Published in Deseret News, February 13 2008 

Reagan and Romney — both six-letter R-names, both movie-star handsome, both uniters of security, social and fiscal conservatives.

Ronald Reagan: close call with Gerald Ford in 1976. Ford loses to Jimmy Carter. Stagflation and the Soviets. Nation remembers Reagan. Reagan reclaims economy, defeats Soviets, goes down in history. 

Mitt Romney: close call with John McCain in ‘08. McCain loses? Stagflation and terrorism. Nation remembers Romney. Romney reclaims economy, stands strong, goes down in history.

Michael R. Brown, Bountiful

I thought it was clever (of course, since I wrote it).  It got a huge comment string mostly from people who apparently don’t think much of Reagan or Romney.  I must be living in a Bizarro, brain-dead world of people who think they know it all, and have no clue.  (Many would say that of me upon reading my stuff).  Reagan WAS a great man of solid character, and he DID a lot more for us than he gets credit for.  Romney IS a man of solid character - the flip-flop charges are a farce.  He CAN DO a lot of great things for us, and I’m sad to say but I think we’ll need a turn around artist much like himself before too much longer.  999 in 1000 think I’m nuts, but as time moves forward I’ll be proven right!

Letter to Editor, submitted to Deseret News Oct 20, 2007:  Trust Legislature, Support Vouchers

Even the most informed among us do not have the luxury to study every issue to make well reasoned choices.  The uninformed are even more likely to support the catchiest phrase.  “Full of flaws” – oh no, be scared.  Try this principled gem:  “The only thing we have to fear is…”  Our founders knew that Statesmen should represent us with a mandate to study and make informed decisions.  Our legislature and governor did just that, concluding that this is worth a try.  They will correct flaws as they’re revealed.  We must experiment or we’ll never find a better way.  If you feel you don’t know enough to decide, then please refrain from second-guessing your own representatives!   “Have no fear”, and vote for vouchers!  Don’t abandon the Republic for sound-bite Democracy, or education may be the least of our worries.

That was the letter.  It’s really more about believing that a Republic is superior to a Democracy, in which decisions are made by the uninformed.  Democracy is the de facto condition in America due to governance by poll, referendums, cowardly politicians, well funded sound bites, and by allowing every adult regardless of their morals or intellect to vote (which means those who have suppressed their concience or don’t know better will vote to put a gun to their more prosperous neighbor’s head and steal so they can have “free programs”).  Recall the Greek democracy voted to kill Plato! 

This is also much of the reason the Founding Fathers only wanted people with property to vote.  The uninformed and easily swayed should not be running the country, and they’re easy to find because they rarely have any significant income or net worth.

Vouchers is about more than money, but it is also about money.  I’m sure some publicly educated government accountant can show some way it could cost more money, but consider this:

• If for just $2000 we can tempt families to match, the schools keep $5000, the kid gets $4000, so overall education benefits at $9000 instead of $7000, with either the schools or taxpayers having $5000 they’d have otherwise had to use for that kid!
• Business is EXCELLENT at finding ways to make things both better and cheaper at the same time.  Will it cost more? Maybe to an accountant.  Will we get better value?  YES!   Attatch the dollars to the kid instead of the district, and watch miracles begin to happen. 
• Lasik would be far more expensive if insurance companies were the middle man, just as bureaucrats are.
• Airlines, phones - both better and cheaper once the government got out, but there were doomsday predictions!
• What about Pell Grants?  Is this not public money that goes to a student who then decides where to go, even BYU?  Have Pell Grants ruined the world yet or been determined unconstitutional?

The cookie commercial is a perfect example.  Vouchers will result in a net savings to taxpayers.  While our public system is our tradition and we all have fond memories, at the core it is fundamentally a socialist system.  How we got here was largely accidental.  Education is clearly in the public interest, so since we were levying taxes, it seemed natural to just put teachers on the government payroll.

There is a better way.  Instead of paying teachers, pay parents if the parents want to be involved, and let them shop for where they think they’ll get what their kid needs.  Most parents will settle on the neighborhood school, but more than a few have kids with special needs (both ends of the bell curve, behavioral problems, etc.), or they have educational goals that are important to the family (moral emphasis, American history emphasis, musical emphasis, science emphasis, whatever). 

It is like hiring contractors, which the government does all the time and you should be glad they do.  Government doesn’t pave the streets, but they raise money to do it.  They don’t built missles, but they raise money to do it.
Our tradition of government operated schools has resulted in schools that:

Can’t discipline adequately;

Can’t get rid of the lazy or incompetent, but tenured 10% (you know you had some);

Can’t find desire to innovate and keep up with the modern world;

Can’t respond adequately to special needs of families not a few;

Can’t leave any child behind (i.e. must hold performers back to focus on those who still won’t read when they graduate);

Must pay the bottom 10% within 10% of the top 10%. 

