Is Shrinking the US Federal Government a Real Possibility?

It is always good when you see or hear bureaucrats communicating that they want to shrink government and make things efficient and useful.  Only doing that which adds value is a way of life in the real business world.

So I was happy (but skeptical) when I saw the White House website “21st Century Government – Campaign to Cut Waste” which stems from Executive Order # 13576 on Government Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Accountability from June 13, 2011. 

Here is a brief excerpt of the order:

“The American people must be able to trust that their Government is doing everything in its power to stop wasteful practices and earn a high return on every tax dollar that is spent.  To strengthen that trust and deliver a smarter and leaner Government, my Administration will reinforce the performance and management reform gains achieved thus far; systematically identify additional reforms necessary to eliminate wasteful, duplicative, or otherwise inefficient programs; and publicize these reforms so that they may serve as a model across the Federal Government.”

At the same website, I found the following post: “Building a 21st Century Government by Cutting Duplication, Fragmentation, and Waste”:

“Yet, the Administration will not wait for congressional action. Where we can, we are taking aggressive action to eliminate overlap and reduce fragmentation administratively across government (emphasis added).

You get the gist of what they are trying to sell.  Here is my favorite: Regulatory Reform.

Anyway, I came across something that I think was missed and I just need to get it off my chest.  In the grand scheme of all the hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars wasted each year due to government inefficiency and regulatory mismatches and red tape, I am sure this is a small drop in the bucket.  But a bigger concern than the wasted tax dollars, is the potential lack of access to clearly proven laboratory health services for millions of beneficiaries.

Here is the head scratcher.  The federal government funds health plans.  You know them as Medicare and Medicaid under the regulatory agency known as the CMS under the Department of Health and Human Services.  The Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius reports to the President. There are also Federal Employee Health Benefits Plans and I think they are regulated under the office of Personnel Management which I believe to be an independent federal government agency.

Lastly there is TRICARE, a Military Health System benefits entitlement program administered by the Department of Defense. It has its own Secretary, Leon Pannetta, who reports to the President.

TRICARE Management Activity or TMA recently released word of a new Demonstration Project for something called Lab Developed Tests or LDTs.  Below are pulled sections of a published  justification and mission statement derived from the Office of the Secretary of Defense pulled from the Federal Register: that is announcing the need for doing the whole demonstration project.  You may just want to read the whole thing to see the flow of TMAs thinking and justification.

An LDT is a test developed by a single clinical laboratory that
provides testing to the public but does not sell the lab kit to other
labs. In the past, these tests were relatively simple tests used to
diagnose or monitor diseases and other conditions within a single
laboratory usually at a local large hospital or academic medical
center. As a result the FDA has utilized enforcement discretion (where
the FDA does not enforce some or all applicable laws and regulations on
certain categories of products) of LDTs and has taken no action to
remove them from the marketplace.

In contrast to TMA, CMS regulations do not have a specific
requirement that devices be FDA approved. As a result CMS policy
provides a mechanism for the review and payment of non-FDA approved
LDTs (Section 522 of the Benefits Improvement and Protection Act). Non-
FDA approved LDTs which meet CMS’s standards are approved through its
National Coverage Determination (NCD) or Local Coverage Determination
(LCD) process. Once a LDT receives a LCD, it is considered a nationwide
Medicare covered benefit.

A demonstration project will be initiated by the TMA to test
whether CMS approved LDTs which have not received FDA medical device
510(k) clearance or premarket approval (therefore considered non-FDA
approved) are safe and effective for cost-sharing for TRICARE
beneficiaries. The LDTs for this demonstration would be limited to only
those that significantly inform clinical decision-making for
surveillance, surgical intervention, chemotherapy, or radiation therapy
for cancer.

What irks me as a taxpayer is that the DoD feels it has to expend however many hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions of dollars doing a complicated 3 year demonstration project to see if BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 tests and Oncotype gene tests (all are LDTs) can yield safe and helpful results to improve the health of TRICARE beneficiaries.

Why does TMA think it has to do all of this to prove something that likely is already proven by CMS?  What does TMA think makes a CMS patient different than a TRICARE patient?  If these lab tests are helping save Medicare or Medicaid lives under CMS, does TRICARE not think they can do the same for TRICARE lives, as if the payor source of the tests changes the outcomes?  It it ludicrous.

