I'm not sure how many of you have heard about Dinesh D'Souza's new movie, 2016: Obama's America, but it looks like a piece of jingoistic garbage to me. After hearing that it is setting box office records for documentaries, I decided I had to check out the trailer. Here's what I found:
"Obama has a dream, a dream from his father: that the sins of colonialism be set right, and America be downsized... America has a dream, from our founding fathers: that together, we must protect liberty, and America must grow, so with it, liberty grows."
Whenever I hear statements like this, about how America is some bellwether of liberty, my first reaction is always confusion. Dinesh D'Souza is a very successful man; he's been a writer and intellectual for many years, he's a Dartmouth graduate, and currently heads Kings College in New York. For someone with that storied of an academic career, making such a sensational and ahistorical comment is perplexing. The way I see it, either D'Souza is ignorant of American imperial history, or he's maliciously misrepresenting the facts in order to elect Romney. Because I don't like to pin evil motives on people without good evidence, I'm going to opt for the other possibility, that D'Souza is an idiot.
Just off the top of my head, here's a brief history of how when America grows, so with it, liberty grows:
1492: White people "find" America. Within decades, a once glorious civilization is reduced to less that 10% of its former size. The extent of disease and famine ravishing the native communities cannot be fully known, but most historians estimate that untold millions of indigenous people lost their lives in a very short period of time. Using alcohol and unfair bargaining techniques, settlers systematically rob native peoples of their lands. Contract after contract is signed with the United States, and each is subsequently broken by "the land of the free." This theft of land comes to a head under Andrew Jackson, the man who I consider to be the most reprehensible president of all time, who made a name for himself killing natives in order to drive them away from valuable farmland in the south. (Doesn't that sound a lot like "protecting American interests?" The same rationalizations are around today) I'm sure you are familiar with the Cherokee nation's Trail of Tears, a grueling march in which many suffered and perish. And to even think of glorifying General Custer and his "brave" last stand. Custer provoked violence, and got himself into a stupid situation. I cannot do the tragic history of American indigenous peoples true justice, but if you are unfamiliar with the extent of our nation's actions, a little research will be sobering.
Remember how glorified the battle of the Alamo was made out to be in school? Why do you think the Mexican army was attacking the Alamo in the first place? Because they hate "American exceptionalism?" Absolutely not. The lone star republic robbed the Mexican government of hundreds of square miles of land, upon which lived many Mexicans and indigenous peoples. The Texans basically just declared that a vast swath of land was their right, and then proceded to kill and rob the owners of that land. So much for America's sacred property rights.
Beyond the actions of a rogue state like Texas (who wants to take responsibility for Texans, anyway?), America has been far from a liberating force in Mexico. From sacking cities to stealing Arizona, New Mexico, California, and more, America has been the exact opposite of liberators. Even in the 20th century, American naval vessels were bombarding coastal towns in the Gulf of Mexico to dissuade the Mexican government from impeding American trade. What harbingers of peace and liberty.
But Manifest Destiny was not enough for America. After the frontier was closed, and we had taken all the land we could from Mexico, Spain, France, England, and millions of indigenous peoples, we had to turn our sights abroad. Why do native Hawaiian's resent so many white tourists? Because they represent the conquest over a once-free people. We have holdings in Guam, in the Philippines, in the US Virgin islands, in Puerto Rico, in Cuba, in nearly every island group in the Caribbean and South Pacific. Do you think that we gained those lands because the natives invited us to liberate them? America was an imperial nation, plain and simple. Anyone who tells you different either does not know their history, or is purposefully distorting the facts. There is no gray area.
In WWI, America passed the Alien and Sedition acts, perhaps the least free laws that have ever been on the books. Speaking out against the war effort, or even just making anti-American proclamations, was enough to get you jailed. In the case of Saccho and Vanzetti, it got them hung. The sheer amount of propaganda that was released in order to stir up a desire for war is staggering - it reeks of fascism. As a nation, we declared an official stance of neutrality only to continue selling arms to both sides of the war. Today I read that America's arms sales have skyrocketed, to over $66 billion per year, by far the highest in the world. Some things never change, do they? The most pressing reason we entered the war was that the side we were most heavily invested in, the British especially, were losing. We needed to hedge our financial bets. Think of it in terms of a bailout: the British war profits were "too big to fail."
