The Myth of Quality from Government Services

“Almost all quality improvement comes via simplification of design, manufacturing layout, processes, and procedures.” — Tom Peters

On May 21, 2013 Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki issued a press release addressing the problems with the VA and setting metrics for improvement:

“VA and Veterans Service Organizations Announce Claims Initiative to Reduce Claims Backlog - Today, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Disabled American Veterans (DAV), and The American Legion announced a new partnership to help reduce the compensation claims backlog for Veterans. The effort—the Fully Developed Claims (FDC) Community of Practice—is a key part of VA’s overall transformation plan to end the backlog in 2015 and process claims within 125 days at 98% accuracy. VA can process FDCs in half the time it takes for a traditionally filed claim.”

In a related report by Aaron Glantz of the Riverside Press-Enterprise:

“The Department of Veterans Affairs has systematically missed nearly all of its internal benchmarks for reducing a hulking backlog of benefits claims and has quietly backed away from repeated promises to give all veterans and family members speedier decisions by 2015.

Internal VA documents, obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting, show the agency processed 260,000 fewer claims than it thought it would during the past year and a half – falling 130,000 short in fiscal 2012 and another 130,000 short of its goal between October and March.

The result: At a time when the number of veterans facing long waits was supposed to be going down, it instead went up.

On April 29, the VA began to qualify its promise, made repeatedly since 2009, that “all claims” would be processed within four months by 2015.

In a weekly performance report posted on its website, the agency excludes a host of benefits from the promise – including veterans’ burial subsidies, pensions sought by survivors and compensation claims from children of Vietnam veterans, who have birth defects caused by the defoliant Agent Orange.

In an emailed statement, the VA said its promise to eliminate the claims backlog was never meant to cover those types of benefits.

The agency also said it is “using all the tools in the toolbox” to expedite claims. It again repeated its mantra that the delays are “unacceptable.” It added that it fell nearly 17,000 claims short of its production goal for April.

But the VA did not address questions about the fundamental issue: Are the goals unrealistic, the execution flawed or both?

Instead, the agency cited yet another set of ambitious goals – an April vow to clear all 2-year-old claims by mid-June and an order, issued May 15 by VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, instructing all claims staff to work 20 hours of overtime a month through September, which the agency said would have “a measurable impact by the end of the fiscal year.”

The long delays and seemingly intractable nature of the claims backlog has led some lawmakers to look into radically overhauling the process.

…

Earlier this month, Rep. Bill Enyart, an Illinois Democrat and former adjutant general of the Illinois National Guard, introduced legislation to require the VA to begin providing partial compensation to all veterans with claims pending more than 125 days – even if their disabilities had not yet been verified. If a claim denial ultimately followed, veterans would have to pay back the money only if they were found to have consciously misled the agency.

Minnesota Democrat Al Franken has introduced a similar measure in the Senate.

“I’m tired of meeting veterans who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, who can’t work because they are disabled and are worried about losing their home,” Enyart said. “They deserve better than that.”

According to USA Today the VA has seen its budget increase 41% since 2009 to $140 billion this year. Meanwhile, the pace of incoming disability claims has stayed ahead of VA's ability to process them:

“Concerned about nearly 600,000 veterans waiting months or years for disability checks, Obama administration officials Friday lifted the veil on a corner of the president's upcoming 2014 budget, promising a hike in VA discretionary spending.

The proposal would boost non-entitlement spending to $63.5 billion for 2014, a 4% increase over this year, said Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki and White House chief of staff Denis McDonough in a meeting with reporters at the Executive Office Building.

"We're bringing all the power of the government to bear ... to try to address the backlog," says McDonough, who added that Obama tracks the weekly numbers of pending cases. "We're involved in this ... on a daily basis, very aggressively to try to bring this (disability claims backlog) number down."

Shinseki in recent weeks has come under intense criticism for the backlog from a chorus ranging from comedian Jon Stewart to the House VA Committee chair, who called upon the department's Veterans Benefits Administration chief to resign because of it.

"I hear the criticism out there," Shinseki said Friday. "You make the tough decisions, and you deal with it."

McDonough seemed to reaffirm the White House's confidence in Shinseki, saying he is someone "the president relies on and leans on daily."

The VA has seen its budget increase 41% since 2009 to $140 billion this year. Meanwhile, the pace of incoming disability claims has stayed ahead of VA's ability to process them, and there are now nearly 900,000 pending claims from veterans, including about 600,000 waiting longer than four months.

McDonough stressed the administration's high priority on VA spending even as major reductions are considered elsewhere, citing news reports Friday that Obama would propose cutbacks in Social Security and Medicare.”

I also heard an audio clip from an interview with Shinseki today where he restated his goals for the VA and added that they were targeting a rating of 90% for customer service. When I heard this I almost drove the car off the road. I was flabbergasted by such a statement! This was just more big government BS. What about the 10%? I guess they are irrelevant. How about the 98% accuracy goal? Does this mean that 18,000 (2%) vets will have inaccurate medical and benefit records? They deserve much better than that.

In the late 1980s the civil engineering, land surveying, and environmental services I was a principle, part owner and vice-president of made an application to the committee overseeing the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. This is a very difficult award to receive and the firm was fortunate to make the top 100 national list.

The Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence serve two main purposes: (1) to identify Baldrige Award recipients that will serve as role models for other organizations and (2) to help organizations assess their improvement efforts, diagnose their overall performance management system, and identify their strengths and opportunities for improvement. In addition, the Criteria help strengthen U.S. competitiveness by:

• Improving organizational performance practices, capabilities, and results
• Facilitating communication and sharing of information on best practices among U.S. organizations of all types
• Serving as a tool for understanding and managing performance and for guiding planning and opportunities for learning

The Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence provide organizations with an integrated approach to performance management that results in:

• Delivery of ever-improving value to customers and stakeholders, contributing to organizational sustainability
• Improved organizational effectiveness and capabilities
• Organizational and personal learning

During our award submittal process I had read an article about a Cadillac Dealership in Dallas, Texas that had received the award for excellence. During the award ceremony with the assembled dealership employees and their families when the Baldrige Committee representative he stated that he dealership had one of the highest customer service ratings in the nation at 98.5%. This brought a round of cheers and applause from the audience. The owner of the dealership stepped up to the podium to thank the committee and the employees Then he became very serious and stated he was not satisfied with 98.5%. He said there were 1.5% of his customers who were not satisfied with the performance of the dealership and he was very concerned with them and admonished his employees that he expected them to do better in the coming years. This was a serious and dedicated man to his customers.

One of my responsibilities during my 22 years as a manager and owner I was very involved in quality control and quality assurance. The three books that I kept above my desk were: In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman; The Peter Principle by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull; and Out of Crisis by W. Edwards Deming. These three books could be considered my quality assurance and customer service bibles.

In Search of Excellence is considered the "Greatest Business Book of All Time" (Bloomsbury UK), and has long been a must-have for the boardroom, business school, and bedside table.

Based on a study of forty-three of America's best-run companies from a diverse array of business sectors, In Search of Excellence describes eight basic principles of management — action-stimulating, people-oriented, profit-maximizing practices — that made these organizations successful.

In Search of Excellence', co-authored with Bob Waterman, is Tom Peters first book and sold over 6 million copies. Its success surprised their colleagues at McKinsey, who had laughed at the idea that Peters and Waterman would keep the royalties, "should the book sell 50 000 copies".

Two decades later, In Search of Excellence is still one of the most readable management books. The eight characteristics of excellent companies, a bias for action, close to the customer, autonomy and entrepreneurship, productivity through people, hands-on values driven, stick to the knitting, simple form and lean staff, simultaneous loose-tight properties are all still relevant and still ignored today. It is written clearly, painting vivid pictures with anecdotes and examples from real companies.

Peters and Waterman found eight common themes which they argued were responsible for the success of the chosen corporations. The book devotes one chapter to each theme.

