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                           Imprimis, On Line
                               June, 1995
        
        IMPRIMIS (im-pri-mis), taking its name from the Latin
        term, "in the first place," is the publication of
        Hillsdale College. Executive Editor, Ronald L.
        Trowbridge; Managing Editor, Lissa Roche; Assistant,
        Patricia A. DuBois. Illustrations by Tom Curtis. The
        opinions expressed in IMPRIMIS may be, but are not
        necessarily, the views of Hillsdale College and its
        External Programs division. Copyright 1995. Permission
        to reprint in whole or part is hereby granted, provided
        a version of the following credit line is used:
        "Reprinted by permission from IMPRIMIS, the monthly
        journal of Hillsdale College." Subscription free upon
        request. ISSN 0277-8432. Circulation 595,000 worldwide,
        established 1972. IMPRIMIS trademark registered in U.S.
        Patent and Trade Office #1563325.
        
             ---------------------------------------------
        
                            Volume 24, No. 6
                           Hillsdale College,
                       Hillsdale, Michigan 49242
                               June 1995
        
             ---------------------------------------------
        
                        "Deinventing Government"
                              by Jeb Bush
               Chairman, Foundation for Florida's Future
        
             ---------------------------------------------
        
        In this issue, Jeb Bush argues that the November 1994
        election was the culmination of the Reagan Revolution.
        But it also marked the beginning of a new revolution--a
        revolution to "deinvent government."  His presentation
        was delivered during Hillsdale's Shavano Institute for
        National Leadership seminar, "Taking on Big Government:
        Agenda for the 1990s" in Dallas last February for over
        500 business and community leaders.
        
             ---------------------------------------------
        
        Much has been said about the November 1994 elections.
        We often hear words like "realignment," "dealignment,"
        "reaction," and "revolution."  The lamentations of
        liberals are matched by the gloating of conservatives.
        Prophecies of doom vie for public attention with
        promises of a new millennium.  But just what is the
        truth?  As with most things, it lies somewhere in
        between.
        
        
                           Liberalism Is Dead
        
        Conservatives are right that something profoundly
        important did happen last November.  The voters
        resoundingly rejected big government liberalism as it
        has been practiced in America for the last sixty years.
        The ideological shift to the right that began with the
        election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 has finally
        triumphed, and the philosophy that created Franklin
        Roosevelt's New Deal and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society
        is finished as a viable vision of the future in this
        country.  Of course, liberalism still has strong
        champions and it will probably enjoy an occasional
        political victory.  But these will be exceptions that
        prove the rule.  Liberalism is no longer credible as a
        wellspring of solutions to the problems we face.  In
        fact, it is widely viewed as the cause of many of those
        problems.
        
            What conservatism and the Republican Party have won
        is the opportunity to fill the vacuum created by the
        abject failure of liberalism.  But with opportunity
        comes risk.  If conservatives fail to fill the vacuum
        effectively, then they may enter a protracted period of
        increased political and social instability as our
        country searches for a new political equilibrium.  A
        lot is at stake in the next few years, and the key to
        success for conservatives lies in fundamentally
        changing the role of government in our lives.
        Government has become too big, too arrogant, and too
        ineffective.  Right now, some 35-45 percent of our
        national income goes to pay for local, state, and
        federal government, and the American people have
        finally said, "Enough!"
        
            The year 1994 proved that "Less Government and More
        Freedom" is a winning slogan at the polls, but the next
        two years will test the resolve of those new to the
        reins of power as they attempt to convert this slogan
        into reality.  While I am confident that success is
        possible because of the visionary leadership of House
        Speaker Newt Gingrich and others, if Republicans merely
        redirect the flow of public largesse from traditional
        Democrat constituencies to traditional Republican
        constituencies, and if they shrink from term limits now
        that their hands are on the levers of power, then the
        American people will have been witnesses to a tawdry
        palace coup rather than a glorious revolution.
        