The only reason TRICARE is doing this is because the Code of Federal Regulations has divergent rules that permit the same federal government from paying or not paying for the same exact tests under different health benefit programs!  It is just a government red tape issue and not anything to do with proven and effective health care!

Why couldn’t the Department of Defense and TMA just ask for an executive order to cut through the red tape of the regulatory mismatching that makes the same exact tests being able to be covered under Medicare but not TRICARE go away?

Think about it.   A TRICARE beneficiary becomes Medicare eligible at 65.  So what is so magic about a lab test all of a sudden being proven as safe and reliable for good health outcomes when the person’s benefit plan eligibility changes from TRICARE as primary payor to Medicare?  It is all red tape driven.  Cut the red tape and save patients time and save taxpayers money.
If it is good for the federal government to fund payment under Medicare, why not make it good for the federal government to fund payment under TRICARE and vice versa?  Fixing this issue now rather than doing a costly and wasteful demonstration project will certainly go a long way towards removing any skepticism that I have regarding the White House’s boasting on making government more efficient in the 21st century.

Daily Press Editorial Staff Knows Truth About Our Unhealthy Dependence on Government

The message is clear and many citizens have known this problem for years. So now what do we do? http://www.dailypress.com/news/opinion/dp-edt-spending-editorial-20120708,0,2415744.story

Obama Care Gets its Day in Court and a Few Other Things on My Mind

My writing has slowed quite dramatically this past month or so.  It seems that not much is really happening that inspires me to write.  I mean, how much can any body rail against socialism and big government before it becomes redundant? So what else is there to write?

Things taking place now for which I am paying attention none the less are:

• Supreme Court hearing the constitutionality of Obama Care.  Hopefully they will find limits to the government’s powers with respect to the commerce clause.  Once they find it legal to compel an individual to have to purchase something from a private entity, then I am sure our constitutional republic is dead.  Charles Krauthammer’s recent article call Obama Care: The Reckoning has me so very optimistic.
• The stock market and its pointless fluttering day in and day out.  Maybe the above will cause it to do something – anything to give an indication of where this economy is headed.  I still harbor convictions that holding gold and silver are necessary to not falling prey to the federal reserves  monetary policy.
• The reconstitution of the York County Republican Committee here in Virginia.  I have left the committee in protest the last 2 bienniums as a result of the committee refusing to admonish the big government embracing on the part of supposed limited government members of the party (see https://livinghereinamerica.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/the-necessary-evil-of-local-gop-party-politics-to-engage-or-not-to-engage/ )  The Committee has a pro-Ron Paul supporter who is running for the chairmanship and there a numerous pro-Constitutional and Ron Paul supporters looking to make the party more conservative in terms of limited government than the other times I participated.
• The remaining period of free agency in the NFL
• The NCAA final four
• The NFL Draft

So as the above plays out, I lay low.  I get up, go to work, come home, enjoy some rest and relaxation with my family and do it again…wondering how long all of it is going to last.

Sovereign Citizens, the Watchful Eye of the FBI, and the Founding Fathers

Recent news accounts like this of the FBI’s announcement that it has concerns with people who claim themselves to be Sovereign Citizens evokes thoughts of our country’s founding.  The patriots who were associated with country’s founding fathers had to consider the threat of apprehension by the authorities when they were contemplating whether or not to break free from the rule of King George and Great Britain.  It is no small thing to break free from an established government.  That is why the American Revolution was so historic in the annals of human history.

Sovereign Citizens have taken a different interpretation of current prevailing viewpoints of what it means to be an American and living in the United States. In essence, they seem to want to separate themselves from the current laws of the land and live by a different set of rules from the mainstream citizens.  They appear to describe the current laws as illegitimate when pitted against the rights American are described as having as written in the Constitution.  In the video that runs on their website, the woman makes a reference to the USA as a corporation to which the Sovereign Citizens do not want to participate.  I have come across other references about this Corporation over the years and have been interested in learning more about it but then abandoning the issue altogether due to time constraints and thoughts about what does it really matter any way?  Maybe the Sovereign Citizens just had more time and interest in seeing what it is all about.  I am not sure.