1. A bias for action, active decision making — getting on with it. Facilitate quick decision making & problem solving tends to avoid bureaucratic control
2. Close to the customer — learning from the people served by the business.
3. Autonomy and entrepreneurship — fostering innovation and nurturing champions.
4. Productivity through people — treating rank and file employees as a source of quality.
5. Hands-on, value-driven — management philosophy that guides everyday practice - management showing its commitment.
6. Stick to the knitting — stay with the business that you know.
7. Simple form, lean staff — some of the best companies have minimal HQ staff.
8. Simultaneous loose-tight properties — autonomy in shop-floor activities plus centralized values.

None of these themes are present in the government civil service. I know because I worked as a supervisor for the California Division of Highways (now Caltrans) for ten years prior to going into business for myself. The civil service is managed by bureaucrats who are far more concerned with advancement in their civil service rating (GS rating for the federal government) and maintaining their longevity until their lucrative retirement benefits. It is a punitive system of management where “don’t rock the boat” far outweighs “thinking out of the box” and taking responsibility. Employees are managed and governed by policy manuals and memorandums and are far removed from their upper management. Customer (taxpayer) service ranks last on the list of concerns — personal advancement tops the list.

The main theme of The Peter Principle is rising to the level of incompetency. Back in 1969, Lawrence J. Peter created a cultural phenomenon with his brilliant, outrageous, hilarious, and all-too-true treatise on business and life, The Peter Principle — and his words and theories are as true today as they were then. By posing — and answering — the eternal question, “Why do things always go wrong?” Peter explores the incompetence that runs so rampant through our society, our workplace, and our world in an outrageously funny yet honest and eye-opening manner

The Peter Principle is a proposition that states that the members of an organization where promotion is based on achievement, success, and merit, will eventually be promoted beyond their level of ability. The principle is commonly phrased, "Employees tend to rise to their level of incompetence." In more formal parlance, the effect could be stated as: employees tend to be given more authority until they cannot continue to work competently.

The principle holds that in a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently. Eventually they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their "level of incompetence"), and there they remain, being unable to earn further promotions. Peter's Corollary states that:

In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties"

Ads that "work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence." "Managing upward" is the concept of a subordinate finding ways to subtly manipulate his or her superiors in order to prevent them from interfering with the subordinate's productive activity or to generally limit the damage done by the superiors' incompetence.

Another method is to refrain from promoting a worker until he or she shows the skills and work habits needed to succeed at the next higher job. Thus, a worker is not promoted to managing others if they do not already display management abilities.

The first corollary is that employees who are dedicated to their current jobs should not be promoted for their competence, but should instead be rewarded with, say, a pay rise, and remain in their current position; they should also not be promoted in response to their lack of competence at their current job.

The second corollary is that employees might be promoted only after being sufficiently trained to the new position. This places the burden of discovering individuals with poor managerial capabilities before (as opposed to after) they are promoted.

As a manger I saw this numerous times within the organization. We would have project engineers who were crackerjacks at their job. They were technical competent, if not superior, they loved their work, and were constantly striving for excellence in engineering. But when they were promoted to the level of project manager where they had to deal with subordinates and more importantly clients and contract issues many would fail and would ether resign or asked to leave. Their client service skills were weak, if not nil, due to the introverted nature of an engineer. They were more comfortable with the computer than the telephone of a face-to-face client meeting. This was unfair to a technically sound and dedicated employee. It would have been far better to reward his or her performance with monetary and educational perks.

This also applies to the civil service. Promotions come via civil service exams and longevity. If a GS 9 studies and keeps his or her nose clean they will eventually be promoted to GS 10 and so on and on until they reach their level of incompetence and sit there until retirement. If you doubt this just look at the current spate of hearings regarding the maleficence and criminal behavior of the IRS and Justice Department.

In the late 1980s I was introduced to the work of W. Edwards Deming through his book Out of Crisis. was an American statistician, professor, author, lecturer and consultant. He is perhaps best known for the "Plan-Do-Check-Act" cycle popularly named after him. In Japan, from 1950 onwards, he taught top management how to improve design (and thus service), product quality, testing, and sales (the last through global markets) through various methods, including the application of statistical methods.

Deming made a significant contribution to Japan's later reputation for innovative high-quality products and its economic power. He is regarded as having had more impact upon Japanese manufacturing and business than any other individual not of Japanese heritage. Despite being considered something of a hero in Japan, he was only just beginning to win widespread recognition in the U.S. at the time of his death. President Reagan awarded the National Medal of Technology to Deming in 1987. He received in 1988 the Distinguished Career in Science award from the National Academy of Sciences.

Deming's teachings and philosophy are best illustrated by examining the results they produced after they were adopted by Japanese industry, as the following example shows: Ford Motor Company was simultaneously manufacturing a car model with transmissions made in Japan and the United States. Soon after the car model was on the market, Ford customers were requesting the model with Japanese transmission over the US-made transmission, and they were willing to wait for the Japanese model. As both transmissions were made to the same specifications, Ford engineers could not understand the customer preference for the model with Japanese transmission. Finally, Ford engineers decided to take apart the two different transmissions. The American-made car parts were all within specified tolerance levels. On the other hand, the Japanese car parts were virtually identical to each other, and much closer to the nominal values for the parts – e.g., if a part was supposed to be one foot long, plus or minus 1/8 of an inch – then the Japanese parts were all within 1/16 of an inch. This made the Japanese cars run more smoothly and customers experienced fewer problems.

My cousin worked for Ford Motors at the Cleveland Engine plant for 25 years as a general foreman. In the late 1980s he told me, while on a visit to Cleveland, that his plant had a very high rejection rate of cast engine blocks. He claimed this was due to union work rules and the company’s lack of willingness to challenge the union for fear of work slow-downs or strikes. He told me that Japanese auto manufactures, even the non-union shops in the United States, were delivering cars of higher quality and dependability. The Japanese, adhering to principles espoused by Deming were even surpassing the Germans in quality.

Deming offered fourteen key principles to managers for transforming business effectiveness. The points were first presented in his book Out of the Crisis. Although Deming does not use the term in his book, it is credited with launching the Total Quality Management (TQM) movement.

1. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive, stay in business and to provide jobs.
2. Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.
3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for massive inspection by building quality into the product in the first place.
4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of a price tag. Instead, minimize total cost. Move towards a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.
5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.
6. Institute training on the job.
7. Institute leadership. The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets do a better job. Supervision of management is in need of overhaul, as well as supervision of production workers.
8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.
9. Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, in order to foresee problems of production and usage that may be encountered with the product or service.
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.
11. a. Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute with leadership. b. Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers and numerical goals. Instead substitute with leadership.
12. a. Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality. b Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride of workmanship. This means, inter alia, abolishment of the annual or merit rating and of management by objectives.
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody's job.

"Massive training is required to instill the courage to break with tradition. Every activity and every job is a part of the process."

Seven Deadly Diseases

The "Seven Deadly Diseases" include:

1. Lack of constancy of purpose
2. Emphasis on short-term profits
3. Evaluation by performance, merit rating, or annual review of performance
4. Mobility of management
5. Running a company on visible figures alone
6. Excessive medical costs
7. Excessive costs of warranty, fueled by lawyers who work for contingency fees

A Lesser Category of Obstacles" includes:

1. Neglecting long-range planning
2. Relying on technology to solve problems
3. Seeking examples to follow rather than developing solutions
4. Excuses, such as "our problems are different"
5. Obsolescence in school that management skill can be taught in classes
6. Reliance on quality control departments rather than management, supervisors, managers of purchasing, and production workers
7. Placing blame on workforces who are only responsible for 15% of mistakes where the system designed by management is responsible for 85% of the unintended consequences
8. Relying on quality inspection rather than improving product quality

Deming's advocacy of the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle, his 14 Points and Seven Deadly Diseases have had tremendous influence outside manufacturing and have been applied in other arenas, such as in the relatively new field of sales process engineering.