How about this?  Keep the schools completely in tact and initially staffed with the same staff, but put the management roll to contractors.  Then they can hire say retiring chemists or engineers who have no “certificate”, but do have a knack for teaching kids and desire to serve.  Since BUSINESS must perform to renew their contract, they can also help those on white-collar welfare and hiding behind the union find their way over to Home Depot. 

We’ve got to try something, and the other 49 expensive experiments prove that handing cash over to unionized government bureaucrats is also not a wise course.  Let’s try vouchers anyway and see what we learn.

Published Jan 22, 2007 Deseret News:  DNA is a miraculous modern-day fingerprint.  Why aren’t we aggressively assembling a national or at least a state DNA database on the entire population?  So many solvable cases go unresolved.  So many rapists and murderers will strike again and again.  Privacy issues can be addressed.  Has common sense really fallen so far out of fashion?

There was once a civic-minded generation who gave us such a legacy of great civic achievements that we benefit from everyday.  Have we as their children and grandchildren become so self-absorbed in our worship of the American Idol to ever do anything great again?

Published in SL Tribune, Jan 19 2007: Global warming, Middle East, suitcase nukes - how do we break free of the oil addiction that is at the root of so many of our problems?
Tax structure! If the nation will raise the gas tax, and at the same time lower the income tax, the market will kick in and do the rest. If there are any statesmen left, please champion this idea. Since it isn’t raising taxes, it should be something that red, blue and purple Americans can all support.

This is a letter I submitted to the Deseret News:

If you’re addicted or a glutton to something you know is harming you, do you hope society and markets will make it cheap and easy, or more expensive and difficult to obtain? It depends on whether you love the vice more than the freedom. Our President is right when he notes we are addicted to oil, which among other negatives is certainly helping our enemies perfect suitcase nukes!

OPEC is likely to inject higher doses of our “drug of choice” if they think we’re serious about breaking the addiction, but as with AA we must admit we are “Petroholics” and begin to truly temper our gluttony. How? By ensuring market conditions that will spur conservation and innovation. Incrementally raise the federal gas tax to ensure gas stays at $3.00 or higher.

I know it sounds loony and counter intuitive for a Red-Stater to propose raising the price of gas even as it is at record highs “ but if it is offset by lower taxes elsewhere we are no worse off. The higher price spurs growth in hybrids, fuel cells, ethanol, and transit as a means of avoiding the tax! We must begin to sacrifice what we want now if we ever hope to have the independence and healthier environment we need most.

That was the letter.  I don’t like the term “social engineering”, but I do believe that one of the main roles of government is to help us do something we all agree is useful, but for which there is no profit incentive for the markets to do on their own.  Defense is the classic example. Wouldn’t we all agree that energy independence is in our national interest? We wouldn’t all agree that driving light-weight tin cans is in our personal interest.  We might agree that the market could use more incentive to find ways for us to drive mega-machines that are more efficient and environmentally friendly.

Reducing other taxes SO THAT we can raise the gas tax keeps everything whole.  Granted, when things move some win and some lose even if the net take stays the same.  The ramifications of my proposal would have to be studied, comprimises made, and gradual phasing employed.

But can you imagine? Say sales taxes went to zero, but the price of gas went to $6 per gallon.  You can afford the gas from the savings on other purchases - so no problem driving an average SUV if you want (Hummer? Well maybe now you can’t afford it - Good!)  But suddenly you have a real motive to save even more!  Maybe you’ll take transit to “get rich” (penny saved, penny earned).  Maybe you’ll buy a hybrid.

Of course, Detroit (or should I say Tokyo), that if you’re willing to tax the vice to break free of oil sooner, you will be very motivated to purchase anything that minimizes petroleum, so they kick into high gear on fuel cells, hybrids, etc.

I think it’s a creative solution that just might work!  Of course it doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance because it would take some 10-minutes of education, and people only do fear-mongering headlines and soundbites these days, but if there were a real “Ronald Reagan” leader and communicator at the healm, people might just say, “That sounds like a zero-sum way that we can quit helping Iran build nukes!  It also helps cut down green house gases that MIGHT (and I stress might) be harming our well being?

Note: Since I published this, the Utah Taxpayer’s Association has supported the same thing, as have a number of other prominent people.  However polls show most don’t and even want to lower the tax, which shows ignorance of the consequences of lowering the cost of our drug of choice.