Belief in America or Just the Bureaucracy

This is a quick take on the plan put forth by Mitt Romney for what he would do as President: Believe In America.

He has the 5 Bills for Day 1... mind you Congress makes and drafts bills, so he is asking Congress to do this for him.  Even if his proposal is just wrapped into a bill, it still has to go through normal vetting in both Houses.  Of course most Congresses dealing with a new President like to give him something early on, and that will usually be the last of it for what a President gets easily.  On to the proposals.

First – Cut corporate income tax rates to 25%.  This is becoming a theme amongst the Republican candidates with John Huntsman proposing something similar.

Second – Implement the negotiated free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea.  That is a good thing and requires Senate approval, which would go relatively easily with this President who can still take this one away with a sign of his pen and handing it to Harry Reid.  That he hasn't has shown President Obama's lack of skill at foreign policy, diplomacy and the treaty ratification process which starts with the President and ends in the Senate.

Third - The Domestic Energy Act, and I will give you its talking point directly:

• Directs the Department of the Interior to undertake a comprehensive
survey of American energy reserves in partnership with exploration
companies and initiates leasing in all areas currently approved
for exploration

Notice that this talking point does not look at the role of the EPA and Dept. of Interior or if they should even exist at this point.  If the point had read 'Seeks to disband the EPA, Dept. of Energy, and end the regulatory authority of the Dept. of the Interior on energy concerns and return those to the States' he might have something.  As it is he is still working to keep the regulatory bodies around after they have proven toxic to the Nation's economy via over-reach.  That these agencies can have such power under ANY President is the problem: if we are depending on good nature and kindness from the Oval Office resident, then human nature will leave these powers open to abuse.  The problem lies not with the not granting of leasing permits, but in the US government having any power over them at all.  This is odd because of the next point.

Fourth - The Retraining Reform Act, and again direct verbiage:

• Consolidates the sprawl of federal retraining programs and returns
funding and responsibility for these programs to the states

If this is such a great idea for 'retraining programs' then how about for determination of energy exploration?  Or why, indeed, does the federal government get involved not only with 'retraining' but 'education' as a whole?  For pointed projects for military affairs there should be some funding to support research, but the entire federal array of spending in this realm is something that belongs at the State level.  Again, why not abolish the Dept. of Education, end all 'retraining' initiatives and then just cut the budget?  The message from 2010 was Stop The Spending, and to this point it hasn't been stopped.

Fifth – A 5% across the board cut to discretionary programs, yielding $20 Billion.  Why not abolish the Dept. of Agriculture and get nearly 4x that amount?  Toss in EPA, Education, Energy, Labor, choice parts of Interior... that would be a massive re-scope in federal power, of course.  That is not what is being proposed.

 

There are also five Executive Orders that would go out on Day One and those are next.

First – Tell HHS to yield as much authority back to the States for health insurance and prepare to end Obamacare.  Say, why isn't that in a bill on Day One?

Second – Rescind all Obama regulations and cap regulation growth to $0 as to impact on the economy.  Of course if you got rid of the regulatory agencies which have over-reached you could not only get to $0 growth but get some cash back by selling off the property, furnishings and such of the regulatory agencies involved.  That is something a businessman would do – get rid of failing parts of a business and yield any revenue from their remains that he can get.  Oh, sorry!  I though Romney was a businessman...

Third -  An Order to Boost Domestic Energy Production and direct verbiage, again, boldface is mine wherever seen:

• Directs the Department of the Interior to implement a process for rapid
issuance of drilling permits to developers with established safety records
seeking to use pre-approved techniques in pre-approved areas

The federal government has proven to be the PROBLEM in issuing permits, particularly Interior and EPA.  How about just asking for those powers and regulatory organizations to be abolished and let the States figure it out for themselves as they have a good set of procedures for near shore drilling and the ability to craft good policy for their State and its concerns?  But that would be federalism at work.  Can't have that!