It was Deming’s principles and theories that put the issues of quality assurance, quality control, and client service in to total context for me. In 2006 I wrote a series of three articles for American Surveyor magazine where I stated:

“In 2003 the Mercedes Benz motorcar company had dropped from No.1 to 26th place on the J.D. Powers and Associates, Inc.* rating of auto manufacturers in the category of quality. This was eight slots below the industry average, trailing Chrysler and Ford. In 1991 Mercedes ranked No. 1 in quality and customer satisfaction; by 2000 they had dropped to No. 6 and by 2003 to 26th. Some of the problems cited in the J.D. Powers reports were handling, braking, shocks and struts, electronic window controls, and inaccurate fuel gauges. How did this one-time industry nameplate fall on such hard times?

The problems cited in the survey arose from three models from the year 2000, including the midsize E-Class sedan, Mercedes' big money maker. In the 1990s Toyota and Nissan stormed the U.S. market with lower-priced luxury cars such as the Lexus and Infiniti. To compete, Mercedes' engineers had to overhaul their process of building cars. Instead of letting design determine the cost, engineers had to design cars to meet a target price. These German engineers, accustomed to designing for quality, weren't very good at this practice. Quality took a back seat. Fortunately for Mercedes this situation did not last long and the company regrouped and went back to its roots, designing for quality and value.

Several years ago the firm I work for received a call from a Mercedes engineer in Stuttgart, Germany requesting that we take elevations on a section of the Harbor Freeway in Los Angeles. They wanted elevations taken to 3 millimeters on a ten-foot-by-ten-foot grid along a very rough section of this heavily traveled roadway. The Mercedes engineers wanted to use this data to create a digital terrain model of the roadway so they could design their front-end suspension for California drivers, many of which had been complaining about the stability and durability of the suspension systems. We carried out this assignment using the Vangarde 505 remote sensing pavement survey system. Due to the density of the grid, heavy traffic conditions requiring working off hours and nights, and coordinating with Caltrans, this was a very costly survey. It was also quite a change in philosophy from designing for cost rather than quality and customer satisfaction.”

…

“Both TQM and ISO 9000 (and its deviants) are very complex programs requiring a great deal of management's time and training throughout the enterprise. I will refrain from referring to these programs as in my opinion they do not address the focus of my articles. They are valuable programs and for many large private and public sector contracts the qualifying firms must demonstrate either ISO 9000 or a TQM certification. Keep in mind that both of these programs require external and internal audits of a company's business and client service practices, and run the gamut from accounting systems to answering the phone. ISO 9000 covers the basics of what quality management systems are and also contains the core language of the ISO 9000 series of standards. ISO 9001 is intended for use in any organization that designs, develops, manufactures, installs and/or services any product or provides any form of service. It provides a number of requirements which an organization needs to fulfill if it is to achieve customer satisfaction through consistent products and services that meet customer expectations.

All of these quality assurance programs are rooted in the teachings of W. Edwards Deming. Deming is to quality as Peter Drucker is to management (Management by Objectives) and Tom Peters (In Search of Excellence) is to client service.

William Edwards Deming (1900-1993) was an American statistician, widely credited with improving production in the United States during World War II. He is perhaps best known for his work in Japan, where from 1950 onward he taught top management the principles of Statistical process control (SPC), a forerunner of TQM. During the post-war reconstruction of Japan General Douglas MacArthur invited Deming to assist in the rebuilding of Japanese industry. At that time products made in Japan were considered to be of very low quality. Some Japanese cottage industries had located in the village of Usa so they could claim the their products were made in the USA! This did not help very much. When Japanese cars began arriving in the United States in 1960, Detroit automakers sneered. But we all know the end of the story. It is the Japanese and Korean automakers that are now building their cars in the "real" USA, and they are known for quality.

Under Deming's stewardship Japan became renowned for producing innovative high quality products. Deming is regarded as having had more impact upon Japanese manufacturing and business than any other non-Japanese individual.

Deming taught that by adopting appropriate principles of management, organizations can increase quality and simultaneously reduce costs (by reducing waste, rework, staff attrition and litigation while increasing loyalty) The key is to practice continual improvement and think of manufacturing as a system, not as bits and pieces. In 1960, Deming became the first American to receive the Second Order of the Sacred Treasures from Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi. An accompanying citation stated that the people of Japan attributed the rebirth and success of their industry to his work. Today the highest prize awarded by the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) for industrial achievement is the Deming prize. This is comparable to the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, established by the U.S. Congress in 1987 to recognize quality and business achievements of U.S. organizations.”

(These articles are available in a PDF format by click on the appropriate part of the series; Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.)

I have given lectures at seminars for both the private and public sector of quality assurance, quality control, and client service. After my retirement I was contracted to write the quality assurance, quality control, and client service manual for my previous firm. It was the first interactive, hyperlinked manual of its kind the firm had ever had.

Of course I had to tailor my presentations to address the needs and concerns of the private and public sectors. This was difficult as the public sector, as stated above, is quite different from the private. To the private sector profit and sustainability are paramount and to achieve these firms are dependent on the highest quality, superb client service and retaining he best employees while keeping costs as low as possible. This is a very delicate balancing act, but Deming’s principles are most applicable.

In the public sector we have a different culture and management style. There is no realization of profit in the public sector. Why should there be? They have a unlimited source of capitalization — it’s called taxpayer money. Cost control is not an issue as most agencies are not aware of their real costs of doing business as they do not take into account the costs of employee productivity. They staff by available budget and each year they request budget increases. If they do not use their entire budget in any fiscal reporting period they lose the funds. This encourages them to spend until all the money is gone. There is no reward for saving money.

They have a punitive management style based on policies and memorandums that issue from some unknown mastermind in another department, building or state. Cross communication is something to be avoided as it only creates potential conflict.

I present all of this as an argument to show how the VA with its 41% increase in budget is still doing a lousy job and not meeting its goals and metrics.

This condition is not exclusive to the VA, but to almost every federal and state agency in the nation, including the military. They obfuscate with government doublespeak to a pint where the Congress and taxpayer is bamboozled over and over again. A recent example is the collapse of a bridge on I-5 over the Skagit River in the state of Washington. It did not take lone for the governor of Washington, Jay Inslee (D), to call for more money from the people of Washington and the federal government to repair and replace the ailing and failing transportation infrastructure. The New York Times reports:

“Mr. Inslee said in an interview that a broader message of the collapse is that state financing for state transportation projects — now under consideration in a special session of the Legislature — can no longer wait, especially for the long-delayed Columbia River project.

“It shouldn’t take an oversize load to let us know we have an oversized problem,” he said.

Washington State faces a deadline this year to find money for the $3.2 billion project over the Columbia River, or risk losing up to $1.2 billion in federal financing. Oregon’s Legislature has approved $450 million, but Washington State’s $450 million share has been stalled. About $1 billion would come from tolls.

Building America’s Future, an advocacy group founded by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York and two former governors, Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania and Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, also issued a statement characterizing the bridge collapse as a “call to action.”

“Regardless of how this happened, the collapse of the Skagit River Bridge in Washington State is a timely reminder of our nation’s need to invest in critical infrastructure upgrades,” Mr. Rendell said. “Our nation’s bridges, roads and highways are deteriorating before our eyes.”

Over the years the federal and state governments have collected excise taxes from the sale of gasoline, diesel fuel, tires, auto and truck registrations, and tolls to pay for the nation’s roads. Where does the money go? In states like Washington and California a large percentage of those excise go to bloated state employee staffs within the departments of transportation along with pensions and health care benefits for retiring state employees. Washington, as California, is restricted from outsourcing much of its design and maintenance programs to the private sector. Until these government union controlled agencies take a different course our infrastructure will continue to age and fail. Of course we can always take the train.

