THEY CRAWL OUT OF THE WOODWORK

By H. N. Burdett

There seems to be no end to the paranoia, to the abject lunacy, to the rhetorical equivalent of howling at the moon, that can be induced by a multi-million dollar negative advertising campaign to convince the citizenry to take a stand against its own best interests. The streets of this great nation are filled with polite, clean-cut, hard-working individuals, who would make our Founding Fathers proud of the cause of liberty and justice, a land guided by the rule of law to which they pledged their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor. When I travel overseas, I often think that perhaps it is something in the water on our side of the pond that every so often accounts for such wide-scale, wholesale bizarre behavior. The kind of behavior that begets the Ku Klux Klan, the John Birch Society, the Tea Party. I find myself taking stock of the people I meet and wondering which and how many would allow themselves to be so blind-sided, so manipulated by forces driving a shameful agenda of hate and violence for the purpose of wresting power. And then I recall that 75 to 80 years ago there was a ridiculous, though undeniably charismatic little man whose madness led him from the beer halls of Munich to turning half of the world upside down. Following is the latest example of what comes crawling out of the woodwork to infest our national dialogue with their pitifully deranged worldviews.


Microchipping: Hidden Agenda Of New Health Care Legislation

The new Health Care Bill, H.R. 3200, just passed by Congress has within it the requirement that all people thereunder shall be microchiped. The plans for this microchipping has been in the hooper going back to December of 2004.

Witness the actual FDA (Food and Drug Administration) document dated December 10, 2004 entitled “Class II Special Guidance Document: Implantable Radiofrequency Transponder System for Patient Identification and Health Information. This ten page document may be read on the FDA website at
http://www.fda.gov/downloads/MedicalDevices/DeviceRegulationandGuidance/GuidanceDocuments/ucm072191.pdf

Now witness the wording within H.R. 3200, “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009” found on Congresses’ House Ways and Means website,
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/111/AAHCA09001xml.pdf

On page 1001 is “Subtitle C – National Medical Device Registry” which states,

“The Secretary shall establish a national medical device registry (in this subsection referred to as the ‘registry’) to facilitate analysis of postmarket safety and outcomes data on each device that … is or has been used in or on a patient…”

In other words, everyone microchipped pursuant to the new Health Care Bill must be registered with the Secretary. The “Secretary” is defined as the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

The date by which this registry is to begin is mandated on page 1006, which is 36 months after the Health Bill becomes law.

(2) EFFECTIVE DATE. – The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall establish and begin implementation of the registry under section 519(g) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, as added by paragraph (1) by not later than the date that is 36 months after the date of the enactment of this Act, without regard to whether of not final regulations to establish and operate the registry have been promulgated by such date.

Therefore, under the law of H.R. 3200 recently passed by Congress, microchipping of Americans must begin by the year 2013.

I cite to my often quoted Biblical Scripture in Revelation 13:16 and 17, “And he [the AntiChrist] causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”

Numerous times I have stated that our current Income Tax system shall be replaced with a tax upon all trade, and that everyone will have automatically deducted from every transaction of buying and selling a tax. But this tax is not the significant part. Along with this government-granted “privilege” of buying and selling, will be the required worship of the Man of Sin, that every knee shall bow and that every tongue shall confess that he is god to the glory of himself. Those refusing shall be certainly executed post haste!

Now you know what is behind the new Health Bill, H.R. 3200.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq3vtjXEGy8&NR=1

Ron Branson
JAIL4Judges
Judicial Accountability Initiative Law
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IRAQ : CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

The 2003 invasion of Iraq and the conflict in that country fostered the rise of Iranian power in the region, but with more limitations than is commonly acknowledged. It also diminished confidence in U.S. credibility and created opportunities for China and Russia, according to a RAND Corporation study.

According to the study, the seven-year conflict in Iraq has entrenched and strengthened neighboring Arab governments while diminishing the momentum for political reform in those countries.

Researchers also find the Iraq war undermined al-Qa'ida's standing in the region and forced the network to adapt new teechniques and strategies.