Fourth – A Romney hobby-horse is China and seeking sanctions against it for violating our trade agreements with it.  He could, of course, just rip up the agreement and be done with it.  Mind you, this is a guy who's company (or one of the arms of Bain) was in bed with Huawei which was seeking to muscle in on encryption technology.  Yes, his hand-picked man was running the company, but Mr. Romney was the owner of it, so that makes things look a bit interesting as to his beef with China.  He could propose a three tier system of Free Trade with Nations that are our friends and that offer protections of the rights of their citizens from abusive government, normal trade relations with any government that is neither hostile nor friendly and offers at least some protections to their citizens, and no trade for those Nations that are hostile to us and seek to abuse the rights of their own people.  You know, something simple that makes the position of the US clear and understandable with regards to Free Trade and human rights?

Fifth – And then there is this one, An Order to Empower American Businesses and Workers, and verbiage:

• Reverses the executive orders issued by President Obama that tilt the
playing field in favor of organized labor, including the one encouraging
the use of union labor on major government construction projects

Great as far as it goes.  Note that the Dept. of Labor and NLRB isn't addressed in this.  He will address one of them later in the additional back-up material.  On p.4 he has a Labor Policy area and I'll give that one to start looking at the underpinnings of how Gov. Romney thinks government should be run:

LABOR POLICY
Mitt Romney will protect the worker rights and employer flexibility crucial to innovation, economic growth, and job creation. As president, Romney’s first step in improving labor policy will be to ensure that our labor laws create a stable and level playing field on which businesses can operate. This means he will appoint to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) experienced individuals with a respect for the law and an even-handed approach to labor relations. Rather than seek to impose his own vision for the future of labor law via executive fiat and bureaucratic subterfuge, Romney will take the conservative approach and work with Congress to amend the outdated portions of the existing statutory framework, setting it on a stronger footing appropriate to contemporary conditions.

Specifically, Romney will seek amendments to the National Labor Relations Act that protect free enterprise, free choice, and free speech. The Act must be amended to ensure that it does not allow the NLRB to constrain companies in their investment decisions, as the NLRB is attempting to do in the Boeing case. It must also be amended to guarantee workers the right to receive full information about the pros and cons of unionization and then express their own preference in the privacy of the voting booth. And it must put an end to the undemocratic practice of allowing unions to deduct money directly from worker paychecks and spend it on political causes with which the workers may disagree.

How about just abolishing the damned thing?  Not just the NLRB but the Dept. of Labor, both, as the States were dealing with things pretty well before these things were created.  And if you want to protect Constitutional rights, then you take the abusers to court, which means States have to make sure that everyone is treated equally, and the federal government has a lovely Congress to make sure that it can be constrained so as not to utilize any discretion when awarding contracts.  Wouldn't that be a novel idea?  Get rid of abusive agencies, hand power back to the States and then seek to have discretion removed by Congress so that abuse on the part of a President or an Agency can be taken to court.  Why, that is almost novel!  Do note, that is not what Mitt Romney is proposing.  He trusts the power and authority of the bureaucracy and thinks that all it takes is electing good people to the position of President because, you know, we would never elect someone who would abuse that power.

Right?

Oh, wait a sec... that is exactly what his proposal is addressing and he is not dealing with the root of the problem but, instead, trimming the noxious weed back a bit but leaving it in place.  If you are noticing a decided lack of distrust of bureaucracies and how they work at the federal level, then you are starting to get a feel for Mitt Romney's proposal.

Let's take a look at the part on 'human capital' right next to the labor policy area:

HUMAN CAPITAL POLICY
Mitt Romney sees two important objectives that America can pursue immediately to build on the extraordinary traditional strengths of its workforce. The first is to retrain American workers to ensure that they have the education and skills to match the jobs of today’s economy. The second is to attract the best and brightest from around the world. As president, Romney will focus retraining efforts on a partnership that brings together the states and the private sector. He will consolidate federal programs and then block grant major funding streams to states. Federal policy will be structured to encourage the use of Personal Reemployment Accounts that empower workers to put retraining funds to efficient use and that encourage employers to provide on-the-job training.