What Purpose Does College Serve Today

“Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.” — Mark Twain

Andrew Carnegie the founder of U.S. Steel did not go to college. John D. Rockefeller who built Standard Oil did not go to college. Thomas Edison who developed the light built the nation did have a college education. Henry Ford who gave us affordable automobile travel and revolutionized our industrial manufacturing systems did not go to college. The Wright Brothers were high school drop outs. And Bill Gates was a college drop out. These are but a few of the better known successful individuals who made enormous contributions to society sans a college education.

With a spate of college graduations on the near horizon there will be numerous college commencement speeches by well-known figures and politicians ballyhooing the great future lying ahead of the thousands of college graduates and how they will change the future. How many will tell these graduating students the truth? How many will tell the graduating classes that the $50,000 to $100,000 worth of debt they will have incurred by supporting an overrated and bloated college system will rarely, if ever, bring them their expected return on their investment.

Generations of Americans have been told that getting a bachelor’s degree is the key to a relatively prosperous life. But recently the news has been filled with stories of the financial hardships college graduates today are facing.

Borrowers defaulted on $3.5 billion in student loans during the first three months of 2013 alone, and the Federal Reserve has estimated that the current nationwide amount of student debt is over $1 trillion.

Meanwhile, a college education has become one of the most expensive products in America. The cost of college has increased 1,120 percent in the last 30 years, far outpacing inflation. In light of all this, we have asked the question, “Is College Worth It?” The answer is, “It depends.”

One study conducted last year found that approximately 50 percent of the class of 2011 was either unemployed or underemployed. As a result, many recent graduates are putting off getting married, starting families and buying homes. If any business in the United States had a track record that the colleges and universities the courts would be overburdened with lawsuits for fraud and false advertising. Auto manufactures face more stringent “lemon laws” than do or colleges and universities.

One study showed that only 45 percent of college graduates made substantial gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing skills in their first two years of school.

The study by the Chronicle of Higher Education claims:

“While higher education is expected to accomplish many tasks—and contemporary colleges and universities have indeed contributed to society in ways as diverse as producing pharmaceutical patents as well as prime-time athletic games—existing organizational cultures and practices too often do not put a high priority on undergraduate learning. Faculty and administrators, working to meet multiple and at times competing demands, too rarely focus on either improving instruction or demonstrating gains in student learning.

More troubling still, the limited learning we have observed in terms of the absence of growth in CLA performance is largely consistent with the accounts of many students, who report that they spend increasing numbers of hours on nonacademic activities, including working, rather than on studying. They enroll in courses that do not require substantial reading or writing assignments; they interact with their professors outside of classrooms rarely, if ever; and they define and understand their college experiences as being focused more on social than on academic development

Moreover, we find that learning in higher education is characterized by persistent and/or growing inequality. There are significant differences in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills when comparing groups of students from different family backgrounds and racial/ethnic groups. More important, not only do students enter college with unequal demonstrated abilities, but those inequalities tend to persist—or, in the case of African-American students relative to white students, increase—while they are enrolled in higher education.”

Too often, unchallenging or novelty academics, such as courses on Lady Gaga, have replaced rigorous learning in the traditional liberal arts and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) disciplines.

Additionally, most college campuses have an unabashedly liberal political orientation, and are rife with binge drinking, illegal drug use and the degrading and “hook-up culture.” Or as Frank Zappa once proclaimed:

“If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.”

Before deciding whether or not college is the right choice, it is important to make an honest assessment of a student’s ability and inclination to do college-level work. If a student has real doubts about whether he can commit to four years of papers, tests and class time, he shouldn’t go. He also shouldn’t go just because everyone else is going, or because his primary motivation is to be part of the party scene.

Many students with these mindsets find themselves part of the roughly 46 percent of students who do not graduate within six years.

Secondly, it is important for students to consider the probable financial impact of their course of study. Payscale.com, a website that collects data on the workforce, has shown that STEM jobs pay the most money, and have the highest rates of employment. Employers desire the hard skills that a computer programmer, petroleum engineer or radiologist can offer. These are skills that build things and help people.

Conversely, the skills that a psychology, English or political science major might have are not as in demand, and usually pay less.

It might be worth it to borrow more money to study a financially lucrative major than one that is (probably) less so. Did you know that the average new graduate of the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology earns more money out of school than the average recent Harvard grad?

According to Bloomberg Report:

“Those leaving the college of 2,300 students this year got paid a median salary of $56,700, according to PayScale Inc., which tracks employee compensation data from surveys. At Harvard, where tuition fees are almost four times higher, they got $54,100. Those scheduled to leave the campus in Rapid City, South Dakota, in May are already getting offers, at a time when about one in 10 recent U.S. college graduates is out of work.”

I can speak from personal experience from my years as person who hired civil engineers and land surveyors in Southern California. In 2006, my last year as an active professional engineer, the going rate for a recent college graduate for a Cal Poly Pomona had reached $60,000 per year. With three or four years when these grads had advanced to a project engineering or surveyor the pay scale had risen to $80,000 and in eight or nine years if they had the skills and knowledge to attain the position of project manager the compensation had exceeded $100,000 per year.

Lastly, it does still matter — at least a bit — where you go. Graduates from Princeton, Stanford, the University of Michigan and other top-tier schools have a higher average salary than graduates of other schools because their “brand” is synonymous with “quality.” But these schools will cost much more than a state college and are extremely hard to get into.

If a student can get into a highly ranked school, it is probably worth it to go there, even if he or she has to borrow money. But the student still must make a wise decision about how much it will cost and what he or she will study.

Many young people wrongly feel that without a B.A., they have no hope of landing a good job in the modern economy.

The truth is that by 2018 there will be 14 million jobs that will require more than a high school diploma but less than a bachelor’s degree. Many of these jobs pay good, middle-class wages: nurses, air traffic controllers and IT professionals.

According to a February 2013 article in the Dayton Daily News:

“--Millions of college graduates who saw a degree as their ticket to a good-paying career and a secure life are working in jobs that do not require their education or even a high school diploma, sometimes leaving them with small wages to pay thousands in student loan debt, according to a new study.

About 48 percent of all working college alumni -- not just recent graduates -- were underemployed in 2010 as the United States began a slow recovery from the Great Recession, including 5 million graduates in jobs that require less than a high school diploma, according to a study from the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.

"The economy may be in recovery officially, but there are a lot of people who haven't recovered yet," said Jonathan Robe, one of three researchers on the report, "Why Are Recent College Graduates Underemployed." "This is a problem that's sticking around."

When so many graduates are working in retail sales and as bartenders, janitors and maids, the study calls into question the appropriateness of extra spending to reach broad goals for more Americans to earn college degrees. President Barack Obama has charged that the U.S. lead the world in degree holders with 10 million more graduates by 2020. It also suggests that the underemployment problem is not going away because there is a growing disconnect between what employers need and the volume and nature of the training of college students.”

Additionally, America is currently facing a deficit of 3 million skilled-labor jobs – professions like welders, electricians and plumbers that earn good money and can never be shipped overseas.

A recovery of vocational-technical education could be a game-changer in meeting the needs of many students who find the educational system does not meet their particular needs. There are the for profit vocational schools like ITT Tech and DeVry University. Also there is the University of Phoenix with its on-line campus.

According to Bloomberg:

“To narrow the skills gap, employers are teaming up with philanthropies, governments and community colleges to develop a ready resource: their existing workforce. The practice, known as upskilling, builds on the “up from the mailroom” idea, the management philosophy that the best person for a job could be one a company already has.”

So many college graduates were involved in last year’s Occupy Wall Street movement. They were demanding two things; a forgiveness of their college loan debt and a high paying job commensurate with their inflated opinion of their degree.