"No matter how the internal situation in Iraq evolves, the war's effect on the broader region will be felt for decades," said Frederic Wehrey, the report's co-leader and an adjunct senior policy analyst at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "These emerging trends present a number of challenges for the United States, but also opportunities."

Prior to the Iraq invasion, the regional balance of power in te Middle East involved both Arab powers and Iran. Today that balance has shifted to Iran. As a result, the post-Saddam view in Arab capitals is of Iran's inexorable rise -- but little consensus exists between Arab states about how to deal with their new chalenges.

Instead of a purely confrontational stance toward Iran, Arab diplomacy has incorporated elements of containment, accommodation, engagement and hedging.

The post-invasion diplomatic disarray also created new openings for Russia and China. Both nations are positioning themselves to supplement the traditional U.S.-led regional security, with some Arab leaders welcoming this development as a check against unrestrained U.S. hegemony.

Domestic liberalization in the region has also suffered a blow since 2003 as a turning point in
reform, with authoritarian rulers sensing reduced American interest in the domestic affairs of Arab states and a return to Cold War style balancing politics against Iran.

While the Iraq war served as an initial 'boon to al-Qa'ida, offering a compelling opportunity to combat defensive jihad against an occupying force, the abhorrent tactics by al Qa'ida in Iraq -- spearheaded by Abu Mus'ad al Zarqawi -- caused many supporters to turn against the movement.

To better position itself in the Middle East, the study recommends that the United States accept that it's allies in the region prefer to hedge and accommodate Iran, rather than pursue efforts to balance Iran's power.

"An anti-Iran alliance is not only unrealistic, but may backfire by bolstering Iranian hardliners at a time of unprecedented factionalism and escalating regional tensions," said Dalia Dassa Kaye, a senior p;olitical scientists at RAND and a co-leader of the study. "The United States should provide security support for key regional allies, but it should be bilateral and low-key to avoid the impression that Washington is creating a Cold War style security organization arrayed against Iran."

The study offers several other key recommendations, including:

• Explore multilateral security and confidene building measures among Iran and its neighbors. Such efforts can focus on counterterrorism, narcotics trafficking, maritime security and other areas of common interest.
• Harness China and Russia niche interess to promote regional economic growth and stability.
• Encourage Arab regimes to support incremental, but meaningful, political reform as part of a long-term push to counter radicaization and ensure the viability of key U.S. partners in the region.
• Strengthen U.S. relations with Turkehy and leverage its unique role as geopolitical bridge to mediate betwen Syria, Iran, and the Arab world.

The study, "The Iran Effect: The Middle East After the Iraq War," can be found at http://www.rand.org/ . Other authors of the study are Jessica Watkins, Jeffrey Martini and Robert E. Guffey.

The study was prepared by RAND Project AIR FORCE, a federally funded rsearch and development center for studies and analysis aimed at providing independent policy alternatives for the U.S. Air Force.

Tje RAMD Corporaion is a nonprofit research or oganization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world.

NEOCONS CAN'T SHAKE COLD WAR MENTALITY

By Nina Hachigian

Robert Kagan's opinion piece in The Washington Post last week was right about one thing - President Barack Obama is indeed moving away from America's national security appproach of 1947. It is about time. That strategy was designed for the Cold War, which we won 20 years ago. It simply cannot work today, as we found out the hard way during the Bush administration's various misadventures around the globe.

To keep Americans safe from the most dire threats, the Obama administration has to work with others. American power would not be enough, even if we had 10 times the enormous amount that we do. And, unfortunately, Amerca does not always get to choose its parners. In Kagan's world, we can solve the most dire and urgent threats with the assistance of our democratic allies alone. If only it were that easy.

But when your house is on fire, you don't get to pick the firefighters. When President Obama inherited a raging financial crisis that threatened to sink the world economy, he turned to the big economies in the Group of 20 nations to coordinate a solution. It's a pipedream to think America could have addressed this crisis without coordinating with Beijing and Delhi in addition to London and Berlin.

In the same vein, we cannot address climate change without China, cannot stem nuclear proliferation to terrorists without Russia, and cannot fight extremist action without Saudi Arabia. President Obama is not trying to improve relations with nondemocracies for the sake of it, as Kagan charge. Instead, the president is engaging them to solve these kinds of problems. American global leadership flows from its efforts to tackle common challenges and expand the common good.