Romney will also press for an immigration policy that maximizes America’s economic potential. The United States needs to attract and retain job creators from wherever they come. Romney will raise the ceiling on the number of visas issued to holders of advanced degrees in math, science, and engineering who have job offers in those fields from U.S. companies. Romney will also work to establish a policy that staples a green card to the diploma of every eligible student visa holder who graduates from an American university with an advanced degree in math, science, or engineering.

I have some bad news for Mitt Romney: the job of President of the United States is NOT about bringing States and the private sector together.  Sorry, that is up to the States to decide.  But as he is the one in control of the cash stream via Block Grants, why, he gets to do that!  Isn't government wonderful?  Hand cash over to people and then get to tell them how to utilize it!  Why its so... Progressive!  And then he will help make individual accounts to make sure the federal government can 'help' individuals.  Gee, isn't that swell of him?

I'm all for the part of attracting the best & brightest.  Make sure they don't feel as if they are going to get shafted by having to go through all the legwork while illegals get offered some sweet amnesty, ok?  And Gov. Romney might want to take a look at closing the borders to the undocumented, illegal workers coming into the US so that Americans don't have to compete at the low end against them.

Now to back up to energy policy on p.3:

ENERGY POLICY
Mitt Romney will pursue an energy policy that puts conservative principles into action: significant regulatory reform, support for increased production, and a government that focuses on funding basic research instead of chasing fads and picking winners. Romney will streamline federal regulation of energy exploration and development so that the government acts as a facilitator of those activities instead of as an obstacle to them. He will create one-stop shops and impose fixed timelines for standard permits and approvals, and he will accelerate the process for companies with established safety records seeking to employ approved practices in approved areas.

Under this robust and efficient regulatory framework, Romney will significantly expand the areas available for energy development—including in the Gulf of Mexico, the Outer Continental Shelf, Western lands, and Alaska. He will also strengthen partnerships with Canada and Mexico to expand opportunities for American companies in the development of those nations’ resources. And he will encourage continued development of unconventional reserves like shale gas and oil that hold enormous promise for expanding the base of U.S. reserves.

You know all of that could be significantly accomplished by getting rid of federal 'oversight' in these areas.  And to make things even sweeter he could divest the US government of the land it has grabbed in energy rich areas and hand those back to the States, as well, so that some States can see some active revenue coming from their land via land taxation.  And that would mean less cost to Interior as it wouldn't have so much land under its belt to 'administer'.  Plus get rid of any potential abuse by an future President to do fun things with manipulating the energy supply of the Nation and put that back in the hands of the States where it belongs.

What I see here in this lovely plan, is a misplaced trust in government power and bureaucracies to do 'good'.  The role of the federal government is to apply equal application of the law, not tilt it towards Unions or towards business, but to apply it equally and fairly to all Americans so that any taken to court get a level playing field there.  That would mean recognizing that things done locally be it training, education, energy production, anything not handed in the Constitution to the federal government, belongs with the States and the people.  That we not only trust in God, but we then place trust in ourselves to hold our government accountable at the most local of levels where our power as citizens is at its strongest.  Not with the national government where it is at its weakest.

This plan is written so as to leave the abusive power structure largely in place and continue its drain on the federal government which, in case it hasn't been noticed, is broke.  Not just broken, but running so deep in the red that $20 billion out of $1.6 trillion is not just a bad joke but a mockery of fiscal sanity.

Gov. Romney needs to join the 21st century, as these 20th century style 'solutions' are the sort of thing that got us into this mess to begin with.  And he does not seem to recognize that these powers are misplaced and open to future abuse if the bureaucracies are left intact.  Which they are.  These are not 'solutions' of helping the American people by reducing the size, scope and power of government, but of papering over the massive defects of the government and hoping that a little bit of prosperity will lull people back to sleep about the massive problems our government has with its power.

The feedback loop on healthcare

The following is an outlook paper of The Jacksonian Party.

