A New, "New Deal" --An Op-Ed

Mark Brown, Westfield, NJ (~600 words)

(This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.)

Op Ed:

Terrible Problems, Dramatic Solutions. Our country is very sick. Many symptoms afflict the patient. No medical Insurance, Poor wages, an educational mess, and a political system so muddy that power washing couldn't clean.

The real problem is that every thing is intertwined, so you need to solve every problem at once. The Solution is simple. A sweeping series of laws that will help rebuild our country into the powerhouse that it once was.

Too difficult? It's been done before. Franklin Delano Roosevelt called it, "The New Deal". We can call it, The Real Deal, or another way to SAVE OUR SOCIETY!

Many different problems need to be solved and much will need to be discussed about it. There are many areas that jump into our daily lives and conversations. Poverty, Education, Health Care, Youth Training, Rebuilding our infrastructure, and reforming our political system.

Health care is the simplest problem to resolve. A national, single payer system. In order to get this approved, a twenty year phase in period will allow the insurance industry to get used to the idea and lead to a smooth transition.

More difficult, is a living wage. Not a higher minimum wage, but a wage that would actually support a family without requiring seventy-ninety hours of work to make ends meet for a family.

Education begins at home. So does child-care. We need to follow the example of other countries that have shown that improved child care improve the lives of its citizens. Starting at six months, a national system of paid day care will allow all of our children a great head-start on their education.

A minimum of six months of (federally) paid (mixed) maternity/paternity leave will also help our new parents learn to value our new citizens to the fullest extent.

The day care centers, staffed by local workers who are paid a living wage will help ensure that the successes of the original head-start program are shared with these precious cargoes.

These day-care centers will NOT have televisions, that will simply warehouse and babysit children. They WILL help the next generation be ready for school, social settings, reading, math and bi-lingual language well before first grade.

On a national basis, our schools have failed us. Starting this early will help this future generation learn good habits at a very early age, and make them better equipped for school.

It will also help that parents will become a secondary focus, since so many of us need help with some basic skills, no matter how hard we try. Schools, traditionally not a state or federal item, will need more money to help them adjust and train.

Training: Or, what to do with the kids on the street, or in fast-food or minimum wage dead end jobs. We need to turn training sideways, so it will become a key point in a national service corps. Some may not like the concept, but mandatory three year service in either the armed forces, or a domestic service corp will become a new standard for our nation.

Colleges would be the first to object, but that concern will be overcome, when college tuition will be directly paid for by this program. For those people focused enough to know that they want to serve, a new West Point or Annapolis type service academy will train them to lead the new trainers, as well as become leaders in needed professions, such as engineering.

This training or service corps would be the people that might help train inner city youth, or help the national guard fill sandbags to help protect from flooding. Training and service won't be easy for our current kids. We'll need to start with specially structured programs to introduce them to everything, at a gradual pace. Say a one week introduction camp, in third grade which may become a summer, or even a semester, by high school. It will not be easy, but by training and with great effort, we can retool our society so that success can be shared by all.

Remember this; Social Security, the F.D.I.C, the F.C.C, and many other agencies were born in this time period and have served our country for many years.

We CAN rescue our society. We can make it a fairer place for all. It will cost money, but money should not stop us!