A central challenge for America, then, is to get the major powers, some of which boast values we may not share, to nonetheless step up and support the system the United States created at the endo of World War II to address shared threats. This will take ongoing aggressive and creative diplomacy, which takes time and attention. If Kagan has a shortcut, he didn't reveal it.

We see results already. China and India would not have gone as far as they did on promises to reduce their carbon emissions if the Obama administration had not vigorously engaged on the climate negotiations. Both of these rapidly developing nations need to do more, of couse, as do we. Similarly, Russia would not be helping to pressure Iran on its nuclear program if our relationshp with Moscow had continued on its downward spiral.

None of thsi changes the fact that the United States will disagree with these powers on a host of issues and certainly on ideology. The president repeatedly displays his willingness to vigorously defend U.S. interests and values. The leaders in Beijing are hardly feeling coddled after President Obama last month announced a $6 billion arms package for Taiwan and welcomed the Dali Lama in the White House. This is not the kind of attention they want.

Moreover, Kagan's assertion that President Obama is not tending properly to American allies is base on very selective evidence. For every article that questions the special relationship with Britain are others that describe how its imore important than ever. Popular opinion in Europe toward the Untied Nations has skyrocketed since President Obama came to office -- German approval ratings of the United States more than doubled from 2008 to 2009. And the six trips to Eurpe, Kagan mentions hardly constitute inattention. There may be discontent in Europe, but at its root is Europe's identity cisis, not a lack of love from Washington.

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That the president has also traveled to Asia shouldn't come as a surprise, given the deficit of attention to China policy in the Bush years and the blizzard of analysis noting the increasing importance of Asia. Paying attention to Asia is not ignoring democratic allies -- we have a whole bunch over there, too.

With one of them, Japan, tensions arose because a political party, the Democratic Party of Japan, which never before held power, won a historic election and questioned a basing agreement the Bush administration had meticulously negotiated. The issue is now getting resolved, and the alliance was never in doubt.

A nd some differences with out allies are inevitable. To expect otherwise is again to be nostalgic for the Cold War -- wihen the United States and their allies suppressed their differences in the face of a shared existential threat of the Soviet Union. Frictions are nothing new. Surely Kagan remembers the era of "freedom fries," when U.S.-France relations were at a historic low under the Bush administration.

Earlier this month, Israel created nw difficult dynamics for the peace proces with its surpise announcement of expanded settlement activity n Jerusalem during Vice President Joe Biden's visit. Even ourf very staunchest allies have to expect that Washington will react when they coplicate progress on a matter of U.S. security.

In the 21st century, we have newly potent threats and a changing multipolar wold, but conservatives offer the same olf hollow strategy. Clinging to this framework would be ore understandable if we hand't juust spent eight years proving how destructive that can be.

Nina Hachigian is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and the co-author of The Next American Century: How the United States can Thrive as Other Powers Rise (Simon and Schuster, 2008).

CONGRESS CONTINUES TO RECEIVE LOW MARKS

By H. N. Burdett

Shortly before the House of Representatives voted last Sunday to approve overhaul of the nation's health care system, the Pew Research Center asked Americans to offer one word that they would use to best describe Congress. The results were enough to make lawmakers with the thickest skin cringe, if not race for cover.

Of the 749 respondents, 86 percent came up with something uncomplimentary, to say the least, ranging from "dysfunctional" to "terrible," with "incompetent," "lazy," "ineffective" and "idiotic" falling somewhere in between. A mere 4 percent had a positive word for their federal legislators.

The three most frequently provided terms were "dysfunctional," by 21 persons; "corrupt," by 20, and some version of "selfish," such as "self-serving," and "self-centered," by 19.

Fifteen respondents offered "confused," "confusing" or "confusion," the same number that came up with "incompetent" Yet another 15 said Congress was simply "inefffective. "

Just plain "bad" and "suck(s)" were each offered by 14 people.

Eleven felt Congress was either "crooked" or comprised of "crooks." The one word choice of another 11 was "disappointed" or "disappointing," the same number that said "gridlock" or "deadlock."