I have written about the problem of healthcare a few times in the past.  The first time was to outline the problems in 'health insurance' which is not insurance at all but a form of trying to manage costs for health care.  This 'problem' arose due to political interference in another part of the economy, which is the retirement system.  That system was set up to remove older workers from the workforce at a given age with guaranteed payments.  This was an 'economic stimulus' system to try and get the US out of the Great Depression... which it was already doing before this was passed.  After the end of that era came another one that would soon require the very, same individuals who were retiring to stay and work: World War II.  To do that manufacturing and service sectors were allowed to subsidize something that was only offered to executives and the rich:  'health insurance'.  That subsidy remains as a non-positive economic stimulus to this day.

In regular insurance you would place a bet that you will need a service, like health care, or as a contingency for an event, say death or accidental dismemberment.  That is where the insurance company is banking on you not needing to cash in your insurance by having the event and you are betting that the event will happen and that you will then get the payment.  Or your estate will.  'Health insurance' is neither of those as those who are not healthy need medical services, and so they are guaranteed to get an immediate return on their health care 'insurance' and are betting that their cost of services and medicine will be larger than their payments.  In large pools of mixed individuals the average can be given for that chance and payout, and the insurance company has overhead to ensure they are not being defrauded.  This is a health management system in which you, the patient, claims a need for medical services and the insurance company tells you if you are allowed to get those services at its cost schedule.  The two political parties seek to increase the pool of healthy, non-payers and turn them into payers into this system, either via direct law or indirect tax incentive.

What neither party addresses is the cost of overhead in the system: the cost to run the health management system on the part of the insurance companies which is bundled into the cost of the overall system, itself.  Your payment to the health system run by an insurance company includes this overhead on the part of the company.  Thus your final cost is burdened with the entire cost of the system: every insurance payment, every 'co-pay', every procedure that is covered and allowed is all burdened with this overhead.  As the tax breaks to offer this system were only offered to employers, those individuals seeking individual insurance would pay the whole cost, while, due to the tax break, the federal government assured businesses that they could foot part of the bill at a lower cost.  Your regular cost for the insurance (not co-pays) is thus not the entire bill of the cost of insurance, and yet it comes from your income and a portion of that is taxable.  Thus the employer gets a tax break (the subsidy) on what it pays, and you get a minimal tax break for your side if you pay over a certain percent of your income into health care costs.  If you don't you get a standard deduction.  If you sought this on your own, you would pay taxes on everything.

The problem with the costs involved I examined in a piece looking at how to move away from the insurance based model.  There are many ways to do this, including ending all the tax breaks for insurance so that the full, burdened cost is taxable as a service.  That would lead to unaffordable insurance companies ending their offerings, and those that demonstrate good and prudent means of choosing doctors, procedures and finding ways to reduce overhead would prosper.  An alternative I discuss is to see that this is really an 'assured service delivery' system and to treat it as such for given procedures, tests and other medical necessities.  By creating a 'voucher system', or medical services market, individuals could purchase guaranteed services at a given, current rate.  The voucher (or e-voucher) never expires and what one has done is *invest* in the system to get a guaranteed service return regardless of future cost.  This removes the overhead and fraud part of the system of improper services and puts the patient in control of assuring that such services have been properly rendered.  Fraud can still happen, but it becomes collusion and conspiracy, with much, much tougher sanctions against it if found.

What such a system would do is create a trade market for commodities from suppliers, so that an open-heart procedure performed at a hospital would have a higher value than one at a lesser hospital.  If you hold a voucher for that service at that facility or with that medical care provider, you are not refused it by them (scheduling and emergencies excepted, of course).  This also means that one can trade a number of lesser vouchers for a higher value one, so that services that you though you might need can be re-utilized for other services.  This removes the 'management' part from companies and places it with you, the actual user of the services.