In WWII, America acted astonished when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, but there is insurmountable evidence that the White House had been repeatedly warned of Japanese aggression. Because of our colonial holdings in the Pacific ocean, Japan was cut off from valuable resources like oil, steel, and rubber, all vital to an industrializing economy. The Japanese made clear that they were being hemmed in by ABCD, or the Americans, British, Chinese, and Dutch. They claimed that the colonial powers represented an existential threat to their nation and, after repeated warnings, attacked America. It was then, and only then, that we entered the war in Europe. We did nothing when the Alsace-Lorrain was conquered, nor when France was pummeled, nor when Eastern Europe was decimated. Once again, it was only when American economic interests were threatened that we took action.
After WWII, having secured our place as one of the two largest world powers, we quickly antagonized the other. The Soviet Union was a terrible regime also, but was it really so much worse than America? Think back on the Cold War, how often did Communists attack Americans? When were we, unprovoked, threatened with invasion or bombing? Then consider all of the times we enacted a policy of intervention, citing fears of a "domino effect" or worrying about "regional stability?" The Cuban missile crisis was provoked by the Bay of Pigs boondoggle, the Korean war was never declared and never ended, Vietnam is a tragedy of epic proportions, and the even more extensive bombing of Laos and other Southeast Asian nations is appalling. And at home, McCarthyism, Red scares, and xenophobia is the name of the game. Thousands of artists, playwrights, musicians, academicians, and regular citizens were rounded up on charges of sedition. So much for free speech, I suppose.
I can't write an article on American imperialism without mentioning NAFTA and our continued rape of everything else in the Western hemisphere. NAFTA is free trade only by name, and is prejudiced against those who can least afford it. Low-income people, especially from Mexico, resent this agreement because it has done nothing to improve their prospects. The profits are all being bled back to wealthy individuals in the United States. The history of CIA interference in Central and South America is disgusting, and much of it is still classified and unknown. We have overthrown and opposed many popularly elected leaders in the last 50 or 60 years, and replaced them with brutal dictators and imposed regimes that are more friendly to American economic expansion. I'm no expert on this part of history, but what I have read is truly horrifying. We have become the agents of oppression and have opposed the popular will of millions of peoples only to more thickly line our pocket books.
I won't even get into the last 20 years of our history, except for one comment. I have never understood how pre-emptively striking another nation is morally defensible. How does the need to protect one nation's interests supercede the sovereignty of the other? To millions of people, Americans do not represent liberty, equality, or brotherhood, but rather guns, bombs, and civil unrest. Mission accomplished.
Now, I'd like to repeat: I did no extra research for this blog post, but simply wrote down what I could remember about America's bloody past in this world. If you want to know where I am drawing most heavily from, check out Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States of America," Kenneth Davis's "Don't Know Much About History," and James Loewen's "Lies My Teacher Told Me." They lay out, in much more extensive detail, exactly how despicable our nation's past has been.
So, Mr D'Souza, as America has grown, has liberty grown?
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Friday, August 17, 2012
Welfare Reform
Recently, welfare reform has returned to the forefront of our national political discussion and has just as quickly been turned from an opportunity for substantive discouse into little more than a shouting match over the airwaves. The question is not whether welfare needs to be reformed, but how it can be reformed so that the government can continue providing benefits to millions of struggling Americans. Entitlement spending, in the forms of welfare, social security, and health coverage, is growing exponentially, and the fear is that future costs will tank the national economy. The fear of fiscal calamity is very real and rational - most models and projections agree that, if changes are not made, social spending will soon overwhelm the national deficit. The question is, then, how should welfare be organized to maximize its impact?
Like many issues about which conservatives are passionate, they argue about welfare based upon principle. Welfare without a work requirement, conservatives argue, is nothing more than a free handout, and free handouts are unfair to the productive members of society. They argue that it is unfair to use the success of one to pay for the failure of another. They claim that welfare benefits encourage out-of-wedlock births, drug use, and engender a culture of dependency upon the government. In a surprising twist of illogic, I have even heard it argued that welfare is a form of modern slavery, as though each welfare check comes pre-packaged with shackles and chains. I'd like to combat these principles of "fairness" with a few principles of my own.