Our national lawmaking body was seen as "idiotic" or made up of "idiots" by 10 individuals, and another 10 offered the ever more polite "slow."

Nine of those surveyed contended that Congress was eithr a "mess," "messed up" or "messy." And eight replied that the word to best characterize their federal lawmakers is "lousy." An additional nine respondents opted for "terrible."

While Americans look upon the U.S. Congress, as Churchill once said he regarded a political opponent, "with minimal high esteem," it seems puzzling that incumbency is still considered a political advantage. But the rub is that the majority of us voters obviously feel the individual we choose to represent us is just fine; it's all thse other voters who are "messing up" by sending all those "lousy," "dysfunctional," "messed up" politicians to represent them Washington.

It will be interesting to learn what the surveys tell us about the public perception of our national lawmakers since they enacted the health care bill, which has been characterized by ome as the most important social legislation since Social Security in 1935 and Medicare in 1965, and by others as the one-way, nonstop ticket to bottomless perdition. The early returns appear to be anything but promising.

Fox News, which took its survey on March 16 and 17, the two days immediately after the House passed the Senate health care reform bill, showed that only 18 percent of its respondents approved of Congress' overall performance, while 76 percent disapproved. Our representatives in the nation's capital actually fared slightly worse than that in the CBS/New York Times survey, taken March 18 through 21, with only 14 percent approving and 76 disapproving.

Those numbers would indicate that Republican members of the House, who voted unanimously against health care reform, had it right when they said the American people do not want this legislation.

But Democrats counter that the big bucks the insurance industry put into negative and misleading advertising, to say nothing of the contributions that will pour into GOP congressional campaigns as the quid pro quo for their votes, has once again led Americans to take positions that are in reality against their own best interests.

With conservative members of the Supreme Court -- those lifetime appointees who tell us with a straight face that it is an abomination to legislate through the courts and then solemnly declare that political contribuitions are tantamount to free speech and deserving of the same respect -- poised to support every whim and fancy of the right wing of Congress, President Obama's health reform legislation conceivably could be enjoying a victory of limited duration.

The punditocracy is nearly unanimous in its current belief that Republicans are going to do at very least well and perhaps extremely well in the next midterm national election. Some of these architects of conventional wisdom are convinced that the GOP could win back both Houses: a truly perplexing reward for the party best known for digging in its heels and doing nothing.

For virtually the same electorate that voted overwhelmingly for change in 2008 to now vote for the status quo seems to be the ultimate bizarre political behavior. Then again, there are more than seven months before Americans go to the polls. Even in this cyberspace age when so much of everything moves so fast, in politics that amount of time can seem like a lifetime.

Meanwhile, there are hot button issues that have been crying for congressional attention, ranging from rules and regulations for financial institution to immigration reform. The Democrats know that their majorities in both the House and the Senate could be reversed may try to move everything, or at least as much as they can, onto the floors of their respective chambers before the November election.

Will Republicans actually strive for an impregnable defense of deregulation and proclaim that any attempt to tie or cleanse Wall Street's soiled hands will be a frontal assault on capitalism, the very underpinnings of the tried and true American way of life? You can take it to the bank. Can they succeed in the daring high wire act of both taking a hard line against immigration reform while bending over backwards to woo the rapidly growing Latino vote? That one is a little more problematic and may remain where it has been: on the farthest back burner -- a hot potato that neither party appears to have the courage to touch.

It has long been said that those who love sausage and the law should not watch either being made. But the battles that the "dysfunctional," "corrupt" and "selfish" United States Congress confronts or avoids between now and November could play out with more suspense and drama than any soap opera script yet written.

TEXAS GOVERNOR IS NEOCON 'FLAVOR OF THE MONTH'

By H. N. Burdett

During the administration of George W. Bush, the late iconoclast extraordinaire Molly Ivins wrote: "The next time I tell you someone from Texas shouldn't be President of the United States, please pay attention."

But Fred Barnes is not following Ivins's advice. Not that the executive editor of the neoconservative house organ, The Weekly Standard, might ever be expected to heed the sage counsel of the First Lady of Political Satire. In the latest edition of the Straussian bible, Barnes storms out of the closet to reveal his man crush on Texas Governor Rick Perry.

