Education in the U.S.

I know they select the worst of the worst but watching street interviews of people trying to answer questions about the government or the history of the U.S. isn’t funny. In fact, it is downright painful. People seem to know so little about how the government is funded, hint, it’s all taxes whether direct or indirect and printing money, which, of course, pushes up inflation.

We have a Department of Education so why haven’t we had a requirement that to receive Federal funding all students in secondary schools must pass a test on U.S. Government and History? That is the kind of requirement that would produce and informed electorate which would ask intelligent questions about candidates positions vice taking advice from celebrities about for whom to vote.

We make intending immigrants pass a citizenship test before they obtain citizenship why don’t we require the same knowledge level from those who are lucky enough to have been born in the U.S. or of U.S. parents? Isn’t a knowledge of how things work in the country more important than other things in a high school curriculum.

And what about loans to go to college. If the U.S. government is going to back those loans should the collateral a student offers be judged before the loan is made. For example, when taking out a loan no question is asked about what the student proposes to study in college. Why not? It speaks directly to the student’s ability to repay the loan. A student who is going to major in a STEM area is much more likely to be in a position to repay the loan than a student who majors in Art History or Gender Studies. Making loans to attend college should be a business not an entitlement. Why aren’t there courses in high school that explain how your chosen field of study might put you in debt for decades. Students aren’t making informed choices because they’re not learning the facts.

Some of this might be incorporated in the new administration’s programs to be more business-like in it’s conduct. Take for example Intellectual Property. If the USG charged license fees for all Intellectual Property developed from U.S. research funds we could do away with the income tax. By restricting use of government funded IP to only wholly owned and based U.S. companies we could regrow the U.S. advantage in manufacturing and production.

First thing that needs to be done is to strip Agencies of the ability to prosecute individuals for violations of regulations. Just yesterday the White House confirmed that the Environmental Protection Agency is placing a tax on methane produced as a byproduct of petrochemical refining. I, at first thought this was illegal since agencies cannot, of course, tax. That power resting solely with Congress. My son, who is very bright and always likes to catch me out, reminded me that this tax was actually authorized by Congress and for some reason the Executive branch was given leeway in implementation. But as for giving bureaucrats the right to interpret for implementation I am reminded that the very same EPA attempted to assert that all water rights in the U.S. belonged to the Federal government through the navigable waterways act. The bureaucrats’ reasoning was that since all water eventually finds its way to a navigable waterway then all water falls under Federal regulation.

With the EPA, IRS and other government agencies the U.S. has become much like the NKVD under Lavrentiy Beira who said, “Show me the man and I’ll find the crime.”

But this post is about education: Find a group of people and ask them about what the EPA does. Ask them about the Federal Reserve or the Bureau of Land Management. What are the duties of the Secretary of the Interior and ask why, if the first duty of the Department of the Interior is to protect U.S. natural resources, we need the EPA and if we do why isn’t the EPA in the DoI? If it was, you could save lots of taxpayer money by having the support facilities of the EPA provided by the existing support facilities of the DoI. Is the reader aware that the Postal Service, Department of Agriculture, Food and Drug Administration and the Bureau of Land Management have Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams equipped with the latest in military equipment? Bechta didn’t know that, did you. Question is why? Isn’t this FBI or U.S. Marshal territory? Want to make better use of that money? Transfer those agents to the Border Patrol.

Why do we need departments of the Air Force, Army and Navy as well as the Department of Defense. Couldn’t the Service department duties be handled by assistant secretaries in the DoD? This again would significantly reduce the support staffs required saving even more taxpayer dollars. And why do we need duplicate capabilities in the services, why not one support mechanism to support the fighting forces? Why does each service have a separate computer command? Duplication of effort costs the taxpayers dearly.

But most people don’t know these things because we don’t teach them to “Citizens.” Yet, it is what the citizens need to know in order to decide for whom to vote. Why isn’t it a requirement to know and understand such things in order to have an informed electorate that will vote on the issues and not be scared into voting against someone, instead of voting for a well described set of policies.