            And it is a revolution we desperately need.  To
        bring about a genuine political realignment,
        Republicans must kill the Government Goose that Lays
        the Golden Eggs--the very Goose they have fought so
        hard and long to possess.  They must not reinvent
        government; they must deinvent it in order to succeed
        in governing.  In the process, private sector solutions
        to public problems will flow naturally.
        
        
                          Creating a "Crisis"
        
        The difficulties inherent in slowing the rate of growth
        of government, much less actually shrinking it, cannot
        be exaggerated.  Special interests always defend every
        privilege and every expenditure with the same
        determination that the Red Army defended every room in
        every house in Stalingrad during World War II.  As long
        as there are alternatives to the intense political pain
        that comes with progress toward a smaller government,
        politicians will eagerly seize  upon them.
        
            We need to create a "crisis" that will ensure that
        there are no alternatives to less government.  In the
        case of the federal government, a constitutional
        requirement for a balanced budget is just such a
        crisis.  In my opinion, it is also the most crucial
        element of the Republican "Contract with America,"
        because, if passed, it will force Congress and the
        administration to make tough choices.  Reform, like
        invention, must be mothered by necessity.
        
            In the long term, however, a balanced budget is not
        the ultimate solution to the problem of runaway
        government.  Witness the growth of government in states
        like Florida and Texas where balanced budgets are the
        law of the land.  In those states, the crisis necessary
        to deinvent government must come from reducing the
        unrestricted flow of tax dollars that fuels wasteful
        spending.  This reduction can be achieved by
        constitutionally requiring voter ap-proval or a
        supermajority of both houses of the legislature for all
        new taxes and tax increases.
        
            But in Washington, the annual federal deficit is so
        huge that a balanced budget requirement alone would
        create the fiscal crisis needed to begin the process of
        deinventing government.  The mysterious Watergate
        informant known as "Deep Throat" had it right when he
        told reporters Woodward and Bernstein, "Follow the
        money."  Money is the key to the growth of big
        government, and the lack of it is the tool with which
        smaller and more efficient government can be fashioned.
        
        
                                Fairness
        
        How will this intentionally created crisis be resolved?
        First among the three principles to resolving the
        crisis is fairness.  By this term, I mean prioritizing
        expenditures through program reductions or eliminations
        based on a coherent theory of the proper functions of
        government, not on the identity of the beneficiaries of
        the programs in question.  To declare budgetary war on
        welfare programs for the poor while continuing welfare
        for those who are not poor (in the form of subsidies,
        tariff protections, and special tax breaks that benefit
        specific taxpayers rather than the general public) is
        not just bad public policy, it is just plain wrong.
        
            Let me give you specific examples from my own
        backyard. I am an advocate of strictly limiting welfare
        to two years, barring mental or physical disabilities.
        At the same time, I also am an advocate of phasing out
        the price support system for South Florida's sugar
        growers that protect them from competition in the
        global marketplace. And for the same reason, I oppose
        the expansion of health care welfare of the type
        proposed by President Clinton and Florida's Governor
        Lawton Chiles, while I support free trade agreements
        such as NAFTA and GATT which might temporarily hurt
        Florida business but will have a net positive effect
        for our state over the long term.
        
            U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has it right
        when he says we need to do something about corporate
        welfare if we are going to lower the boom on
        traditional welfare.  And if we are going to avoid
        letting the conservative revolution deteriorate into a
        self-serving palace coup, then Republicans must take
        the lead in ensuring that the deinvention of government
        is rational, equitable, and principled.
        
        
                       Individual Responsibility
        
        The second principle of resolving the crisis that will
        help deinvent government is individual responsibility.
        Too often what we really mean when we talk about "Less
        Government and More Freedom" is that we want the other
        guy to get his face out of the public trough so we can
        continue our own feeding binge.  This is a perverted
        concept of reform.  Over half a century ago, Senator
        Russell Long wryly observed that the average person's
        notion of a good tax policy is, "Don't tax thee, don't
        tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree."  Today, the
        average person is likely to add, "Don't cut thee, don't
        cut me, cut that fellow's program behind the tree."
        
