A New Approach to Democracy

The practice of electing a president is a very specific one. From candidacy to the nominating convention to caucuses and primaries, the elections process was structured by our founding fathers to ensure that the people have the strongest voice possible in who they choose as president. And in the beginning, this process was perfectly. However, it has become more and more apparent that Americans are highly dissatisfied with the way their government is run, particularly our President and Congressional representatives, through movements like Occupy Wall Street, Tea Party et cetera. Unfortunately, our two-party system has thus far ensured that there is little we can do to turn things around.

Or is there?

An organization named Americans Elect is seeking to radically change the way our president is elected, by placing a completely different name on the ballots come November:

‘Americans Elect’ will hold an online nominating convention of its own. Its plan is not to create a third party but to use the internet to choose a presidential candidate from any party (who will in turn have to pick a running-mate from a different one) and put this non-partisan ticket on the ballot in every state. The outfit has already collected more than 2m of 3m or so signatures it will need to satisfy every state’s ballot requirements.

While at initially glance Americans Elect may not seem to have much weight with the American citizenry, its unique goal is attracting attention from people from all political backgrounds. By moving away from the dominant two-party system currently in place, we can start fresh with brand new ideas and approaches to the problems afflicting American society. This is the first step to positive change.

The attempt at putting a strong third-party ticket on the ballot may be completely ineffectual. Both Democrats and Republicans have a strong voter base that will take more than just a single new nomination to influence. And even if this candidate were to pull votes away from other nominees, this would just put the vote squarely in Congress (who would definitely not elect a third party candidate). But what matters here is the effort. By making choosing a third-party candidate  through democratic process, and creating a bi-partisan ticket, this organization is setting a precedent for future elections- that we don’t need to just vote based on two parties, that we can keep things fair by having two parties in power, and by returning power back to the citizens (and not the electoral college). By changing up the elections process, we are taking the first step to change and creating a better nation.

Teach For America: A Disservice to America’s Youth?

This past month saw hundreds of American college students receiving their acceptance letters from Teach For America, a non-profit that places the nation’s brightest college graduates in urban schools with the hope that their knowledge will improve the quality of education the students are receiving. On the surface, the program seems like a really great idea- by placing extremely qualified individuals in these teaching positions, they can help pass on their knowledge to the next generation and reduce dropout rates. However, as lawmakers decide whether to give the organization more grant money, several key problems have arisen and many are questioning whether Teach For America is helping to education American youth or actually hurting them.

One of the biggest issues that is often bought up in regards to Teach For America is the high turnover rate. This means that the program doesn’t retain most of its participants as teachers in the long run. Especially because the program only asks for a two-year commitment, many students will join the program with the intent of moving onto graduate school once their service is done. This is a problem especially when considering the research the shows teachers improve with experience. If we are putting inexperienced teachers in these schools, they aren’t gonna be extremely effective unless they are given time to develop and adapt to the profession. The way Teach For America is structured means that students aren’t receiving the best education they could be. Another problem with this high turnover rate is that students who become attached to their new, young teachers will be forced to see them leave in just a few years. This can be very discouraging.

In a similar vein, Teach for America (and other teacher preparation programs) makes the mistake of confusing qualification in xyz major as qualification in elementary and secondary education. While it is true the students participating in Teach for America are handpicked for their exceptional performance in college, very few if any have received training to teach. The program itself only requires a 5-week training period; as Valerie Strauss points out, ” there is something scary about seeing so much money and power assembled around its core belief that a brand-new college graduate with only five weeks of training is just right to educate our nation’s most vulnerable students.” If we are truly dedicated to the cause of America’s low and middle-income youth, we must find a better way to address the problem than Teach For America.

Taxes and the Rich

The basis of the Occupy Wall Street movement sweeping the nation is the desire for equality. Current statistics indicate that the nation’s richest 1% of citizens possess almost 40% of the wealth, and this number only continues to increase. What is more disturbing about this is that the United States government doesn’t seem to want to change this situation. As Congress scrambled to come up with a way to reduce the deficit this week, the issue that got the most attention was whether we need to  increase taxes on the rich. Unfortunately, many lawmakers still don’t see the need for this and instead want to focus on taxing the middle class- the group that can least afford it. By increasing taxes on the affluent, we will not only be helping our economy but also helping to create a more fair and equal society.

What many lawmakers don’t understand (because they lack a basic education in economics) is that cutting taxes on the rich doesn’t have nearly as big an effect on spending as it does on the poor. This is a complex idea to explain, but basically because the rich have so much money they are already spending a small percentage of it and giving them more money won’t really have that much of an impact. In reality, it is the citizens of the middle and lower classes who have a greater propensity to consume when given more disposable income. Robert Reich has been a major proponent of this idea, asserting:

When the distribution of income gets too far out of whack, the economy needs to be reorganized so the broad middle class has enough buying power to rejuvenate the economy over the longer term. Until we take this lesson to heart, we will be living with the Great Recession‟s aftershock of high unemployment and low wages, and an increasingly angry middle class.