There is another way to move out of the current system, however, and that is to require a feedback system into it.  Instapundit links to an article at the NYT on the topic of quality health care which looks at the cost system based not on its delivery of services but of the quality of services.  This quality factor is something that bundles a few things together:  overhead costs (paperwork, management), quality of care provided (by individuals who utilize the health services), quality of service (examining complications and attempts to mitigate them), and just the ability to provide the given service.  Here the actual ability of the health service user, being you, is taken into deep consideration, along with the burdening the system of each provider.  A provider that renders good quality care with low overhead and few mistakes gets a higher rating.  This is important as it impacts two venues that are currently critical to the health care cost system:  quality of care and overhead.

One of the major expenses in the insurance model is actually keeping track of the paperwork and making sure that reputable and reliable reports get reimbursed.  This is no small matter as the bulk of the payments goes to those providing the services, and the problem of fraud or mis-applied treatment is a major cost overhead for everyone in the system.  Fraud generally increases overall costs as it requires illegitimate payments and the time and energy to ensure they are tracked down and stopped.  Quality providers offer not only good service but offer accountability, too.  Accountability works to reduce overhead in that fewer poor procedures are done and the doctor has put in place a system to ensure that paperwork is quickly processed and procedures are accounted for.  Additionally, input from patients then changes those ratings as does the favorite problem harped upon by politicians:  torte reform for minimalizing malpractice suits.

The latter part is also a part of the overall rating, but a highly important one: doctors who have fewer suits against them can now point to insurance companies and demand better medical malpractice rates.  This overhead, as well as the time involved in such suits, has been a cost expenditure the system has had to absorb both on the doctor time and the insurance company's time (both malpractice insurer and health insurance provider).  Anything that lowers this cost and drives poor service providers from the market is a great boon in the long run and will help to lower overall delivery cost.

With that being said, the overall insurance model eats up a huge amount of time, capital and reduces the actual effective dollar being spent for health services.  Here the two Presidential Candidates offer different views, but neither tries to tackle the problem of actually having insurance.  I step through that overhead, but come to this conclusion:

Using government 'mandates' then becomes an effort to shift accountability out of the hands of patients, no matter how 'market oriented' a mandate is, and to meeting 'standards' set by a regulatory body that is appointed, not elected. As Mr. Stossel points out the average doctor utilizes 14% of their income to deal with *paperwork*, and even with most of that being electronic it requires the hiring of non-medical staff to handle insurance 'oversight' and paperwork. What you pay *into* health insurance becomes a fraction of what is paid out: you subtract of insurance company overhead, overhead of that burden on doctors who must change pricing due to it, and the increased cost of 'controls' and 'accountability' by the insurance company against fraud and just keeping track of the records. If you consider that 14% to be a baseline, just on the medical overhead side, then what is the baseline for the insurance company just to manage paperwork? 1% seems unlikely. 5% if it was run extremely well. In fact for most industries the non-work portion of the day for employees is considered at 20% and that is without profit added in.

If the insurance part is 20% and you throw in, say, a generous 12% profit... even 8% to be low... and you add in the cost of increase to doctors to keep track of the paperwork and pass that cost along, just what part of this 'insurance' is actually going to pay for medical expenses? You know, the stuff you use like doctor's visits and purchasing medications? 70% seems relatively fair, in that realm. So, if 15% of your overall budget goes to healthcare via insurance and you get a 70% useful return on that 15% you are actually spending, yes, 10.5% for healthcare. And that of your grandparents who didn't have insurance, back in the day when that was possible? I've read figures as high as 6-8% and as low as 3%.

That cost delta is lost money due to government mandates, regulations, tax subsidies and generally interfering with your health.

Getting accountability into the system will help to lower that 14% on the part of doctors, and that 20% from insurance companies, meaning that the 70% actual return will go up... maybe even to 75 or 80%!  The rest of that cost gets harder to drive out, although the actual amount necessary to pay in (the 100% you pay) can be lowered if the cost of medical malpractice insurance starts to drive less capable providers out of the system.  What you do not get to, save for a minority of cases, is a better than 100% return on your investment.  You do get health care, however, which keeps you alive and functioning.

