.

Mathews tracks their progress from beginning classroom teacher to the present day as leaders of an expanding chartered school program with a national footprint and 66 schools. During the journey they gain teaching skills in the classroom. They discover how to work with and win over parents. They master the art of cooperating with or going around school administrators. They deliver students a disciplined and challenging course of study to ensure success. They push into unchartered territory expanding the number of classes, the number of teachers, and the number of schools under the KIPP umbrella.

They are now receiving national recognition for their success. Their journey, however, would have been much more improbable, if not uneventful, if they hadn’t met Harriett Ball, Rafe Esquith, and Scott Hamilton along the way. Each of these individuals appeared at just the right time, bringing their own expertise to bear and helping our two neophytes move to the next level—in the classroom, in the education bureaucracy, in the business world.

As the KIPP schools expand, Mathews’ notes there are certain pillars that stuck: “(1) high expectations, (2) choice and commitment, (3) more time, (4) power to lead, and (5) focus on results.” He argues KIPP’s success really comes down to a desire to find what works, that is, find what helps the students perform better. It is this continuous quality improvement, this flexibility to see something is not working and make changes, he argues, that explains KIPP’s success.

Matthews does an excellent job of answering the doubters, refuting the critics, and setting out the evidence. In the process he confirms the KIPP motto: “All children will learn.”

David Brooks (A Moderate Manifesto) seems genuinely surprised that President Obama is doing what he promised to do—the angst is palpable. Brooks writes: 

There is evidence of a party swept up in its own revolutionary fervor — caught up in the self-flattering belief that history has called upon it to solve all problems at once.

…. We end up with an agenda that is unexceptional in its parts but that, when taken as a whole, represents a social-engineering experiment that is entirely new.

            Instead, perhaps he needs to identify those areas where he agrees with conservatives to his right, accept that politics is the art of the possible, and align himself with others. For example, there are no Republicans, of any note, moderate or conservative, that want to see the D.C. voucher program gutted, as it will be under the current proposal.

Foreshadowing this breakdown in financial discipline, this gross abandonment of duty, this gorging at the public trough, was the Continuing Resolution passed last week for over $600 billion with over 2,200 earmarks attached and totaling over $6 billion. 

If the financial bailout is critical, if we are facing a financial event comparable to the Great Depression,  if we are on the precipice of financial ruin looking into the abyss, then, is this the best the world’s most deliberative body can do – pile on more spending, congratulating themselves for their action ahead of the House, pushing through their pet provisions, preempting the House Republican alternative, involving less debt for the taxpayer?

At this point, how anyone can believe our political class is fit to lead is beyond me. President Bush, as his term of office comes to a close, says, we are facing critical times – it isn’t the bailout that is critical, however, it is the refusal of elected officials to perform their duties in a responsible manner, their unwillingness to curb their appetite for more money at taxpayer expense, their unwillingness to accept a reality that requires fiscal discipline and setting priorities, their belief they are entitled to an unlimited right to draw upon the public’s funds to push any fantasy ideology they can imagine to create heaven on earth based on government largesse. 

Our next President will begin his term with a very different set of givens than most could have imagined just a year ago. If Senator McCain is serious about changing Washington, if he is serious about being a reformer, if he is serious about eliminating earmarks, the Republican Presidential nominee from Arizona needs to start making earmark piggy’s – especially those who have moved beyond earmarks as a gateway drug to an addiction – famous. Now.

Senator McCain, on May 12, 2008, said there is no doubt about global warming or climate change, the facts are clear, and the debate is over.  (Emphasis added.)

It would be interesting to hear Senator McCain respond to the signers of the “Oregon Petition” (Are 32,000 Scientists Enough to Question Global Warming 'Consensus?') who take the position:    

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.  

Or, perhaps Senator McCain should let George Will know.  In a Newsweek column, Questions For McCain, Mr. Will asked this question about the Senator’s dogmatic, proof positive, case closed position on climate.

• You say that even if global warming turns out to be no crisis (the World Meteorological Organization says global temperatures have not risen in a decade), even unnecessary measures taken to combat it will be beneficial because "then all we've done is give our kids a cleaner world." But what of the trillions of dollars those measures will cost in direct expenditures and diminished economic growth—hence diminished medical research, cultural investment, etc.? Given that Earth is always warming or cooling, what is its proper temperature, and how do you know?

Senator McCain’s statements on drilling and climate change strike a sanctimonious note for those who might question his point of view or want more agreement among the scientific community.  Not drilling off our coasts, in the Gulf of Mexico, and in Alaska, where the residents all support drilling, while billions go overseas to countries that fund terrorism only compounds the insanity for many. If his mind is closed once he reaches a decision, what does that suggest if a President McCain is ever in error?

Where is the straight talk?  What is Senator McCain’s plan?  The exorbitant costs to subsidize energy alternatives for gas and oil stagger the mind.  In Wind (23.37) v. Gas (25 cents), a Wall Street Journal editorial, the Journal reported that: “the total taxpayer bill was $16.6 billion in direct subsidies, tax breaks, loan guarantees and the like.” Solar and windmills are a quixotic quest as a solution to our current energy problems.  

Reported costs for energy sources were listed by The Journal:

An even better way to tell the story is by how much taxpayer money is dispensed per unit of energy, so the costs are standardized. For electricity generation, the EIA concludes that solar energy is subsidized to the tune of $24.34 per megawatt hour, wind $23.37 and "clean coal" $29.81. By contrast, normal coal receives 44 cents, natural gas a mere quarter, hydroelectric about 67 cents and nuclear power $1.59. [Emphasis added.]

As gasoline sprints towards $200 a barrel and Congress bickers over energy policy, many fear a declining standard of living that will deny them the American dream.  Rising gas and food costs for those on fixed incomes makes it increasingly difficult for families to make ends meet.  It must seem to them like another example of Michelle Obama’s complaint of someone raising the bar. What about drilling, nuclear power, flex-fuel vehicles, and more refineries? 

Instead of talking about global climate change, why not present a comprehensive plan now to break OPEC’s pricing power and get our energy house in order during a McCain first term? A leader would seize the opportunity to chart a vision, present it to voters without antagonizing them, and persuade us. 

  A, May 11, 2008, New York Times Editorial, "Rethinking Ethanol," captures the quagmire Congress has created with its failed corn ethanol policies and examines the fairly easy remedial steps that should be taken to fix the problem. Rather than endless debates about an abbreviated summer holiday from the Federal gas tax, here is a way for Congress to begin to right the market place by recognizing its mistake and taking a step back from the precipice.

In a time of worldwide increasing food shortages due to a displacement of food production for ethanol, many may starve around the world before they ever have to fear loss of life from apocalyptic environmental conditions. Additionally, the plan to increase corn ethanol production could actually accelerate global warming.

The Times recommends:

A. end tax breaks for corn ethanol;   

B. end a 51-cents-a-gallon subsidy to ethanol blenders; and

 C. end the five-fold increase in ethanol production.

For once, even I agree with the New York Times. It is time for Congress and the Administration to take action.