            I do not believe that selfishness disguised as
        reform is going to work anymore.  If we want less
        government, we have to be prepared to demand less of it
        for ourselves as well as for others.  And we have to
        let our elected representatives in Congress and the
        administration know that we will not only support them
        when they cut popular programs but that we will vote
        them out of office if they succumb to demands for
        protecting special interests.
        
            "Less Government and More Freedom" must be more
        than a slogan for all of us.  In his 1941 book, Escape
        from Freedom, German-born psychoanalyst Erich Fromm
        commented that it is easier to talk about freedom than
        it is to live free by being responsible for one's self
        and by accepting the consequences of one's actions.
        Fromm knew, of course, that people generally prefer
        personal security to true freedom.  Almost two
        centuries earlier, U.S. President Thomas Jefferson
        stated, "The natur-al progress of things is for liberty
        to yield and government to gain ground."  Fromm and
        Jefferson were both right: the combination of the
        allure of security and the tendency of government to
        usurp power is the single most powerful obstacle to our
        liberty.  Living free is hard work, and it requires
        sacrifice and courage from all of us.
        
        
                         Intellectual Audacity
        
        The final characteristic for which we should strive in
        deinventing government is intellectual audacity.  We
        must rethink the role of government in the Information
        Age.  What should government be doing today?  How do we
        measure success and failure?  In the current
        environment of fundamental change, we also have the
        golden opportunity to ask: "If we weren't doing it this
        way, would we do it at all?"  Many times, the answer
        would be "No," or, at least we would admit that we
        would do it very differently.
        
            One of the most serious challenges our society
        faces today, substance abuse treatment and
        rehabilitation, provides a good illustration of what I
        mean.  Programs are considered to work "well" if they
        have success rates above 50 percent.  But most don't;
        in fact, the overwhelming majority have cure rates
        below 20 percent if "cure" is defined as a five-year
        period following treatment without a relapse.  If the
        goal is to combat substance abuse, then might not a
        more effective strategy be to divert treatment funds to
        the few programs that do work and to prevention
        programs which have a proven higher rate of success?
        
            In Florida, increased funding has gone into
        residential programs for habitual juvenile offenders
        who have committed felonies.  Costs can be as high as
        $150 a day, and yet the recidivism rates exceed 75
        percent.  Thus the annual cost for a young person
        successfully completing one of these programs and not
        violating the law for one year afterwards can exceed
        $180,000.  Shouldn't we challenge the notion of
        attempting to "save" a young person in costly
        government programs after their thirtieth crime and
        focus our resources on less costly private programs
        closer to the first   crime committed?
        
            We also spend billions of dollars on scores of
        training programs funded by huge bureaucracies at the
        local, state, and federal level to combat unemployment.
        Yet most studies show that the best training program is
        a job.  Isn't it time that we recognize that training
        should no longer be a formula-driven exercise?
        Shouldn't training be determined instead by what real
        jobs are available, and shouldn't the programs be run
        by the businesses that will hire the newly trained
        workers?
        
            It is not easy to sustain the intellectual audacity
        needed to challenge every basic assumption of
        government.  The entrenched bureaucracies, the
        political correctness of our times, and the false
        compassion that is measured by the amount of money
        spent rather than results attained are powerful forces
        for the status quo.  But, deinvention will not happen
        without just such audacity. Private Sector Solutions
        Once we have created the crisis and have steeled
        ourselves to resolve it with fairness, individual
        responsibility, and intellectual audacity, what are
        some of the things that might actually be done better
        outside government?
        