The other side that is effected, however, is that of the ability of service providers to actually do something quite different from production line work.  The author of that article has not kept up with manufacturing and we are in an era of 'mass customization'.  That is where a basic production line can offer a wide variety of products off of its line-up, made directly to customer specifications.  That is a perfect analogy to dealing with health care as basic problems (medical conditions) can have a variety of variations due to individuals (due to metabolism, age, living circumstances, etc.) and with different complications (infections, slow healing rates, etc.).  Here the basic production line of medical services vary within known parameters for the various characteristics and known types of complications that arise.  Mass customized health care is different from personalized health care in that you, as a customer, have a specific set of variations based on *you* that are generally more typified into categories.  As those typical variations are known, the types of complications that can arise gets restricted into fewer categories which, thereby, limits risk.

This feedback system is possibly the most important part of medicine shifting to the modern world using modern feed-back systems for patient tracking.  By accumulating the non-personal categories and problems, the types of risks and complications can then be analyzed to see how diagnoses (services) are changing the system.  Diagnoses that lead to no improvement, or even minimal negative feedback, can then be examined against other diagnoses and treatments prescribed.  Those treatments (customized service) then allows for the diagnoses system to see what is happening with the treatments and offers feedback on effectiveness of them.  This, cumulatively, changes the response of the system as a whole: it ensures that better diagnoses and treatments are reinforced while lesser effective ones are marginalized.  That said for an individual with a suite of prior conditions and known variables, a personalized set of customized health provisioning can be made due to those things (and such things as patients actually doing their part in the system so those with lax attitudes may get a different set of treatments).

Here the goal is to provide better and more effective services and *reduce* end user cost as a percentage of their budget.  So, lets say it cuts a full 1/3 off the final cost to you, the person paying for it: that gets you to 10% of your budget (5% being 1/3 of 15%).  And that is the burdened cost and lets cut that burdening down to a mere 20%, thus your effective money towards health care is 8% of your budget!  Just like your ancestors!  And the 2% extra?  Service fees burdened into the cost.

Yes you get to pay for the privilege of getting the health care that your grandparents did... or great grandparents for many at this point.  And for better and more services?

Such a wonderful system.

The only major positive point is that it allows really nasty medical services to have less of an impact on the budget.  But then that is what traditional insurance is all about, isn't it?  Catastrophic care?  Accidental Death and Dismemberment?  You know, *regular* insurance.  That you pre-plan for and have it take a miniscule part of your budget as they are rarities in life... unless one happens to get you.

And for the rest... well that concept of pre-buying sounds pretty good, really.  And inflation-proof as it is for services expected in the future at some indefinite time.  An investment, in other words, where the cash-out is something critical to keeping you functioning.

Both of those would be helped by this movement, also, maybe even to the point of having you paying less for your health than those of 70 years ago as a percentage of your overall budget.

Taming the Turf Wars

The following is an outlook paper by The Jacksonian Party

The text of this message is one sent in response to an e-mail by Bruce Kessler which was the text of a Mark Safransky post at Democracy Project on Fourth Generation Warfare on 12 APR 2007.  I can say that I did the old 'quick read' and probably missed much, but the reading caused some thinking and some basic integration of ideas posted for The Jacksonian Party.

Some spelling changes and much cleaning up of original HTML was done thanks to NVU and HTML Tidy. Final scouring of the resultant text was done in Open Office. Twisted logic, syntax and outlook remain as-is. It is as follows:

Another pet topic of mine, but one that receives less than stellar attention due to the fact that most folks forget what foreign policy is and who sets it. While Agencies within the Federal Government may execute Foreign Policy, the Congressional role is limited to Treaty Approval & Ambassador Approval at the Senate level, and regularizing trade at the Congressional level. That is it.

I go over that concept in Congress Empowering Tyrants. The Constitution and the SCOTUS ruling of US v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. is extremely clear on that.