Prematurely speculating on the identity of the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, Barnes hauls out the litany of usual suspects from Mitch Romney to Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul and promptly dismisses the field as "not terribly exciting." Our intrepid pundit for the young, vibrant, well-written right wing elitist publication which virtually always gets both issues and prognoses embarrassingly wrong, then offers the puzzling observation that the GOP -- the party of "no" -- actually "doesn't require a total makeover," only "fresh talent, preferably with respectable track records, at the national level." Fresh ideas might also help, Fred. Well, all right then, how about one single new idea? This would never occur to Barnes, but then conservatism is mostly about preserving the status quo, so what more should we expect from the greatest minds of the 18th century trapped in some kind of time warp?

Barnes casts his eagle eye toward this fall's election, snorts his bloodhound nostrils and presents three potential Republican nominees for chief executive, each a candidate for Governor this year in his or her respective state albeit with name recognition problems nationwide: John Kasich of Ohio, Meg Whitman of California and incumbent Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana.

The Standard's resident sage admits that Kasich and Whitman would have to win gubernatorial races in November to prove themselves worthy of serious consideration. But even assuming that they do win their races, it would still be quite a stretch if either ran for, much less won, the presidency after serving only two years in their respective statehouses. Barnes goes all the way back to Woodrow Wilson to find a precedent. Wilson was elected Governor of New Jersey in 1910, and President only two years later. Daniels is an incumbent governor, but his prospects for leading the GOP national ticket two years hence would be contingent upon his winning re-election. Two other incumbent govenors -- Louisiana's Bobby Jindal and Mississippi's Haley Barbour -- are mentioned in passing by Barnes, and he brushes off Newt Gingrich like lint on linen in a single sentence: "Gingrich, according to various reports, plans to run."

Barnes leaves not a scintilla of doubt, however, that Rick Perry is at very least The Weekly Standard flavor of the month. He could not be more impressed with the incumbent Texas Governor's 51.1% to 30.3% thrashing of incumbent U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a sufficiently serious drubbing to render her at best a doubtful candidate to retain her seat in Congress.

Most voters outside of Texas might surmise that winning the GOP nomination for a statewide office there is tantamount to election. The Lone Star state is as reliably Republican as Massachusetts is Democratic. But this is the year that Republican Scott Brown won the supposedly forever safe Democratic seat held by Ted Kennedy for nearly a half century. Texas Democrats are hell-bent to turn conventional wisdom on its head and pull off the reverse of the Bay State upset; they feel that in former Houston Mayor Bill White, they have the horse with sufficient giddyup to make it happen.

White is no run-of-the-mill Democrat. He served two terms as Mayor of Houston, winning by margins of 86% and 91% -- no mean feat in one of the largest cities in one of the nation's largest reliably Republican bastions. In his six years as Mayor, White taught a lesson in humility to anyone who still doubts that there is a correlation between employment and crime, as the Houston area led U.S. cities in job growth by adding more than 34 states combined while crime plummeted to its lowest level in 25 years. Furthermore, the municipal government provided more services -- including parks, libraries and health clinics -- on his watch while consistently reducing property taxes and raising exemptions for senior and disabled citizens.

In receiving the John F. Kennedy Profiles in Courage Award, White was recognized for "his political courage in leading a compassionate and effective government response to the (Hurricane Katrina) disaster." To earn that accolade, while politicians in Louisiana and in the Bush administration were spinning wheels and putting lives at risk by their inaction and bickering over who had jurisdiction over what, the Houston mayor mobilized more than 100,000 Houstonians in the public, private, business and faith-based sectors to help evacuees rebuild their lives with independence and dignity. Governing magazine saluted White by naming him among its 2007 Public Officials of the Year, noting: "In times of both crisis and calm, White, a former business executive...is a cool pragmatist who wants results rather than excuses."

In most other states, such credentials would turn the gubernatorial race into a slam dunk. In Texas, Bill White still has a steep, uphill struggle. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone poll of likely Lone Star voters has Perry leading White by 49% to 43%, with 6 percent undecided and 3% opting for a candidate other than the major party nominees. Still, White is doing an impressive job of playing catch-up in one of the more closely watched of the 37 statehouse races slated for this year. When the Democrat announced his candidacy as recently as January, he trailed Perry by 50% to 40%.