There are few words so fundamentally American as: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness..." The Declaration of Independence is the foundational document of our democracy, and guides the moral compass of our nation. Where else should one begin when discussing principles of welfare? The first thing I would like to point out is that the rights are "inalienable," meaning that no person can lawfully dispossess a citizen of life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. In regard to welfare, what is more fundamental to life than food and shelter? The government's role is to safeguard our rights, therefore it follows that the government should ensure that every citizen has daily sustenance. There are no qualifications or conditions attached to these rights; they are inalienable, fundamental. We do not hold it to be self-evident that man has the right to food if and only if he works, or that man can only be free if he is a productive member of society. In my mind, there is little else a government should be doing if its population is starving. What else could be more democratic than ensuring that each man, woman, and child has enough food to make it to the next morning?
The argument that welfare is a form of modern slavery is spurious at best. No chains can bind so tightly as the confines of poverty - welfare provides a helping hand out of that cycle. Think back on your own life: have you ever been bailed out by another? Have you ever called your parents for a few extra bucks to make the next rent check? Did doing so enslave you? Nobody makes it through this world alone, and to muddy the issue by throwing around accusations of slavery is plainly dispicable. Slavery is the theft of one's human rights, whereas welfare is a temporary form of assistance to those who are already struggling. If someone is already living in conditions of poverty, would you begrudge them the food on their plate?
Conservatives often argue that the government fulfills many unnecessary roles that would be better filled by the private sector - one such program is welfare. They argue that, were the government to get out of the way, private charities would step in to fill the void. I have never understood this claim. Poverty has already run rampant, so where are the private charities currently? Whether or not welfare exists as a government program should have no bearing on the private charitable contributions of Americans. If Americans are as generous as conservative think tanks argue, then they should already be working to solve poverty, rather than waiting for welfare to be gutted. I contend that it is utterly irresponsible to argue that private charity can step up to fill the void that the federal government's millions of dollars currently fill. I'm all for private charity and for volunteerism, but that charitable impulse exists independent of government action. If you feel truly charitable, do something charitable. Do not blame the policies of others for your inaction.
The final point I'd like to make is also, to me, the strongest. Regardless of the prevalence of out-of-wedlock births (which are a function of changing social standards), increased drug use among welfare recipients (drug use is widespread across all socio-economic statuses, especially if you consider alcohol use and abuse), or a degradation of the work ethic (a whole separate issue in itself), welfare reform impacts the children of these struggling families the most. If we believe that "all men are created equal," then we should ensure that every child is guaranteed sustenance and shelter every day of their life, without any consideration of their parent's actions. If my dad is a deadbeat drug dealer and criminal who never worked a day in his life, why should I have to suffer as a child? You can make whatever argument you want about the moral implications of free handouts, or about the social implications of welfare without a work requirement, but in the end, it is the children who suffer most acutely from reduced benefits. I think that welfare needs to be expanded, that more people need (and deserve) food assistance, that housing for low-income individuals needs to be more readily available, and that there is no higher purpose for the government than to address these issues. Forget foreign wars, forget missions to Mars, let us fix the very real problems in our homeland. People are starving, children are dying, and all our political leaders can do is point fingers at each other. Nothing is of such paramount importance, and nothing deserves the focused attention of our nation as poverty reduction.
Like many issues about which conservatives are passionate, they argue about welfare based upon principle. Welfare without a work requirement, conservatives argue, is nothing more than a free handout, and free handouts are unfair to the productive members of society. They argue that it is unfair to use the success of one to pay for the failure of another. They claim that welfare benefits encourage out-of-wedlock births, drug use, and engender a culture of dependency upon the government. In a surprising twist of illogic, I have even heard it argued that welfare is a form of modern slavery, as though each welfare check comes pre-packaged with shackles and chains. I'd like to combat these principles of "fairness" with a few principles of my own.
There are few words so fundamentally American as: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness..." The Declaration of Independence is the foundational document of our democracy, and guides the moral compass of our nation. Where else should one begin when discussing principles of welfare? The first thing I would like to point out is that the rights are "inalienable," meaning that no person can lawfully dispossess a citizen of life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. In regard to welfare, what is more fundamental to life than food and shelter? The government's role is to safeguard our rights, therefore it follows that the government should ensure that every citizen has daily sustenance. There are no qualifications or conditions attached to these rights; they are inalienable, fundamental. We do not hold it to be self-evident that man has the right to food if and only if he works, or that man can only be free if he is a productive member of society. In my mind, there is little else a government should be doing if its population is starving. What else could be more democratic than ensuring that each man, woman, and child has enough food to make it to the next morning?