If we want to really make an impact and pull out of the recent recession, we need to stop cutting taxes on the rich and instead focus our energies on the middle class who have much more potential to make a difference.

For the first time in history we have seen the middle class truly mobilize in the Occupy movement, demanding change in the distribution of the nation’s wealth and  criticizing lawmakers for inaction. If the benefits to the economy isn’t enough of a reason to increase taxes on the wealthy, the need for change should be. Our government has an amazing opportunity here, to level the playing field for all Americans and reduce the inequality gap in a major way. It won’t hurt us-in fact it will probably help us- and now is as good a time as any. So to Congress, its time to begin the fight for a new and more equal America. We need to regain our image in the world as a nation of opportunity where everyone has the chance to succeed.

Higher Education’s Dirty Little Secret

The United States has always held its colleges and universities to the very highest standard. As places where future global leaders, Fortune 500 CEOS, and Nobel Laureates are first educated, the American university has always been associated with excellence, virtue, commitment, and integrity.

However, there is a darker side to higher education that has only recently come to light. Because these institutions depend on the financial support of alumni and trustees, great care is taken to maintain a good reputation. And administrators will seemingly do anything to uphold this reputation, even it means compromising the very values the university preaches to its students. We saw this play out this past week with the horrifying scandal at Pennsylvania State University. Not only was the assistant coach to the football team Jerry Sandusky charged with sexually assaulting eight minors over the past decade, but the university administration knew about it and did absolutely nothing.

 

The Grand Jury Presentment in the case reveals just how high up the chain of command this scandal traveled. According to the report, Sandusky was caught in the act of assaulting a minor by a graduate assistant who, rather than reporting the incident to the police, confided in head coach Joe Paterno. Paterno then reported the incident to PSU Athletic Director Tim Curley, who also appraised the University President Graham Spanier of the incident. It was here that the university swept the incident under the rug and did absolutely nothing to address it. Sandusky was even able to continue being employed by the university as assistant coach.

Incidents of sexual assault and rape are not uncommon to college campuses, but as we have seen time and time again, universities will do whatever they can to protect their image, even if it is completely illegal and/or immoral. In 2008, East Michigan University student Laura Dickinson was found dead in her dorm room. Her parents and the public were told that the death was a freak accident; in fact, Laura had been raped and murdered (which the university knew). However, in order to save face with students and potential applicants, the university chose to lie about the circumstances surrounding Laura’s death.

In both the East Michigan and Penn State cases, we witnessed enormous fallout throughout the administration. Both university presidents were fired. However, this doesn’t change the fact that these colleges are putting public relations and image before the safety of their student body (male or female), as well as acting without ethical or moral consideration. Especially in college athletics, the university will act only in the interest of its athletic teams because that is where they make the most money. In a place where students are supposed to be taught values and how to be fair and ethical, this hypocrisy cannot and should not be tolerated.

The investigations into both universities for their irresponsibility in handling these incidents is a great start, but there needs to be more legislation put into regulating private universities and making sure that the administration is addressing the issue rather than sweeping it under the rug. Because the longer they allow it to continue, the more people will be hurt by the actions of these perpetrators, and that is just unacceptable.

See ya later, Rick Perry

Op-Ed: America’s Duty to the global community Part II

This post is the second in a two-part op-ed series on the necessity of foreign aid and humanitarian spending. 

Military personnel, $129 billion. Weapons procurement, $143 billion. Operations and Maintenance, $241 billion. Research and Development, $94 billion. Global “War on Terror,” $200 billion.

As you’ve probably already figured out, the above costs are just some of the biggest expenses on the United States defense budget, which is nearly 700 billion dollars every year. To put that number in perpective, the government devotes nearly 25% of all its spending to defense and national security.

That is A LOT of money. And it begs the question, is it really worth it? Every time we end a war, there is another one waiting to take its place. Giving the Department of Defense these exorbitant sums of money hasn’t really done much to make the world more secure.

There is another solution, however: foreign aid. This may not be the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of national security. Indeed, many of our Republican presidential nominees want to completely eliminate humanitarian aid from the federal budget. This is a somewhat understandable sentiment; with our massive budget deficit, there isn’t a whole lot of money to go around. But by giving that money to countries that need it, especially ones with that lack political stability, we can help them get back on track to prosperity and strengthen their government’s ability to lead.