Fred Barnes is right to pull himself together before falling into a total swoon over Rick Perry until the outcome of the November governor's race in Texas is known. Of equal interest is Barnes's take on Sarah Palin. With his boss, Weekly Standard founder and editor, William Kristol, Barnes vetted Sarah Palin and led the cheerleading for placing her on the 2008 McCain presidential ticket. Had the Arizona senator been elected, the ill-prepared and perhaps easily malleable Palin would have been a mere heartbeat away from a septuagenarian president. For the moment, at least, Barnes seems to view feisty Sarah for what she is: an invaluable GOP fundraiser whose White House ambitions, if any, her neoconservative buddies appear willing to abandon at the altar of indifference

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ROOFTOP REVOLUTION: SOLAR WATER HEATING

By Lester R. Brown

The harnessing of solar energy is expanding on every front as concerns about climate change and energy security escalate, as government incentives for harnessing solar energy expand and as these costs decline while those of fossil fuel rise.

One solar technology that is really beginning to take off is the use of solar thermal collectors to convert sunlight into heat that can be used to warm both water and space. China, for example, is now home to 27 million rooftop water heaters.

With nearly 4,000 Chinese companies manufacturing these devices, this relatively simple low-cost technology has leapfrogged into villages that do not yet have electricity. For as little as $200 villages can have a rooftop solar collector installed and take their first hot shower.

This technique is sweeping China like wildfire, already approaching market saturation in some communities. Beijing plans to boost the current 114 million square meters of rooftop solar collectors for heating water to 300 million by 202o. The energy harnessed by these installations in China is equal to the electricity generated by 49 coal-fired power plants. Other developing countries such as India and Brazil may also see millions of households turning to this inexpensive water heating technology.

This leapfrogging into rural areas without an electricity grid is similar to the way cell phones bypassed the traditional fixed-line grid, providing srvices to millions of people who would still be on waiting lists for telephones if they had relied on traditional phone lines: Once the initial installation cost of rooftop solar water heaters is paid, the hot water is essentially free.

In Europe, where energy costs are relatively high, rooftop solar water heaters are also spreading fast. In Austria, 15 percent of all households now rely on them for hot water. And, as in China, ins some Austrian villages nearly all homes have rooftop collectors. Germany is also forging ahead. Janet Swain of the Worldwatch Institute notes that some 2 million Germans are now loiving in homes where water and space are both heated by rooftop solar systems.

Inspired by the rapid adoption of rooftop water and space in Europe in recent years, the European Solar Thermal Industry Federation (ESTIF) has established an ambitious goal of 500 million square meters, or one square meter of rooftop collector for every European by 2030 -- a goal slightly greater than the 0.93 square meters per person found today in Cyprus, the world leader in solar energy use. Most installations are projected to be Solar-Combi systems that are engineered to heat both water and space.

Europe's solar collectors are concentrated in Germany, Austria and Greece, with France and Spain also beginning to mobilize. Spain's initiative was boosted by a March 2006 mandate requiring installation of collectors on all new or renovated buildings. Portugal followed quietly with its own manadate. ESTF estimates that the European Union has a long-term potential of developing 1,200 thermal gigawatts of solar power and space heating, which means that the sun could meet most of Europe's low temperature heating needs.

The U.S. rooftop solar water heating industry has historically concentrated on a niche market -- selling and marketing 10 million square meters of solar water heaters for swimming pools between 1995 and 2005. Given this base, however, the industry was poised to mass market residential solar water and space heating systems when federal tax credits were introduced in 2005. Led by Hawaii, California and Florida, U.S. installation of these systems tripled in 2006 and has continued at a rapid pace since then.

We now have sufficient data to make some global projections. With China setting a goal of 300 million square meters of solar water heating capacity by 2020 and ESTIF's goal of 500 million square meters for Europe by 2020, a U.S. installation of 300 million square meters by 2020 is certainly within reach given the recently adopted tax incentives. Japan, which now has 7 million square meters of rooftop solar collectors heating water but which imports virtually all its fossil fuels, could easily reach 80 million square meters by 2020.