Ultimately, a college education can still be a good investment, but it is not necessarily the right choice for everyone. Students need to make smart decisions about their capacity for academic work, the job prospects for their major, and how they will pay for their education. Students should make sure it’s really worth it based on their interests and life goals before taking the plunge.

I offer some free advice to those who are graduating from college and to those who are thinking of going to college. Unless you want a liberal arts education that will someday lead to tenured professorship you will be better off taking courses in community colleges that will lead to entry level positions in a profession you have a passion for. Once you do that find that entry level position and do the following:

• Keep your mouth shut and your eyes and ears open. Ask questions only that pertain to you job and the business you are working in.
• Work those extra hours and be willing to fill in when required.
• Learn all you can about your employer’s business and his profit model. See where you fit into this model and do your best to contribute to it. Learn the difference between gross receipts and profits.
• Become so proficient at your job your employer will view you as indispensable. If this requires taking additional night classes or on-line courses do so.
• Become an asset and resource to your fellow workers.
• Learn how to better serve your employer’s customers. They are the life blood of the business.
• Make contacts within your chosen profession by attending workshops and seminars. If your employer does not pay for these, which he probably won’t do at first. Invest your own time and money in this continuing education. Forget the vacations to Hawaii or the Bahamas for a while. They will come much later.
• Hone your writing skills and learn the art of resume writing.
• And finally and most important find a mentor you can trust and convince him or her that you are worth their time and effort. This will pay big dividends in your future.

If you follow these steps I guarantee you will succeed without spending thousands of dollars and listening to all of clap-trap from liberal progressive professors. As the old adage goes; “those who can do, those who can’t teach.” I know this from personal experience. I have hired professors as consultants and they believe writing a paper is more important than actually developing and instigating a new technology or quality control procedure.

So who really benefits from this marked increase in college attendance at college? It’s the colleges, the tenured professors, and the hoard of administrators and textbook sellers. As long as the government offers more and more student aid the colleges will charge more and more for their services. This is basic principle of the market —the more money available the higher the price.

Over the weekend Barack Obama gave the commencement address at “The Ohio State” In his address he praised big government and its benefits to society. According a The Blaze:

“In a sunbaked stadium filled with more than 57,000 students, friends and relatives, Obama lamented an American political system that gets consumed by “small things” and works for the benefit of society’s elite. He called graduates to duty to “accomplish great things,” like rebuilding a still-feeble economy and fighting poverty and climate change.

“Only you can ultimately break that cycle. Only you can make sure the democracy you inherit is as good as we know it can be,” the president told more than 10,000 cap-and-gown-clad graduates. “But it requires your dedicated, informed and engaged citizenship.”

Obama also urged the students to “reject these voices” that warn of the evils of government, saying:

Still, you’ll hear voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s the root of all our problems, even as they do their best to gum up the works; or that tyranny always lurks just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave, creative, unique experiment in self-rule is just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.

We have never been a people who place all our faith in government to solve our problems, nor do we want it to. But we don’t think the government is the source of all our problems, either. Because we understand that this democracy is ours. As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but absolutely necessary work of self-government.

[...]

The cynics may be the loudest voices—but they accomplish the least. It’s the silent disruptors—those who do the long, hard, committed work of change—that gradually push this country in the right direction, and make the most lasting difference.”

These brave new world comments are typical from a liberal progressive. I wonder what Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, of the Wright Brothers would have told these graduates? I don’t think it would have echoed Barack Obama. I think they would have talked about the value of hard work, continuing education, and trying to build a better mousetrap. They might have mentioned something about a passion for something — be it in engineering to build bridges, roads and dams or in technology to invent better and cheaper computers. They might have even mentioned working to find a cure for the common cold. They would have been talking about entrepreneurship and risk-taking to achieve their dreams. I don’t think they would have been talking about big government and the collective. Those remarks are best left to Lenin.

Will We Ever Have Another Ronald Reagan?

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same. — Ronald Reagan

This question has been asked many times since 1988. Republicans constantly claim the mantle of the great communicator and all of them have fallen short. George Bush was not Reagan. John McCain, while claiming to follow in Reagan’s footsteps, fell far short, however, his running mate Sarah Palin came close. And Mitt Romney, while a good businessman was certainly not a Ronald Reagan in any sense of the word.

In order to form the basis of comparison to evaluate our current crop of so-called Republican conservatives we must first look at who Ronald Reagan was and what and how he did the things he did to restore our economy, national defense and the moral clarity of America. In essence we have to look at the Reagan Revolution — the great rediscovery of our values, our principles, and our common sense.

Ronald Reagan rejected the notion that the West, and the United States in particular, was in a period of inevitable decline. At the time of his election in 1980, America's economy was hampered by high taxes and inflation, and the growing menace of Soviet tyranny abroad. Reagan understood America to be unique and exceptional in world history because of its founding principles of "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." Nicknamed the "Great Communicator," Reagan helped restore to the American people a belief in and adherence to their founding principles and a renewal of the American spirit

Reagan began his career as a Hollywood movie actor, eventually rising to the head of the Screen Actors' Guild. It was through Reagan's leadership that the union resisted a takeover by Communist sympathizers, though this event placed him in great personal danger. Reagan grew up a Democrat, but through his work with the General Electric Theater television series and his travels around the country meeting and talking with ordinary American workers, his views on the importance of limited government and the free market. Reagan's endorsement of Barry Goldwater for President in 1964, and in particular his nationally-televised "A Time for Choosing" speech, launched Reagan onto the national political stage. Beginning in 1967 he served two terms as governor of California, during which time he worked to reform welfare and opposed the violent anti-war and anti-establishment protests across college campuses.

After unsuccessful campaigns for the Republican nomination for President in both 1968 and 1976, Reagan ran again in 1980, this time securing both the nomination and winning the election against the incumbent Jimmy Carter. Domestically, Americans faced an economy hampered by high taxes and inflation. Internationally, the United States was still in the midst of the Cold War, and what seemed like a rising Soviet Union. Reagan refused to believe that the West, particularly America, was in decline. His message of greater freedom and prosperity both at home and abroad were based upon an understanding of America's founding and the timeless principles of liberty that required application to the challenges of the 20th century.

Reagan's policies, both domestic and foreign, were successful. From the time of his election in 1980, to his final full year in office, 1988, the United States saw large declines in inflation, unemployment, and overall tax rates, among other indicators of growing national prosperity. Abroad, Reagan affirmed the idea of "peace through strength," refusing to capitulate to Soviet demands and intimidation, and, with the aid of leaders like British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Pop John Paul II, meeting the threat of Communism around the world. In perhaps the most dramatic moment of his Presidency, Reagan, at a speech beneath the Brandenburg Gate of the Berlin Wall, told Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall," the most visible symbol of Soviet oppression in Europe. In the next four years, the world witnessed first the destruction of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

To better understand Ronald Reagan we have to go back to 1964 and his support of Barry Goldwater. After serving as the President of The Screen Actors Guild and defeating the potential take-over of the Hollywood union by communists and suffering insults and threats to his personal security to the point of having body guards and carrying a firearm he joined General Electric as a roving ambassador giving speeches around the country and making TV appearance. During this time, while traveling mainly by train, he began reading the works Milton Friedman, James M. Buchanan, William F. Buckley, books on the Founders and the Federalist Papers. It was during this period from 1954 to 1964 he began his metamorphous from a Roosevelt Democrat to a Conservative Republican and began to think about entering politics.

In 1964 he gave one of the greatest speeches of the 20^th century when, in support of Barry Goldwater’s campaign in in the 1964 presidential election. In the speech he laid out, in a clear and concise manner, what conservatisms represented. Here are a few choice excerpts from that speech, A Time for Choosing, and the video is shown below — it is well worth watching over and over again if you want to better understand Ronald Reagan and his beliefs. His comments are as valid today as they were 49 years ago:

“But I have an uncomfortable feeling that this prosperity isn't something on which we can base our hopes for the future. No nation in history has ever survived a tax burden that reached a third of its national income. Today, 37 cents of every dollar earned in this country is the tax collector's share, and yet our government continues to spend $17 million a day more than the government takes in. We haven't balanced our budget 28 out of the last 34 years. We have raised our debt limit three times in the last twelve months, and now our national debt is one and a half times bigger than all the combined debts of all the nations in the world. We have $15 billion in gold in our treasury—we don't own an ounce. Foreign dollar claims are $27.3 billion, and we have just had announced that the dollar of 1939 will now purchase 45 cents in its total value.