The argument that welfare is a form of modern slavery is spurious at best. No chains can bind so tightly as the confines of poverty - welfare provides a helping hand out of that cycle. Think back on your own life: have you ever been bailed out by another? Have you ever called your parents for a few extra bucks to make the next rent check? Did doing so enslave you? Nobody makes it through this world alone, and to muddy the issue by throwing around accusations of slavery is plainly dispicable. Slavery is the theft of one's human rights, whereas welfare is a temporary form of assistance to those who are already struggling. If someone is already living in conditions of poverty, would you begrudge them the food on their plate?
Conservatives often argue that the government fulfills many unnecessary roles that would be better filled by the private sector - one such program is welfare. They argue that, were the government to get out of the way, private charities would step in to fill the void. I have never understood this claim. Poverty has already run rampant, so where are the private charities currently? Whether or not welfare exists as a government program should have no bearing on the private charitable contributions of Americans. If Americans are as generous as conservative think tanks argue, then they should already be working to solve poverty, rather than waiting for welfare to be gutted. I contend that it is utterly irresponsible to argue that private charity can step up to fill the void that the federal government's millions of dollars currently fill. I'm all for private charity and for volunteerism, but that charitable impulse exists independent of government action. If you feel truly charitable, do something charitable. Do not blame the policies of others for your inaction.
The final point I'd like to make is also, to me, the strongest. Regardless of the prevalence of out-of-wedlock births (which are a function of changing social standards), increased drug use among welfare recipients (drug use is widespread across all socio-economic statuses, especially if you consider alcohol use and abuse), or a degradation of the work ethic (a whole separate issue in itself), welfare reform impacts the children of these struggling families the most. If we believe that "all men are created equal," then we should ensure that every child is guaranteed sustenance and shelter every day of their life, without any consideration of their parent's actions. If my dad is a deadbeat drug dealer and criminal who never worked a day in his life, why should I have to suffer as a child? You can make whatever argument you want about the moral implications of free handouts, or about the social implications of welfare without a work requirement, but in the end, it is the children who suffer most acutely from reduced benefits. I think that welfare needs to be expanded, that more people need (and deserve) food assistance, that housing for low-income individuals needs to be more readily available, and that there is no higher purpose for the government than to address these issues. Forget foreign wars, forget missions to Mars, let us fix the very real problems in our homeland. People are starving, children are dying, and all our political leaders can do is point fingers at each other. Nothing is of such paramount importance, and nothing deserves the focused attention of our nation as poverty reduction.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
The Case For Renewable Energy
My last post was about the dangers of doubling down on natural gas and coal production as our primary sources of electricity, while this post will focus on the benefits of a push toward renewable energy. I think that now is precisely the time to begin an earnest national effort to revolutionize US energy production; every year we wait just diminishes our gains from making an early investment. The arguments about global warming and the environmental benefits of renewable energy have been made time and time again, by folks who are much more knowledgeable about climate change, so I'll skip them for now. The environmental preference for renewable energy is well-established, but changing our national energy production is always derailed by economic concerns. I'll present my case for making a change to renewables solely through an economic lens in order to show how skewed the current system is, and how certain simple policy changes will redefine the energy industry.
First, proponents of conventional energy production point to the fact that oil, coal, and gas are cheaper to produce than renewable energy. If this were the case, why do those corporations get extremely special treatment in the tax code? It isn't a fair fight in a free market when one side gets local, state, and national tax incentives due to the extremely influential energy lobbyists. I'll give you a quick smattering of some statistics I dug up: the federal government provides about $2 billion in subsidies to conventional energy companies annually, from 1918-2009 that average federal subsidy was about $4.8 billion. It is impossible to argue that the oil companies would have such a stranglehold upon energy production without the billions dollars of preferential treatment they have received from the federal government. The American Coalition for Ethanol estimates that, when local and state tax breaks are factored in, the total tax subsidies for oil companies ranges from $133-280 billion pro annum. All this is occurring at a time when the 3 largest domestic oil companies posted a combined profit of $80 billion dollars. To put the icing on the cake, Exxon paid only a 2% tax rate last year, even though it is the third largest American corporation and continues to post massive profits. I wonder how many other industries could benefit from a 2% tax rate and billions in tax subsidies? It's no wonder that oil and other conventional fuels are currently more viable, because we built the system that way.