The topics cited in the Article I cover in Reforming the Intelligence Community, which looks at the massive and internecine 'turf wars' as the main problem for the IC and getting the best cross-specialization INTEL available for multi-level analysis and then synthesis of knowledge. This would require not only a complete overhaul of how work is approached, but remove the Agencies from the 'product ownership' area and put them into a 'skills management' role. By enforcing the idea that certain types of INTEL can stand alone, the entire IC is dysfunctional as there is no lower level cross-agency working system. Thus each Agency gets its own view of the INTEL it *has* but no ability to synthesize across many Agencies and outlooks. Here non-traditional INTs such as economic and agricultural forecasting would also come into play for a full synthesis of necessary knowledge types available. By removing the Agency fiefdoms and making INTEL gathering and analysis a shared Community Level activity, the internecine turf wars are removed and Agencies are judged on how well they manage contributed skills within the Community at large, not how much work product and viewpoint they turn out. This does require moving clandestine ops back to something directly under Presidential control, like the old OSS. They can be sent to gather specific INT needs, but only with full knowledge and approval of the President.

The main and over-riding problem is that The Lack of Foreign Policy. The United States no longer has a Foreign Policy based on a principled stand *for* anything, but, instead, has substituted programmatics in the place of policy. Long standing Federal programs are now the guide point of Foreign Policy, not the follower *of* Foreign Policy. In this realm, as Curtiss-Wright clearly demonstrates, the President is the sole organ of Foreign Policy for the Federal Government and the United States. By not doing a programmatic overhaul nor review, all past technical 'fixes' remain in place, but what they are 'fixing' has been lost. With many programs dating back into the Cold War, the actual utility of them is in doubt. Even worse is the actual organs of the Federal Government, particularly CIA, FBI and NSA, but also State Dept., all promulgate programmatic outlooks and even use such programmatics to undermine Presidential Authority in this realm. What results is Government by program and sinecured bureaucracy that need not adjust *to* any incoming President and feels free to *know better* than the Elected Representative of the American People.

This, somehow, was not what I think this Nation was intended to do as seen in the Constitution and ruled upon by the Supreme Court. By seeing Presidents as 'temporary' bosses, the entire Foreign Policy apparatus cannot easily shift from the focus it had from 20 years ago and moves at a glacial pace to change that would threaten the inherited fiefdoms of outlook. Institutionalization of programs and making jobs dependent upon them, now is the main source of inactivity by the actual organs of the Federal Government. As seen in Iraq and the Turf War, the main stumbling block to getting the Federal Government in Foreign Policy projects is that each part immediately looks to carve out its own, new niches. Basic and vital help and outlooks, along with contracting and programmatic oversight of projects that would help the Dept. of Defense are not made high priorities within the bureaucratic structure, side-tracked and the very first thing that these organs of government look to do is ensure a steady, new funding supply so as to justify increased staff. That is *before* they actually step in to help. Thus you have the Dept. of Agriculture looking to open a Baghdad office to help in *marketing* farm goods, not in helping find better and new crops and methods to farm. The Dept. of Transportation has under its view an entire gamut of capabilities, engineering outlook, program oversight, design work, and so on that could be used for the entire transportation network of Iraq, and yet sees little need to pitch in or do much of anything. Rather to defend one's current turf than to help the Nation.

The entire problem is government-wide systemic, not point bottlenecks by this or that advisor or 'Czar' or Director. The temporary positions are stymied by the entrenched bureaucracy, and the entrenched bureaucracy sees no need to adjust itself to changing National Outlook, even in time of War. Luckily, the entire Civilian Senior Executive Service serves not as bureaucrats, but as high-paid individuals that can be *fired* by the President. That highest echelon over the immediate Civil Service, and often having worked its way up through its ranks, and that shows allegiance to the Agencies it serves need to be heavily reminded that they serve the President and NOT their Agencies and Departments. Further, as Treaties are entered in by the President and the Senate, either may remove such Treaty obligations, and the President can do *that* without any further consultation or advisement. That said a actual, real Foreign Policy that has goals and objectives for the US needs to be stated and clearly, by the President. This is patently *not* this or that agreement or treaty, but the entire outlook of the US in a broad sense towards the rest of the world. It can and indeed should be discriminatory in outlook, so as to reward those Nations that have shown good will and fealty towards us over years or decades, and require those that do not have such to actually pay for the privilege of such things as market access. And Enemies need also be clearly stated so that the US can identify who they are and work with others to marginalize them and cut off their supplies. A simple but not *simplistic* Foreign Policy that the Average American can understand and comprehend.