…

And Senator Clark of Pennsylvania, another articulate spokesman, defines liberalism as "meeting the material needs of the masses through the full power of centralized government." Well, I for one resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me—the free man and woman of this country—as "the masses." This is a term we haven't applied to ourselves in America. But beyond that, "the full power of centralized government"—this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize. They knew that governments don't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. They also knew, those Founding Fathers, that outside of its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector of the economy.

…

Meanwhile, back in the city, under urban renewal the assault on freedom carries on. Private property rights are so diluted that public interest is almost anything that a few government planners decide it should be. In a program that takes for the needy and gives to the greedy, we see such spectacles as in Cleveland, Ohio, a million-and-a-half-dollar building completed only three years ago must be destroyed to make way for what government officials call a "more compatible use of the land." The President tells us he is now going to start building public housing units in the thousands where heretofore we have only built them in the hundreds. But FHA and the Veterans Administration tell us that they have 120,000 housing units they've taken back through mortgage foreclosures. For three decades, we have sought to solve the problems of unemployment through government planning, and the more the plans fail, the more the planners plan. The latest is the Area Redevelopment Agency. They have just declared Rice County, Kansas, a depressed area. Rice County, Kansas, has two hundred oil wells, and the 14,000 people there have over $30 million on deposit in personal savings in their banks. When the government tells you you're depressed, lie down and be depressed.

…

So now we declare "war on poverty," or "you, too, can be a Bobby Baker!" Now, do they honestly expect us to believe that if we add $1 billion to the $45 million we are spending one more program to the 30-odd we have—and remember, this new program doesn't replace any, it just duplicates existing programs—do they believe that poverty is suddenly going to disappear by magic? Well, in all fairness I should explain that there is one part of the new program that isn't duplicated. This is the youth feature. We are now going to solve the dropout problem, juvenile delinquency, by reinstituting something like the old CCC camps, and we are going to put our young people in camps, but again we do some arithmetic, and we find that we are going to spend each year just on room and board for each young person that we help $4,700 a year! We can send them to Harvard for $2,700! Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that Harvard is the answer to juvenile delinquency. (Editor’s note: $4.700 in 1964 would equal $35,000 in today’s dollars)

But seriously, what are we doing to those we seek to help? Not too long ago, a judge called me here in Los Angeles. He told me of a young woman who had come before him for a divorce. She had six children, was pregnant with her seventh. Under his questioning, she revealed her husband was a laborer earning $250 a month. She wanted a divorce so that she could get an $80 raise. She is eligible for $330 a month in the Aid to Dependent Children Program. She got the idea from two women in her neighborhood who had already done that very thing.

Yet anytime you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we are denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we are always "against" things, never "for" anything. Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so.

…

You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits—not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”

Suffice it to say while Barry Goldwater was defeated by Lyndon Johnson in the 1964 Presidential Election Ronald Reagan’s star was on the ascendency.

In 1966 Reagan was elected Governor of the State of California defeating two-term Governor Edmund (Pat) Brown. Reagan turned California’s economy around and set the foundation for the next three decades of business growth and expansion turning the Golden States into the 5^th largest economy in the world. The one mistake he admits in his autobiography was the signing of the state’s abortion rights bill.

Early in 1967, the national debate on abortion was beginning. Democratic California state senator Anthony Beilenson introduced the "Therapeutic Abortion Act", in an effort to reduce the number of "back-room abortions" performed in California. The State Legislature sent the bill to Reagan's desk where, after many days of indecision, he signed it. About two million abortions would be performed as a result, most because of a provision in the bill allowing abortions for the well-being of the mother. Reagan had been in office for only four months when he signed the bill, and stated that had he been more experienced as governor, it would not have been signed. After he recognized what he called the "consequences" of the bill, he announced that he was pro-life. He maintained that position later in his political career, writing extensively about abortion.

On a personal note when Reagan was elected governor I was running a survey crew for the California Division of Highways (now CALTRANS) doing the construction layout for the San Diego Freeway (I-405) in Orange County. One of the first things Regan did was to audit all of the state agencies to see how efficient or inefficient they were in accomplishing their stated mission. For this audit he appointed teams of three — on member from the State Personnel Office and the other two from the private sector with expertise in the mission of the agency.

One day one of the teams showed up on our construction site and interviewed my survey crew. As the supervisor I was prohibited from participating in the interview. The interview lasted about 30 minutes and when it was over I queried my crew to see what was said. They told me they were asked questions as to what they were doing, what their mission was, did they understand the work, did they like their job, and what their morale was. They told me that when the interview was over the representative form Shell Oil gave then each a business card and told them if they ever left Division of Highways they should contact him for a job interview. Evidently he was impressed with the crew. The Division of Highways did well, but the Mental Health Department and the DMV did not fare as well.

In 1976 Reagan entered the presidential campaign challenging Gerald Ford (who hated Reagan) for the Republican nomination. By a close delegate vote Ford won the nomination (1.187 to 1,070) and went on to lose to the peanut farmer from Georgia, Jimmy Carter.

The next for years brought misery to the people of the United States. The Misery Index, a combination of unemployment and inflation, rose from 13% to 20%. Like the band playing the tune “The World Turned Upside Down” at Lord Cornwallis’ surrender after the Battle of Yorktown in 1781 Jimmy Carter had turned our world upside down South American countries were falling to Communism, many liberals and academics believed that the Soviet Union had a better system, and Iran was holding our diplomats hostage. The anti-hero was replacing the hero and John Wayne was out and Woody Allen was in.

Reagan was not deterred by his defeat at the 1976 Republican Convention and after touring the country and gather support he handily won the nomination of his party.

The 1980 presidential campaign between Reagan and incumbent President Jimmy Carter was conducted during domestic concerns and the ongoing Iran hostage crisis. His campaign stressed some of his fundamental principles: lower taxes to stimulate the economy, less government interference in people's lives, states' rights, a strong national defense, and restoring the U.S. Dollar to a gold standard.

In the 1980 presidential election Reagan defeated his opponents Jimmy Carter and the liberal Republican John Anderson, who ran as an independent. Reagan received 489 Electoral Votes and 50.8% of the popular vote carrying 44 states including California. Carter received 49 Electoral Votes, 41.0% of the popular vote and carried 6 states plus the District of Columbia. He failed to carry his home state of Georgia. Anderson received 6.6% of the popular vote and received no Electoral Votes and carried no states. The world was about to be turned upside-right.

In his First Inaugural Address set forth his vision and plan to turn the United States around. In his January 20, 1981 speech Regan said the following:

“Idle industries have cast workers into unemployment, causing human misery and personal indignity. Those who do work are denied a fair return for their labor by a tax system which penalizes successful achievement and keeps us from maintaining full productivity.

But great as our tax burden is, it has not kept pace with public spending. For decades, we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children’s future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals.

You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation?

…

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.

From time to time, we have been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. But if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price.

We hear much of special interest groups. Our concern must be for a special interest group that has been too long neglected. It knows no sectional boundaries or ethnic and racial divisions, and it crosses political party lines. It is made up of men and women who raise our food, patrol our streets, man our mines and our factories, teach our children, keep our homes, and heal us when we are sick —professionals, industrialists, shopkeepers, clerks, cabbies, and truck drivers. They are, in short, "We the people," this breed called Americans.

…

So, as we begin, let us take inventory. We are a nation that has a government—not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our Government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.