            Education is clearly an area where private sector
        involvement will bring improved efficiency and greater
        learning opportunities for our children.   Public
        education is perhaps the most archaic of all systems
        managed by government.  The school calendar reflects
        the Agricultural Age.  The system for service delivery
        is a classic top-down, centralized anachronism of the
        Industrial Age.
        
            The solution to the problems posed by the public
        school monopoly is the same as the solution to the
        problems posed by any monopoly: competition.  But
        competition does not have to come just from private
        education; it can come from inside the system itself.
        With the implementation of independent public or
        "charter" schools, teachers can opt out of collective
        bargaining agreements and have the freedom to teach in
        their own way.  Hundreds of onerous rules and mandates
        can be waived and administrators can once again control
        their own institutions and experiment with new ideas.
        Parents can freely choose the school that best suits
        the needs of their children.
        
            Charter schools can be established by almost any
        group--parents, educators, social service providers,
        businesses, or law enforcement agencies.  They have to
        take all comers, charge no tuition, and comply with all
        health and safety requirements.  They are also
        contractually obligated to achieve certain performance
        levels negotiated in advance with local school boards.
        When parents move their children into these newly
        invigorated schools, power inevitably shifts to the
        classroom and to the teachers.  It is a direct response
        to competition, and it represents a shift away from the
        entrenched bureaucracies that stifle innovation in our
        most important public service.  Charter schools do not
        destroy public education, they make it better.
        
            Our criminal justice system is also an obvious
        target for privatization.  Our prison population has
        doubled in recent years, and we are spending billions
        of dollars on prison construction and operation each
        year.  But, according to a number of independent
        estimates, partial privatization could save an
        incredible sum--as much as 10-20 percent.
        
            And it is high time for the private sector to
        regain control over what the government calls,
        euphemistically, "children's services."  It is
        unconscionable that our society tolerates the
        abandonment, neglect, and abuse of so many children.
        Government is neither equipped nor entitled to assume
        the role of mother, father, therapist, teacher,
        policeman, and nurse. It has failed in every instance
        in which it has tried to do so.  We need to consider
        privatizing our foster care system, restoring parental
        rights, and streamlining adoption laws, especially
        those allowing multiracial adoptions.  Children don't
        need "Big Nanny" anymore than adults need "Big
        Brother."  They need stable families that will love and
        care for them.
        
        
                      Will It Sell in Plant City?
        
        Recently, I attended an event hosted by a leading
        think-tank on the cutting edge of the GOP's
        "revolution."  The attendees exuded the passion and
        starry-eyed enthusiasm of having just come off the
        greatest political win in their lifetime.  I can't say
        that I blame them.  But the revolution hasn't made it
        to Plant City, Florida yet--or to Petoskey, Michigan--
        or to Midland, Texas, or to tens of thousands of other
        towns.
        
            We mustn't assume that we are going to deinvent
        government solely from inside the Beltway or within one
        or two sessions of Congress.  We will do it one step at
        a time, in one community at a time--at the local level
        and through local institutions like churches, non-
        profit and volunteer organizations, and families.  And
        if we succeed, we won't just be rolling back big
        government; we will be laying the groundwork for an
        even greater revolution, one that bears witness to the
        awesome power of American ideals.
        
             ---------------------------------------------
        
        Jeb Bush is the son of a former U.S. president and the
        brother of the recently elected governor of Texas.  In
        1994, his bid for public office in Florida generated
        national media attention.  Although he lost the
        governor's race, he won the admiration and respect of
        countless Americans for his forthright and
        uncompromising defense of a conservative agenda,
        including tax cuts, school choice, welfare reform,
        privatization, and the restoration of traditional
        values.
        
            His career began in the 1970s in the banking
        industry, and in the 1980s, he entered the real estate
        business, helping to build the Codina-Bush Group into
        the largest full service commercial real estate company
        in South Florida.  For two years, he also served as
        Florida's Secretary of Commerce.  Currently, Mr. Bush
        is Chairman of the Foundation for Florida's Future.
        
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