Here's how we can balance the scales: make it a profitable venture to start a renewable energy company. People worry that expensive initial costs will not be offset by the energy savings in the future, so we should provide huge incentives to entrepreneurs and small business owners to start renewable energy companies and implement environmentally friendly practices into their businesses. There are some strides being made in this direction that are promising: federal tax deductions of up to 30% for solar and wind power, and 10% for some other renewable sources. I would like to see those deductions go way up, perhaps in the form of federal subsidies so that the business owner doesn't have to deal with the burden of the upfront costs. I've heard the argument that the reason the tax code favors the wealthier segment of the population is because it encourages innovation by promising huge rewards. Thus, people will take a gamble because they hope to strike it big. I think a better system would not raise the ceiling for accomplishment, but would raise the floor, so that if one fails, they don't fall so hard. Make it easy to start a business, to acquire tax credits, to grow your company, and above all, make it less painful to fail. This can be accomplished through business tax credits and incentives for renewable energies, as well as fixing and augmenting the social safety net (much easier said than done, I realize).
On the other side of the tax code, we should tie the tax breaks of the energy companies to renewable incentives. I don't think the best way to achieve energy independence from conventional sources is to go cold-turkey, because that would result in massive blackouts, inefficient distribution, and the loss of thousands of jobs. The results would be catastrophic, if we simply pulled the plug on conventional energy sources. So make it profitable for the big companies to change. If we say, just as an example, Exxon can pay a low tax rate (although 2% is way too low,) as long as they meet such-and-such green standard, then green technologies become more economically viable. One way to do so is link tax subsidies to research and development in renewable energy sources, or to provide a matching tax break whenever a company implements solar or wind power instead of oil. Make it the same upfront cost to build a conventional oil rig as it would be to install a massive solar plant, and more companies will make the change.
Aside from the tax code, which is broken in all sorts of places, we have quite the stagnant job market. There is no time like the present to improve the infrastructure of America, and this creates many jobs on a national scale. The transition to green energy production provides employment opportunities at every turn. We need construction workers to build new plants, install new equipment, retrofit schools and public buildings, etc. The market for engineers expands greatly, as new technologies need to be improved and made more widely available. There are a number of administrative and inspector positions to ensure that environmental standards are being met, and managerial positions will open up to manage new divisions of conventional energy companies. I don't see how a massive investment in renewable energy would be bad for the economy, because it boosts private and public sector hiring, thereby growing the tax base and the number of consumers. The way to get ourselves out of this recession is by putting America back to work.
At the very least, there is one policy that everyone should agree on: refitting our schools and public buildings to make them more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. Many public buildings were constructed decades ago, with outdated standards for energy efficiency and environmental friendliness. What better way to create jobs in every school district across the country than to renovate our public schools? This would put thousands of people back to work in every state, thereby increasing tax revenues greatly. Furthermore, green schools would pay for themselves in a relatively short period of time, when one factors in the savings on heat, gas, and electricity. Something as simple as replacing the windows to let in less air, or to refit the insulation to save on heating and cooling bills would save millions of public dollars every year. In short, going in and fixing up our schools saves public money through lowered operational costs, puts thousands of Americans back to work, grows the tax base, and puts a renewed sense of pride back in our schools. It would be a point of national pride to say that we have the most environmentally friendly public schools in the world. I have thought long and hard about this particular policy piece, and I cannot think of a good argument against it. Renovating our schools and public buildings is a policy proposal that should gain national consensus - in fact, I think there are few issues that could garner such broad-based support. It's time we led the charge to creating a more environmentally friendly world. It will never happen without our support.