John F. Kennedy made a great case for foreign aid as a means of security at the founding of the US Agency for International Development in 1961:

“Widespread poverty and chaos lead to a collapse of existing political and social structures which would inevitably invite the advance of totalitarianism into every weak and unstable area. Thus our own security would be endangered and our prosperity imperiled.”

It is no coincidence that regions with the most conflict are also the regions plagued by extreme poverty and inequality. As Kennedy points out, poverty can cause basic political structures to collapse. When there isn’t a government in place to protect its people and keep the peace, war happens. The United States has perfected the art of the immediate response- to civil conflicts, natural disasters, famines, et cetera. What our leaders don’t realize, however, is that our energies and capital would be much better spent helping to encourage development and growth in the countries that need it most and preventing these crises in the first place.

We are far from where we should be in humanitarian aid spending. The United States currently spends less than one percent of the federal budget on foreign aid, and even this aid is hardly being distributed in a fair or equitable way. The two biggest recipients of US foreign aid are Israel and Egypt, though neither party is considered a “developing nation.” The argument can be made that there is significant conflict in these regions, hence why they need aid the most. However, there is far more conflict in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as widespread abject poverty, yet as a whole the region recieves barely anything from the United States. The two most important things the US should be doing is increasing foreign aid as a whole as well as increasing the proportion of aid given to the neediest nations.

In the most recent Republican presidential debates, Rick Santorum asserted that “The first order of the federal government, the only thing the federal government can do that no other level of government can do, is protect us.” No matter what party you belong to, you can agree with this statement. It is the government’s duty to do everything in its power to keep its citizens safe. And while defense spending is certainly an important and necessary expense, our national security will be best served by using foreign aid to promote democratic institutions abroad and help restore political stability to nations that need the help. By continuing to give foreign aid to developing nations, we will not only be helping those nations but ourselves as well.

Op-Ed: America’s Duty to the global community Part I

Anfa Mohamed‘s situation seems hopeless. The 3-month old weighs a mere 5.5 pounds, almost 50% less than what is healthy for a child of her age. She is painfully skinny, with ribs poking through her chest and translucent skin. Though doctors at the Benedir Hospital in Mogadishu are doing what they can to help her, Anfa continues to inch closer and closer to death.

This scene is not uncommon to East Africa, a region hit hard by widespread drought and famine. This year alone, millions of children have died as a result of malnutrition and disease. Many of these deaths could be averted with the help of American foreign aid. However, our Republican presidential candidates don’t seem to want to help; at the CNN debates last Tuesday, there was an almost unanimous consensus by the candidates that humanitarian aid spending needs to be cut.

It is understandable that these candidates want to focus on the needs of the American people, especially amidst a serious recession and an increasing budget deficit. But it is impossible to ignore what is going on in the Horn of Africa, with 3.7 million hungry citizens, 29,000 children under the age of 5 dead, and 700,000 more expected deaths by the end of the year. We simply cannot let this continue. America has always taken on the role of world leader and this situation is no different; our own financial problems should not stand in the way of our moral duty to the people of East Africa.

The biggest reason lawmakers have been hesitant to continue humanitarian aid is because it supposedly represents a large amount of spending that would be better put to use in creating jobs and stimulating the economy. This is a misconception; foreign aid makes up less than 1% of total government spending, and helping the poor is just .5% of spending-14 cents for each American everyday. Just changing who receives that money would have little effect on our economic woes. Helping Americans and helping people in other countries are not mutually exclusive; we can and should do both. In that same vein, foreign aid can have positive effects for America as well. By helping to stabilize foreign governments and economies, we can help increase our own national security and thus would need to devote less time and money to defense expenditures.

We also must recognize that the “plight” of most Americans pales in comparison to that of the people of Africa. The following images are extremely illustrative of the difference:

The above images represent an average family’s weekly food intake in the United States and Chad, respectively. An average American family will consume $350 worth of food per week; a family in Chad will consume just $1.23 of food per week. The argument that we need to “put Americans first” is all well and good, but who needs it more? The family in Chad has barely enough to feed one person, let alone six. It’s hard to imagine that anyone in good conscience could let these people die of starvation just for the sake of reducing our budget deficit.

One of the reasons America has amassed so much power in today’s international community is our initiative. Whether it is war, poverty, or politics, we have a history of taking action in other nations to help solve problems and help these countries become more stable and successful. If for any other reason, we need to help East Africa because it is part of America’s identity as a force of positive change in the world. Our lawmakers need to take a step back and stop looking at foreign aid through a cost-versus-benefit analysis. Rather, we must  see it as an essential part of our role in the international community. Humanitarian aid may not completely eradicate the famine facing East Africa, but if we can save just one child’s life and increase the livelihood of one family, it will have been worth it.