If China and the European Union achieve their goals and Japan and the United States reach the projected adoptions, they will have a combined total of 1,180 million square meters of water and space heating capacity by 2020. With appropriate assumptions for developing countries other than China, the global total in 2020 could exceed 2.5 billion square meters.

This would give the world a solar thermal capacity by 2020 of 1,100 thermal gigawatts, the equivalent of 690 coal-fired power plants that would account for more than half of the Earth Policy Institute renewal energy goal for 2020, part of a massive effort to stabilize our rapidly changing climate by slashing global net carbon emissions 80 percent within the next decade.

The huge projected expansion in solar water and space heating in industrial countries could close some existing coal-fired power plants and reduce natural gas use as solar water heaters replace electric and gas water heaters. In countries such as China and India, however, solar water heaters will simply reduce the need for new coal-fied power plants.

Solar water and space heaters in Europe and China have a strong economic appeal. On average, in industrial countries these systems pay for themselves from electricity savings in fewer than 10 years. They are also responsive to energy security and climate change concerns.

With the cost of rooftop heating systems declining, particularly in China, many other countries will likely join Israel, Spain and Portugal in mandating that all new buildings incorporate rooftop solar water heaters. No longer a passing fad, these rooftop appliances are fast entering the mainstream.

The author is the president and senior researcher of the Earth Policy Institute. The preceding is adapted from his book Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2009), available on line at www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/books/pb4

ITALY AS SEEN BY CERTAIN INFORMED AMERICANS

By Oscar Bartoli

John is not his actual name. He is a man in his mid-forties with a lofty position in a think tank -- one of those companies that charges a lot to prepare reports on what's going on around the world. The following conversation took place at a famous Italian restaurant in Washington, D.C.

JOHN: Well, you Italians should be happy. You've now invented Peronism Italian style, just like you had Divorce Italian Style. (Our perfidious speaker refers to the 1961 Pietro Germi movie in which the protagonist portrayed by Marcello Mastroianni, kills his wife in order to marry her lover.)

OSCAR: If you"re alluding to our prime minister' s 'personal laws,' I can't blame you. In any event, the fact remains that a majority of Italians re-elected him and so his power derives from popularity.

JOHN: His power is derived from his media empire and his control over public television. The result is a foregone conclusion given the daily brain washing.

OSCAR: The prime minister and his supporters claim he has no control whatsoever and that in Italy there is a dissident party identified with La Repubblica newspaper.

JOHN: Baloney. Do you really think we don't closely follow what is happening in your country? At the very least we have to do it for professional reasons. The Repubblica knows what it's doing. It's all a matter of business because it has captured a segment of public opinion that has been totally ignored due to the lack of a solid opposition. It's main goal is to sell papers and advertising.

OSCAR: When you talk to people in Italy, they all are convinced that the media is fixated on attacking the prime minister.

JOHN: Why not? The reports of liaison with minors and his cronies who pay for call girls, who go to his 'private' residence which isn't private because a head of government lives there are not lies or slander? And there's more....

OSCAR: I can tell that you have a problem with Silvio Bertusconi...

JOHN: Personally, I admire him because he's quite a charcter. But professionally I have been following him for years and he sends shivers down my spine because he's capable of anything.

OSCAR: Let's not exaggerate. Bertusconi isn't the only guy suffering from satyriasis. Look, we had the president of the Lazio region, happlily married and the father of two daughters, who was caught with transvestites. And here in America things aren't any better. First of all, you taught us that in politics you take no prisoners. All it takes is one confused senator who filibusters for five days to block a law to ensure unemployment compensation. As for sex, the headlines in recent decades have been full of the exploits of oral sex Clinton had to relieve his stress, the self destruction of Senator Edwards, thought to be a shoo-in as Obama's vice president, with his lover, illegitimate child and wife suffering from cancer, the politicians caught in public restrooms playing footsie with a cop and the abuse of interns, who then write books about it, on Capitol Hill. So, let's be honest. The U.S. doesn't have the moral standing to preach.