Today in the year 2012, the vast majority of citizens are law abiding taxpayers of which many have serious concerns and objections about how our elected / appointed representatives are managing our national, state, and local governments.  It would be members of this segment of American society who organized the Tea Party and /or might be active in the Libertarian political party.  Many people who follow the current rules of the  electoral and political system have expended a good many years of their lives and personal resources to try and get more Constitutionally compliant leaders into government at all levels.

Anybody who has followed American political events over the past 70 years knows that the Republicans and Democrats backed by highly financed special interest groups have claimed wins in most if not all major political campaigns for public office.  It would be very frustrating for any normal person to begin to think that there has to be a better way to push back the problem of the wrong people being elected to run the government because they have what appears to be an inappropriate ability to wield greater influence than a majority of most individual citizens in the election.

Maybe that is what led to this group that calls themselves Sovereign Citizens.  When I think of them and why they do what they do, there is a part of me that can sort of relate and understand and maybe even agree with the rationale as to why they would want to “not play by the rules” of the prevailing form of government.

Let me be clear, I do not condone violence and aggression against other people including the lawful authorities.  That noted, for purposes of trying to understand their behavior and actions so as to learn and maybe improve the situation that is causing the FBI to escalate their surveillance of this group, perhaps Sovereign Citizens simply have more courage to push back and defend themselves from the government in a fashion that based on their political beliefs, can lead to what looks like violence and aggression against the State.

Obviously there is a stigma that mainstream society attaches to people who are members of such fringe groups.  But I get a sense that the fringe is growing.  Maybe the Sovereign Citizens are just an early version, a way-out in-front organized group ahead of the game.  Sooner or later it seems inevitable that more and more supposedly Free People who have become frustrated with their government run amok would form in this coalesced fashion if unable to realize the changes they see as being needed to save their way of life because of a corrupted and unconstitutional electoral and political system and government.

What I wrote above does not seem to differ much with what Thomas Jefferson and the Founders had to wrestle with when they decided to break free from Great Britain.  On the outset of the Revolutionary War, they wrote and affirmed with sacred honor the Declaration of Independence.  The words below from that historic document tied to our country’s founding seem to mimic in some part at least, to what might be compelling the Sovereign Citizens to opt out of the current rule of law.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Framed in this light, are the Sovereign Citizens really that bad or just that misunderstood by the current authorities?

Daily Press Editorial Staff Continues to Impress

Make it two consecutive days that the Daily Press editorial team has impressed me.  Yesterday they wrote of the recent failure on the part of the GOP.  (See immediate preceding blog post).

Today, they share their criticism of the York County Board of Supervisors / administrator for announcing a real estate tax hike on already financially reeling citizen tax payers.  I could not agree more with their admonishment.

Digby Solomon the publisher and Rebeeca Troyer the Editor of the editorial page both deserve credit and positive acknowledgement for their willingness to provide relevant and provoking commentary that is so unlike the majority of mainstream media outlets.

The societal struggles we currently face are doomed to perpetuate unless leaders of our communities are willing to boldly face the brutal facts of our current situation and bring light to the problems  when they need to be aired.  What Mr. Solomon and Ms. Troyer are doing with their editorials the last two days is nothing short of heroic leadership for their community.  I hope they continue to be a leading voice of reason as it will spark the debates needed to advance the solutions.

Here is their opinion today.  http://www.dailypress.com/news/opinion/dp-edt-yorkbudget-editorial-20120222,0,1773062.story

Daily Press Editorial: RIP, GOP Republican Party….

…needs to come to its senses; right now it’s circling the drain

http://www.dailypress.com/news/opinion/dp-edt-ripgop-editorial-20120221,0,7473479.story

How refreshing to see a major media source that shares my very Libertarian like opinion.  Before too long, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them giving Ron Paul more attention.

Capitalism Magazine – “Francisco’s Money Speech” from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged

We all tend to have unfinished or uninitiated activities or tasks or things that we would like to get around to doing some day.  If we had the luxury of all the time in the world, we could continually keep from doing today what we would hope could be put off until tomorrow.  Unfortunately, we know all too well that none of us is promised tomorrow.  During the year 2010, one particular as yet to be completed task on my list was beginning to gnaw at me.  I had yet to read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

Someone carrying not yet completed desired to-do tasks around in their mind was popularized as a person having a”Bucket List”.  This came about several years ago after actors Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson teamed up on the big screen to make a movie about two aging men and the stories behind them acting out some of the activities on their list of things to do.