…

It is no coincidence that our present troubles parallel and are proportionate to the intervention and intrusion in our lives that result from unnecessary and excessive growth of government. It is time for us to realize that we are too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams. We are not, as some

would have us believe, doomed to an inevitable decline. I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing. So, with all the creative energy at our command, let us begin an era of national renewal. Let us renew our determination, our courage, and our strength. And let us renew our faith and our hope.

We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we are in a time when there are no heroes just don’t know where to look. You can see heroes every day going in and out of factory gates. Others, a handful in number, produce enough food to feed all of us and then the world beyond. You meet heroes across a counter—and they are on both sides of that counter. There are entrepreneurs with faith in themselves and faith in an idea who create new jobs, new wealth and opportunity. They are individuals and families whose taxes support the Government and whose voluntary gifts support church, charity, culture, art, and education. Their patriotism is quiet but deep. Their values sustain our national life.

I have used the words "they" and "their" in speaking of these heroes. I could say "you" and "your"

because I am addressing the heroes of whom I speak—you, the citizens of this blessed land. Your dreams, your hopes, your goals are going to be the dreams, the hopes, and the goals of this administration, so help me God.”

Reagan refuted the claims of the major claims of the progressive liberals and their belief in the bureaucratic administrative state with just a few words.

His first act as President was to sign an Executive Order repealing the price control on gasoline thus increasing the supply and bringing down the price. In 1981 he brought the marginal tax rates down from 70% to 50% and was able to do this with a Democrat controlled House. He also worked with Paul Volker, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve to institute some painful measures to restore the economy. These policies were called “Reaganomics.” By 1982 the economy began to turnaround.

I remember this very well as the owner of a business. In 1982 I had to enter a merger with another similar firm to stay afloat. By 1983 we were on a growth path once again.

During the 8 years of Reagan’s presidency (1981-1989) he, along with a hostile House and media accomplished the following:

Comparison	1980	1988
Inflation	14%	1%
Unemployment	7.1%	5.5%
Prime Interest Rate	20%	8%
Top Marginal Tax Rate	70%	28%
Gasoline per Gallon	$1.35 ($3.81 today)	<$1.00 ($2.82 today)
Median Family Income	$33,000 (	$38,000 – a 15% increase
Poverty Rate	14%	12.8%

Other Reagan accomplishments:

• The top 5% of earners went from paying 35% of the government’s taxes to 46% even with lower rates due to dramatic increase in the top earners.
• Charitable contributions went from $65 billion to$100 billion, a 54% increase
• The deficit went from $2.5 billion to $2.5 billion – this is not a typo.
• Tax receipts increased by 50%
• The S&P had an annual gain of 25%
• Employment of Blacks rose 29% cutting their unemployment rate in half.
• Black families making more the $50,000 per year increased by 86%. During the Carter Administration this figure was 2.5% for whites and 1% for Blacks. Reagan’s policies changed this to 14% and 18% respectively.

In essence Reagan’s policies were lifting all boats

The question you need to ask yourself is if you had a time machine where would you go —1963, 1973 or 1983?

But 1984 Reagan’s policies were working and the 1984 election proved it.

The United States presidential election of 1984 was the 50th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 6, 1984. The contest was between the incumbent President Ronald Reagan, the Republican candidate, and former Vice President Walter Mondale, the Democratic candidate.

Reagan carried 49 of the 50 states, becoming only the second presidential candidate to do so after Richard Nixon's victory in the 1972 presidential election. Reagan touted a strong economic recovery from the deep recession of 1981–1982 and the widespread perception that his presidency had overseen a revival of national confidence and prestige. Mondale's only electoral votes came from the District of Columbia, which has never given its electoral votes to a Republican candidate, and his home state of Minnesota, which he won by a mere 3,761 votes.

Reagan's 525 electoral votes (out of 538) is the highest total ever received by a presidential candidate. Mondale's 13 electoral votes is also the second-fewest ever received by a second-place candidate, second only to Alf Landon's in 1936. In the national popular vote, Reagan received 58.8% to Mondale's 40.6%. No candidate since then has managed to equal or surpass Reagan's 1984 electoral result. Also, no post-1984 Republican candidate has managed to match or better Reagan's electoral performance in the Northeastern United States (Known to be a very Democratic region in modern times) and in the Western United States. Much of this success for Reagan can be attributed to the so-called “Reagan Democrats” — mainly blue collar workers with a great amount of patriotism and common sense.

Reagan was also equally successful, much to the disdain of the progressive liberals, academics and media, in foreign affairs.

Many bone-headed progressives and academics believed the Soviet system of government was better. The Left believed that the USSR would always be there and we needed to go along to get along. Many on the Right believed the USSR would always be there and we would never get along.

Reagan took a third position. He believed the USSR was an intimate threat to civilization and a failed system that could not last forever, perhaps no more than a decade. He was right on both counts.

He believed we needed to be militarily strong, globally strong, and morally strong if we wanted to win the Cold War. His doctrine, AKA the “Reagan Doctrine”, was based on three pillars:

1. Rebuilding the U.S. Military
2. Aiding countries wishing to maintain or regain their freedom, and
3. Being absolutely clear on the distinction between freedom and tyranny.

For years we had lived with the Truman Doctrine of containment greatly influenced by George F. Kennan. In the late 1940s, his writings inspired the Truman Doctrine and the U.S. foreign policy of "containing" the Soviet Union, thrusting him into a lifelong role as a leading authority on the Cold War. His "Long Telegram" from Moscow in 1946 and the subsequent 1947 article "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" argued that the Soviet regime was inherently expansionist and that its influence had to be "contained" in areas of vital strategic importance to the United States. These texts quickly emerged as foundation texts of the Cold War, expressing the Truman administration's new anti-Soviet Union policy. Kennan also played a leading role in the development of definitive Cold War programs and institutions, notably the Marshall Plan.

Soon after his concepts had become U.S. policy, Kennan began to criticize the foreign policies that he had seemingly helped launch. Subsequently, prior to the end of 1948, Kennan was confident the state of affairs in Western Europe had developed to the point where positive dialogue could commence with the Soviet Union. His proposals were discounted by the Truman administration and Kennan's influence was marginalized, particularly after Dean Acheson was appointed secretary of state in 1949. Soon thereafter, U.S. Cold War strategy assumed a more assertive and militaristic quality, causing Kennan to lament over what he believed was as an aberration of his previous assessments.

The problem with containment was that the game was rigged. Like the game of chess the USSR kept moving the pieces all over the board while we unable to keep up.

Reagan took a slightly different course. He believed preventing the expansion of Soviet Communism and influence cold best be accomplished by aiding those who wanted to be free, like the Solidarity movement in Poland. Working closely with Margaret Thatcher and the Polish Pope John Paul II he was able to influence and assist these nations with moral and financial support while increasing the defense capabilities of NATO.

The elite universities had given up on any distinction between right and wrong harping that no values were different from any other values. It was just a matter of interpretation and a get along attitude. Evidently Reagan did not get this memo on moral equivalency. He stuck to his principles and beliefs no matter the critics in academia and the media.

At the time of Reagan’s election we had a policy of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). This policy was based on the fact the United States and the USSR had more than enough nuclear weapons to destroy one another several times over and that neither nation would be crazy enough to initiate a nuclear war in Europe or anywhere else. This gave the Soviets an advantage as they would go about the world initiating little brush fire war of independence while we were muscle-bound with nukes and could do little to prevent them from fomenting trouble around the globe. Reagan needed a game changer.

He thought MAD was madness so in 1983 he came up with something called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) otherwise known as “Star Wars.” On March 23, 1983 Reagan gave a nationally televised address to the American people announcing this new initiative:

“The calls for cutting back the defense budget come in nice, simple arithmetic. They’re the same kind of talk that led the democracies to neglect their defenses in the 1930’s and invited the tragedy of World War II. We must not let that grim chapter of history repeat itself through apathy or neglect.

