OpenGov - Open Government Brainstorm

Governance Reform—Coalition Approach, State Power, More Ethics

“America can’t be governed by one man and his buddies—it takes a coalition team.

The world, and America, have gotten too complex to rely on a single President being elected, and then leaving the rest of the team up to his preferences. America needs to see a candidate for President that has both the courage and the “big tent” philosophy of non-partisan teamwork to pre-select and offer for inspection as part of their two-year campaign, a complete Cabinet. The process of devising a Coalition Cabinet should start now. A leader of a multi-party team, with a landslide popular and electoral vote behind them, should be able to carry out this comprehensive reform agenda that puts the power back in the people, and common sense back into a down-sized government.

Emphasizing the need to use federal funding to empower state & local governments with respect to intelligence & counterintelligence could also set the stage for proposing new national initiatives for elementary and secondary education as well as public health across America. Thomas Jefferson said “A Nation’s best defense is an educated citizenry.” The people of this Nation are its seed corn, and we must tend these fields. Every American should receive the same high-quality education, regardless of the prevailing real estate values that now fund vastly disparate levels of education. At the same time, some form of universal health insurance is needed, not only to cover the uninsured, but also to liberate America’s workers from their dependence on corporate health plans that constrain job mobility and innovation. Finally, we must dramatically re-invigorate our preventive medicine and public health programs to lower the costs to the taxpayer and our families of disease—including animal-borne epidemics—that could have been prevented in the first place.

At the same time, we need a candidate who is very strong on ethics—America suffers when their leadership is perceived by both the people and the international public as being “in the pockets of” big oil or big pharmaceutical companies, or other special interests. The right candidate, with a proven mind of their own, can make the economic case for ethics. A Nobel Prize was awarded for a demonstration that trust lowers the cost of doing business. Ethics is pro-business and pro-consumer at the same time.

Finally, we need a candidate and a team that can change the paradigm of the Presidency—our new President should plan to spend more time on “Seventh Generation” challenges that bear directly on the future of the entire world as well as the future security and prosperity of America seven generations out, and less time on top-level day to day Executive matters. The new Vice President should spend two thirds of their time actually managing the government, and one third training to be President in the future.

All this puts power back in the hands of the people, while tackling the tough issues head on.