As a liberty minded individualist who first learned about Atlas Shrugged years ago from my good friend Gerry back when I was just starting high school,  I grew into adulthood simply thinking that I did not have the time to read it.  How silly of me.

Once I finally got a copy and started reading it just 2 years ago, what I once thought was going to be a labored read turned into a labor of love with the book. The labor was simply the time needed to read it.  Once started, I found I could not put the book down.  It was both a philosophical work and an adventure story all rolled into one.  Like most other things we procrastinate from doing, I found and made time to read it once I realized I enjoyed it.  How silly of me to put it off in favor of what I thought was my busy schedule.

My reading sessions turned into an escape of sorts.  I completed it in about 2-3 weeks, taking about an hour or so daily.  Looking back at the time, Atlas Shrugged served as a balm of sorts for what ailed me insofar as my complete sullied attitude and morale relating to the bad economy, our federal debt, President Obama’s and Harry Reid’s and Nancy Pelosi’s individual health care mandate in the Affordable Healthcare Act, the wars and our country’s overall malaise.  Reading this book helped me see that these problems that are in part based on collectivism and statism are not new.  Ayn Rand wrote of them in the 1950’s.  It helped me refocus my mind as to how I might better cope with what seems the the degradation of our free society.  In many respects, it had me rethink about dedicating some time to writing this blog.

One of my favorite parts of the book was Francisco’s money speech.  Not coincidentally, other readers must also have enjoyed it, as it was very easy to find numerous references to it with a simple google search.  I have provided the link to it below so that it might serve as a primer of sorts for you.  After reading it, maybe reading Atlas Shrugged will be something that you will add to your bucket list.     This topic of sound money is very appropriate for our times.  Many mainstream economists are proclaiming that the recession is ending and that our economy is headed in the right direction. Those of us who look at the economy through the lens of the Austrian school of thought think otherwise.  The threat of a third round of quantitative easing looms and with it, our beloved freedoms take even more of a beating.  Candidate Ron Paul holds the issue of sound monetary policy as a main component of his platform for restoring America.

Please take a moment and read Ayn Rand’s views on money, as told by one of her amazing characters, Francisco D’Anconia.  And as usual, thanks for reading my thoughts here at Wake Up America!

Capitalism Magazine – “Francisco’s Money Speech”

Liberty Call Out: Please Join Me in Making Monthly Downsize DC Foundation Donations

The other day I received my IRS approved tax contribution statement for 2011 from the Downsize DC Foundation.  Money I send to them as a donation to help them in their wonderfully successful initiatives to defend my Liberty is tax deductible.

Take a look at some of their latest success.  http://www.downsizedc.org/blog/you-won-in-the-supreme-court

I am so pleased and enthused with how well Jim Babka and James Wilson and their team at Downsize DC are spending my donations on behalf of liberty that I am prepared to urge others to join me as a donor to their Downsize DC Foundation.  In fact, I will increase my already existing monthly  $20 pledge by $1 for every new person who signs up to make at least a $20 monthly recurring donation to the Downsize DC Foundation.  Here is the link to set it all up.  https://secure.downsizedcfoundation.org/contribute/

My offer to increase my donation by $1 for every new donor will last until 11:59 pm ET on Thursday night February 9, 2012.  Please post a comment to this post right here on my Wake Up America blog to let me and others know that you arranged an online recurring monthly pledge.  I will confirm it with the folks at the Downsize DC Foundation and then gladly match your joining the effort by increasing my monthly pledge by $1.  With any luck, my efforts with your help will result in 20 new people pledging to make monthly tax deductible donations.

Please note: On the slight chance that this modest goal is exceeded, I might need to cap the increase  as to how much more I can match.  My family is far from wealthy but we desire to contribute our money to the cause of liberty and would hope that others will join us.

Once again, here is the link to set it all up.   https://secure.downsizedcfoundation.org/contribute/

Thanks in advance and I remain yours in Liberty.