This is why I’m speaking to you tonight--to urge you to tell your Senators and Congressmen that you know we must continue to restore our military strength. If we stop in midstream, we will send a signal of decline, of lessened will, to friends and adversaries alike. Free people must voluntarily, through open debate and democratic means, meet the challenge that totalitarians pose by compulsion. It’s up to us, in our time, to choose and choose wisely between the hard but necessary task of preserving peace and freedom and the temptation to ignore our duty and blindly hope for the best while the enemies of freedom grow stronger day by day. The solution is well within our grasp. But to reach it, there is simply no alternative but to continue this year, in this budget, to provide the resources we need to preserve the peace and guarantee our freedom.

…

If the Soviet Union will join with us in our effort to achieve major arms reduction, we will have succeeded in stabilizing the nuclear balance. Nevertheless, it will still be necessary to rely on the specter of retaliation, on mutual threat. And that’s a sad commentary on the human condition. Wouldn’t it be better to save lives than to avenge them? Are we not capable of demonstrating our peaceful intentions by applying all our abilities and our ingenuity to achieving a truly lasting stability? I think we are. Indeed, we must.

After careful consultation with my advisers, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I believe there is a way. Let me share with you a vision of the future which offers hope. It is that we embark on a program to counter the awesome Soviet missile threat with measures that are defensive. Let us turn to the very strengths in technology that spawned our great industrial base and that have given us the quality of life we enjoy today.

What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant U.S. retaliation to deter a Soviet attack, that we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies?

I know this is a formidable, technical task, one that may not be accomplished before the end of this century.

Yet, current technology has attained a level of sophistication where it’s reasonable for us to begin this effort. It will take years, probably decades of effort on many fronts. There will be failures and setbacks, just as there will be successes and breakthroughs. And as we proceed, we must remain constant in preserving the nuclear deterrent and maintaining a solid capability for flexible response. But isn’t it worth every investment necessary to free the world from the threat of nuclear war? We know it is.”

This speech sent shockwaves not only through the USSR but also through our allies. SDI) was proposed to use ground-based and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic offense doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) was set up in 1984 within the United States Department of Defense to oversee the Strategic Defense Initiative.

The ambitious initiative was widely criticized as being unrealistic, even unscientific as well as for threatening to destabilize MAD and re-ignite "an offensive arms race". In light of Reagan's vocal criticism of MAD, the Strategic Defense Initiative was an important part of his defense policy intended to offset MAD. It was soon derided, largely in academia and the mainstream media, as "Star Wars," after the popular 1977 film by George Lucas. In 1987, the American Physical Society concluded that a global shield such as "Star Wars" was not only impossible with existing technology, but that ten more years of research was needed to learn whether it might ever be feasible. Of course the academics and universities soon changed their tune as federal grant money began flowing from the Department of Defense and National Science Foundation for research and development. To them this was the new space program.

Today the United States holds a significant advantage in the field of comprehensive advanced missile defense systems through years of extensive research and testing; many of the obtained technological insights were transferred to subsequent programs and would find use in follow-up programs.

Under the administration of President Bill Clinton in 1993, its name was changed to the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) and its emphasis was shifted from national missile defense to theater missile defense; and its scope from global to more regional coverage. It was never truly developed or deployed, though certain aspects of SDI research and technologies paved the way for some anti-ballistic missile systems of today. BMDO was renamed to the Missile Defense Agency in 2002.

Many of Reagan’s critics missed the point with his SDI program. It did not matter if our science was not able to keep up with his initiative, what mattered is that the USSR believed we could do it. They knew it would not only take the best brains in physics, space technology, and computer science it would also take billions of dollars of which they had neither. Reagan was now playing chess with the Soviets and they were losing.

In 1987 Reagan gave his famous speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Although strongly advised by the State Department Eagan edited the prepared speech and added these famous lines:

“There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

These lines echoed around the globe and within two years the wall was down and the Soviet Union was collapsing under its own corrupt weight. On the night of November 9, 1989 the wall began to come down and freedom was making its way back to the nations of Eastern Europe.

I was in East Germany prior to the wall coming down and shortly after. I saw the total corruption of the socialist state and how it had suppressed the people for 44 years. The only regret I had was that I could not have taken the scores of academics, who touted the wonders of the socialist state, with me and rubbed their noses in the despair it fostered on the peoples of these nations.

In Reagan’s Farewell Address delivered from the Oval Office on January 11, 1989 he gave us a warning for the future — warning we are ignoring today.

“Well, back in 1980, when I was running for president, it was all so different. Some pundits said our programs would result in catastrophe. Our views on foreign affairs would cause war. Our plans for the economy would cause inflation to soar and bring about economic collapse. I even remember one highly respected economist saying, back in 1982, that "the engines of economic growth have shut down here, and they’re likely to stay that way for years to come." Well, he and the other opinion leaders were wrong. The fact is, what they called "radical" was really "right". What they called "dangerous" was just "desperately needed."

And in all of that time I won a nickname, "The Great Communicator." But I never thought it was my style or the words I used that made a difference: It was the content. I wasn’t a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn’t spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation -- from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries. They called it the Reagan revolution. Well, I’ll accept that, but for me it always seemed more like the great rediscovery, a rediscovery of our values and our common sense.

…

Finally, there is a great tradition of warnings in presidential farewells, and I’ve got one that’s been on my mind for some time. But oddly enough it starts with one of the things I’m proudest of in the past eight years: the resurgence of national pride that I called the new patriotism. This national feeling is good, but it won’t count for much, and it won’t last unless it’s grounded in thoughtfulness and knowledge An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn’t get these things from your family, you got them from the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought in Korea or the family who lost someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed, you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that, too, through the mid-sixties.

But now, we’re about to enter the nineties, and some things have changed. Younger parents aren’t sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children. And as for those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit is back, but we haven’t reinstitutionalized it. We’ve got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom -- freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It’s fragile; it needs protection.

So, we’ve got to teach history based not on what’s in fashion but what’s important: Why the Pilgrims came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo meant. You know, four years ago on the 40th anniversary of D-day, I read a letter from a young woman writing of her late father, who’d fought on Omaha Beach. Her name was Lisa Zanatta Henn, and she said, "We will always remember, we will never forget what the boys of Normandy did."

Well, let’s help her keep her word. If we forget what we did, we won’t know who we are. I’m warning of an eradication of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit. Let’s start with some basics: more attention to American history and a greater emphasis on civic ritual. And let me offer lesson number one about America: All great change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven’t been teaching you what it means to be an American, let ’em know and nail ’em on it. That would be a very American thing to do.

And that’s about all I have to say tonight. Except for one thing. The past few days when I’ve been at that window upstairs, I’ve thought a bit of the "shining city upon a hill." The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we’d call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free.

I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors, and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it, and see it still.

And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was eight years ago. But more than that; after 200 years -- two centuries -- she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she’s still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.

We’ve done our part. And as I walk off into the city streets, a final word to the men and women of the Reagan revolution, the men and women across America who for eight years did the work that brought America back. My friends, we did it. We weren’t just marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger. We made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all”

Yes Ronald Reagan was a great communicator, but more importantly he communicated great ideas that resonated with the American people.

Who will be the next person to authentically wear the mantle of Ronald Reagan? Will it be Mario Rubio or Rand Paul? Will it be Ted Cruz or Mile Lee? Perhaps it’s Scott Walker or Susana Martinez? After reading this long profile of the Reagan Revolution Perhaps the person has yet to emerge on the public stage yet, but when he or she does you will recognize him or her and I am sure the media and academia will just as vicious towards them as they were to Reagan. The question will be can that person withstand the slings and arrows and convince the American people the right now our world is upside down and we need to take a new course. It’s our time for choosing.