A clearly stated outlook with the back-up of removing Treaties that do not serve the good of the People and firing Senior Executive echelons at entire Agencies that do *not* follow through becomes a wake-up call to the Government, itself. Congress cannot back programs that do not have Treaty standing and cannot over-rule the President on those actions. Similar outlook towards the entire INTEL Community to remind them that they are a 'service group' for the President is necessary. And as multiple stake-holders are involved, a first action to inform them that the entire Community needs to begin *acting* like a Community with comity and friendliness and start working across-agency lines to design necessary service documents on activities required by the Executive and then by the Cabinet and then by other needful groups, such as Congress, is a priority and that giving a soda straw view and then combining soda straws does *not* give a total and comprehensive picture of *anything*. The entire IC lacks competence in that combination and weighting of evidence, while their distributed analysts have that necessary competence. Here, again, programmatics need to be tied to Policy and Outlook, not to sinecured programs. This is one of those cases of 'fire until competence is found' is a useful standard, and during those interims directives are handed directly to the *staff* of those Agencies with hard and set deadlines to get cross-agency work done. Agencies with entrenched outlooks will find their budgets hit and their authority moved to Agencies that *can* show nimbleness. Doing that requires stepping on toes, feet, ankles, legs and often giving blind-sided hip checks to entire Agency staff. Petty and entrenched partisan outlook that hinders getting good analysis *done* is de-funded and completely with such funds and responsibilities moved to other Agencies that have proven ability to actually *do what they are told to do*.

We do not see this in politics today as it is harsh, results-oriented, extremely basic and makes good sense. Plus it endangers pet projects by Congress, who are loathe to give up same. Until such time as that can be done, trying to reform the system from the *inside* is a non-starter and any added 'oversight' organization immediately looks to create its own, sinecured fiefdom, put in further blocks to actually producing work products, and increase the overall overhead of the entire affair in time, money and wasted man hours. Process reform from bureaucracies and those empowering them do not work, as the Federal Government has demonstrated for decades. If it did then the Dept. of Education could tout 100% reading for all Citizens and that overall reading comprehension rate is above that of the 5th grade. Unfortunately those exact same problems remain just where they were in 1958 when Johnny couldn't read. Putting in a Director of National Intelligence hasn't seemed to have made the flow of INTEL any faster and, in point of fact, is allowing Agencies to further propagate their *own* outlook on things contrary to that of the President. More oversight is leading to less accountability. The Dept. of Agriculture, originally set up to research better ways to actually manage crops and to have a goodly sized fund to support farmers in case of emergency, now has that portion of its budget as the smallest part of it and over 20 times that amount going to crop subsidies and paying farmers not to farm. Somehow I can imagine better uses for those funds and skills in Afghanistan than in paying for crop subsidies here.

This will not change until an Executive is elected that is willing to take huge amounts of political heat on these matters, gather the bi-partisan ire of Congress and, generally, act to give the Nation outlook in its affairs. I have 50 questions for those running for that office, and I doubt that any of them can even reasonably answer 5 of those... although one coming in and seeing this role as an Executive would need to have good outlook and outline on *all* of them. Because the President does not *create* laws, but executes them, and similarly with budgets, in which Congress routinely throws away the Presidential one and makes their own. A President needs to find the Federal Government's RESET button and hit that poor thing until it gets a government that can be recognized. Until then we shall forevermore remain stuck with all sorts of oversight and almost no accountability in the Federal Government.

And that does the Nation no good at all...