First, proponents of conventional energy production point to the fact that oil, coal, and gas are cheaper to produce than renewable energy. If this were the case, why do those corporations get extremely special treatment in the tax code? It isn't a fair fight in a free market when one side gets local, state, and national tax incentives due to the extremely influential energy lobbyists. I'll give you a quick smattering of some statistics I dug up: the federal government provides about $2 billion in subsidies to conventional energy companies annually, from 1918-2009 that average federal subsidy was about $4.8 billion. It is impossible to argue that the oil companies would have such a stranglehold upon energy production without the billions dollars of preferential treatment they have received from the federal government. The American Coalition for Ethanol estimates that, when local and state tax breaks are factored in, the total tax subsidies for oil companies ranges from $133-280 billion pro annum. All this is occurring at a time when the 3 largest domestic oil companies posted a combined profit of $80 billion dollars. To put the icing on the cake, Exxon paid only a 2% tax rate last year, even though it is the third largest American corporation and continues to post massive profits. I wonder how many other industries could benefit from a 2% tax rate and billions in tax subsidies? It's no wonder that oil and other conventional fuels are currently more viable, because we built the system that way.
Here's how we can balance the scales: make it a profitable venture to start a renewable energy company. People worry that expensive initial costs will not be offset by the energy savings in the future, so we should provide huge incentives to entrepreneurs and small business owners to start renewable energy companies and implement environmentally friendly practices into their businesses. There are some strides being made in this direction that are promising: federal tax deductions of up to 30% for solar and wind power, and 10% for some other renewable sources. I would like to see those deductions go way up, perhaps in the form of federal subsidies so that the business owner doesn't have to deal with the burden of the upfront costs. I've heard the argument that the reason the tax code favors the wealthier segment of the population is because it encourages innovation by promising huge rewards. Thus, people will take a gamble because they hope to strike it big. I think a better system would not raise the ceiling for accomplishment, but would raise the floor, so that if one fails, they don't fall so hard. Make it easy to start a business, to acquire tax credits, to grow your company, and above all, make it less painful to fail. This can be accomplished through business tax credits and incentives for renewable energies, as well as fixing and augmenting the social safety net (much easier said than done, I realize).
On the other side of the tax code, we should tie the tax breaks of the energy companies to renewable incentives. I don't think the best way to achieve energy independence from conventional sources is to go cold-turkey, because that would result in massive blackouts, inefficient distribution, and the loss of thousands of jobs. The results would be catastrophic, if we simply pulled the plug on conventional energy sources. So make it profitable for the big companies to change. If we say, just as an example, Exxon can pay a low tax rate (although 2% is way too low,) as long as they meet such-and-such green standard, then green technologies become more economically viable. One way to do so is link tax subsidies to research and development in renewable energy sources, or to provide a matching tax break whenever a company implements solar or wind power instead of oil. Make it the same upfront cost to build a conventional oil rig as it would be to install a massive solar plant, and more companies will make the change.
Aside from the tax code, which is broken in all sorts of places, we have quite the stagnant job market. There is no time like the present to improve the infrastructure of America, and this creates many jobs on a national scale. The transition to green energy production provides employment opportunities at every turn. We need construction workers to build new plants, install new equipment, retrofit schools and public buildings, etc. The market for engineers expands greatly, as new technologies need to be improved and made more widely available. There are a number of administrative and inspector positions to ensure that environmental standards are being met, and managerial positions will open up to manage new divisions of conventional energy companies. I don't see how a massive investment in renewable energy would be bad for the economy, because it boosts private and public sector hiring, thereby growing the tax base and the number of consumers. The way to get ourselves out of this recession is by putting America back to work.
At the very least, there is one policy that everyone should agree on: refitting our schools and public buildings to make them more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. Many public buildings were constructed decades ago, with outdated standards for energy efficiency and environmental friendliness. What better way to create jobs in every school district across the country than to renovate our public schools? This would put thousands of people back to work in every state, thereby increasing tax revenues greatly. Furthermore, green schools would pay for themselves in a relatively short period of time, when one factors in the savings on heat, gas, and electricity. Something as simple as replacing the windows to let in less air, or to refit the insulation to save on heating and cooling bills would save millions of public dollars every year. In short, going in and fixing up our schools saves public money through lowered operational costs, puts thousands of Americans back to work, grows the tax base, and puts a renewed sense of pride back in our schools. It would be a point of national pride to say that we have the most environmentally friendly public schools in the world. I have thought long and hard about this particular policy piece, and I cannot think of a good argument against it. Renovating our schools and public buildings is a policy proposal that should gain national consensus - in fact, I think there are few issues that could garner such broad-based support. It's time we led the charge to creating a more environmentally friendly world. It will never happen without our support.
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