Robert E. Lehman

Obama is Fixing Economy? Homeowner Mortgages Continue to Default Leading to Foreclosure Proceedings

Today’s online and print versions of the Daily Press newspaper show a still astonishingly high number of public notices for property mortgage foreclosures.  http://classifieds.dailypress.com/classifieds?category=public_notice

I am a bit confounded as thought I recalled the President indicating during his State of the Union Address last month that his economic recovery plan was working.  There is similarly positive indices posted at the various National Associate of Home Builders websites.  http://eyeonhousing.wordpress.com/ and http://www.nahb.org/default.aspx . Apparently, news of the recovery in progress has not yet reached my community’s housing market.

Today’s 30-year fixed rate are still hovering just over the all-time lowest rates at 4.00%.  http://www.bankrate.com/mortgage.aspx

So why are so many people here still going facing foreclosure when there is a chance to save the property by doing a refinance to a much more affordable rate?  There could be a number of reasons.  Maybe they are unemployed.  Maybe the appraised value of the property has plummeted and they are very much upside down.  Regardless, if one small metropolitan service area such as the lower Peninsula of the Hampton Roads area of Virginia (Cities of Newport News, Hampton, Poquoson, Williamsburg, and counties of York and Gloucester) has 128 published foreclosure notices then clearly the economy is not yet on the road to recovery.

Call me confused and dumbfounded.  Or better yet a skeptic. I am that same guy who also thinks the stock markets are oversold and headed for a steep decline.  But that’s another post for another day.

The Public Education Crisis in America – What Are We Going to Do to Fix It?

Public school reform seems to be on people’s minds this week.  There is no denying we have problems with the quality of our educational system these days.  I am reminded regularly by such things as The Tonight Show’s “Jay Walking” segments.  If you haven’t seen them, they are uncomfortably laughable interviews where Jay asks random passersby what amounts to basic high school level knowledge and/or trivia questions. It is a revealing look into just how far the average American has fallen in terms of knowledge and awareness of current events, what they find important, etc.  It is actually quite a sad telling of the state of education in the United States of America.

This past Friday evening, February 3, 2012, my good friend Gerry shared with me and others this youtube video regarding the state of education in a Washington school.  I have mentioned Gerry in other posts here at Wake Up.  Gerry has been my mother’s “boyfriend” since I was about ten years old.  Whether he wanted to or not, he played a key role in me holding the views I do today regarding the government and liberty.

So he sends this video without any other commentary.  Just the link.

My reply:

Maybe we should budget more federal tax dollars toward public education.  That will help these students learn.
We need more teachers, more computers in the class rooms, and more more more.  Hopefully the U.S. Dept. of Education will introduce more federal laws to help the miserable states’ and localities get their educational systems in order.

Then his reply:

Robert,

You surprise me…you seem to be thinking like a Dim-ocrat.  For Progressives whenever a gubmint program isn’t working it’s not because it’s a stupid program it’s because they haven’t spent enough $’s.  So their solution is to spend even more on the program.

In this particular case…the feral gubmint should budget less (or none) tax dollars [not more] towards public education and reduce (or eliminate) feral education laws [not introduce more].  As John Stossel’s recent special on education easily demonstrated private education costs less for the taxpayer, results in better paid teachers and ends up with significantly better educated students and test scores.

Gerry    

PS.  On the other hand…your email may be totally sarcastic.  If so, I apologize.  As I often told you “I have a hard time recognizing sarcasm”.  <Emoticon3.gif>

To which I responded:

Ger,I thought for sure that you knew me much better than that!  My reply was indeed 100% SARCASM.  The federal government putting more public resources towards the issue is the exact problem not the solution.  Poor progressives fail to recognize the negative self reinforcing feedback loop with their non-stop willingness to put education under greater and greater central control.  What the USA needs is an incentive for taxpayers to opt their kids out of public schools.  Or at the very least, a dissolution of U.S. Dept of Education in order to free the states to use their resources as their citizens see fit.  The feds penalizing states for not adhering to the ridiculous educational mandates of Big Brother is wrong and is a 10th amendment issue if ever there was one.  Sadly there are no more checks and balances to separate the powers between the branches, just one big miserable worthless government run amok and digging us into a deeper hole..I served you up the “gopher ball” and you did just as I was hoping.  You hit it out of the ballpark with the exact response I was hoping to see.  On more positive note, it looks like Ron Paul and his ideals are catching on to more and more people this coming election cycle.

Yours in Liberty,

Rob

Leading to this reply from Gerry’s 92 year old father who is one of may 10 others on the distribution.  His Dad Ray is a very loving, decent and kind man who happens to be a self professed socialist / liberal.  We engage in these types of exchanges all the time:

ALL THIS GRIPING AND ALL THE WHILE THE ECONOMY IS STEADILY IMPROVING. SAIL ON BELOVED BELOVED SHIP. SAIL ON TO GREATER AND GREATER HEIGHTS. 

RAY

Apparently, this is an issue on other peoples’ minds as well.  Here is my reply back to the group as of this morning.

Our exchange of opinions on this issue these past few days is not exclusive to us.  The Daily Press newspaper down here in Hampton Roads, VA had this as its  published Editorial this past Saturday.

http://www.dailypress.com/news/opinion/dp-edt-schoolchoice-editorial-20120204,0,5492520.story

dailypress.com

An argument for school choice

9:26 PM EST, February 4, 2012

In the world of business, when one company has a monopoly on the market, there is less incentive to be effective or efficient. Healthy competition, on the other hand, fosters growth and success.

The same can be applied to educational systems.

Providing alternatives that create competition for traditional public schools is but one of the compelling reasons Virginia should consider school choice, a movement that would help parents select the best option for their children’s education, particularly those who are frustrated by declining or stagnant performance at their local schools.

The traditional model, in which government provides everyone with a “free education” generously underwritten by the taxpayers, might be sufficient if school performance were consistently high, most dollars were devoted to direct instruction, and the best teachers were rewarded and the weakest let go.

But that isn’t the case today.

And throwing more money at the problem — which we’ve continued to do even though it hasn’t worked — is impractical due to falling state tax revenues and reductions in federal support.

Many states are by necessity undertaking reforms aimed at correcting the deeply entrenched obstacles to improvement by adopting merit pay and contractual review policies and by reducing non-instructional budgets. Gov. McDonnell has pushed for such improvements in the current legislative session.

Improving efficiency and shoring up quality and accountability at existing schools has to be at the forefront of Virginia’s educational reforms. But school choice could be an important component, as well.

School choice includes a range of options, both public and private. Public school choices include charter schools, magnet schools and open enrollment plans that allow students to choose among multiple schools within a district or region. Private school options include faith-based and other private schools supported by tuition and donations, virtual schools and home schools.

At a town meeting last week hosted by Hampton University, panel members weighed in on why black Americans especially need to support school choice in their communities. While rich families have always had the opportunity to choose private schools, poor families — who are often stuck in the worst-performing schools — don’t have those options.

As the panelists noted, the best way to get at the problem is to break loose from the notion that school funding is for schools; rather, it is for students. In fact, school funding formulas are based on student population, which can lead to an administration’s protective hold on their students instead of encouraging them to go where there needs could be better met.

School vouchers — payments to parents from public tax funds to be used for a child’s education expenses — allow educational decisions to be made on an individual basis instead of one-size-fits-none. Voucher programs can also be tied to stipulations against discrimination and even include needs-based funding ranges. Arguments that voucher payments to private schools violate the First Amendment and similar state constitutional provisions have been successfully countered with reasoning such as (1) the private schools are not all faith-based and (2) payments are made to parents, not to schools.

And despite the fears that less funding will be available for public schools if vouchers are used, systems that have explored vouchers, such as in Milwaukee, are finding them to be a potentially more efficient way of educational delivery. Since vouchers are typically less than the actual per-student allotment and overhead costs are reduced, schools can actually save money by implementing them.

Going forward, Virginia should continue to monitor and explore the options for school choice, including evaluating the success of existing voucher programs both in terms of costs and performance.

An important caveat: The issues and arguments do not and should not “belong” to any single special-interest group, religion, race, geographic region or political party.  The school choice movement can benefit everyone.

School choice, when combined with significant reform of our public schools, is one way to accomplish a major shift in our dysfunctional educational system. It’s time for a serious look.

Copyright © 2012, Newport News, Va., Daily Press