JOHN: Maybe. But I've never read anything in American papers like the builders who laughed about the earthquake in Aquila that killed hundreds of people because all they could think about was the money they were going to make, thanks to their political connections.

OSCAR: That's because here they don't publish the contents of wiretaps.

JOHN: Okay, so what about the Italian comedy of change and late admissions of candidates of the PDL (Partito della Liberta), Bertusconi's protege for regional elections? If I had been a center-right voter, I would have asked myself: 'Where did these guys come from? They want my vote and they can't even run a simple election?' And yet they are still asking for a vote on who will govern a region like Lazio or Lombardy. And then there is the war against all types of institutions, including the judges. Add this to the declaration of LaRussa, the minister of defense, who apparently said, 'We are ready for everything!' It made me think of the Fascists preparing to march on Rome who yelled: 'Roma o Morte!' (Rome or death), a chant the usual jokers changed into 'Rome or Orte' (a town 40 km from Rome). But that's not all. In addition to the daily onslaught of scandals of wiretapping, of corruption, there is the news of the arrest of the member of the Sistine Chapel Choir who procured men for an executive, who also functioned as an 'usher' for the Pope, and who is also under arrest for kickbacks. The Vatican immediately clarified that it had nothing to do with any seminarian or priest.

OSCAR: In America it's all quicker. You elect judges tied to a political party that controls everything up to the Supreme Court and thus make decisions that impact the life of the country for decades.

JOHN: Well, then why do you stay in America if there's so much you don't like about it?

OSCAR: Because even if this is not the best of all possible worlds, we know that if we work hard we will make it without having to prostitute ourselves to curry the favor of those who happen to be in power. I am happy to be a citizen because I pay every last cent of my taxes in the knowledge that most Americans do the same. Here in American there are a lot of crooks, but when they get caught they pay the price. And they usually get caught. So, what upsets me so much is that when I go back to Italy, as I often do, I feel immersed in an oppressive and dark atmosphere in which everyone looks at you with resentment, all deals have been discarded and the people crave an obscene, immoral materialism. You could say that these are generalizations. Okay. Their sin is one of excess. But it's all too much. The ones that scare me the most are the young Italians because their models for the future are based on the lowest common denominator: teleevision. Waiter? The check please.

JOHN: Here's my credit card. Let's split it. This, too, is the American way.

The author is a veteran Italian journalist based in Washington, D.C. The preceding is reprinted from his newsletter, Letter from Washington, which he publsihes in English and Italian and can be accessed at http://oscarb1.blogspot.com/

LIMITLESS GREED BURIES A HOUSEHOLD NAME

By Douglas M. Schmidt

When I first learned of the sale of Black & Decker to The Stanley Works in November of 2009, I was immediately suspicious and wondered how much money Black & Decker executives would be making by selling their own company.

For decades now, it has been a growing and, in my opinion, destructive trend in U.S. acquisitions for the buyer to offer large monetary incentives to the management of the seller to influence a favorable outcome.

In an acquisition such as this one that totals over $8 billion of market capitalization for the combined companies, the payment to selling management, even when measured in tens of millions of dollars, can be a small fraction of the transaction value at stake.

An early attempt by Black & Decker to paint this acquistion as an almost merger of equals suggested a fairly straight-up transaction. But it soon became clear that Stanley was driving the bus. Stanley would control the new board. Stanley management would run the company, and Stanley stockholders would own a slight majority of the total share.

IA favorable article by a New York Times online reporter also threw me off track. He praised Black & Decker Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Nolan D. Archibald for foregoing immediate vesting of stock and options plus other benefits worth over $20 million upon the sale of the company. This stand alone fact was corroborated in a Black & Decker filing. Mr. Archibald was apparently in the forefront of reforming Wall Street's takeover tactics.

Then I read closely the United States Security and Exchange Commission filings of both companies. Only by reading both sets of filing was the full picture revealed. The New York Times reporter had failed to see that Mr. Archibald, designated to become the first "Stanley Black & Decker" executive chairman, was simply keeping all of his stock and options and converting them into Stanley stock and options. He wasn't giving up a penny. He was merely changing horses.

But the real shocker was tucked away in a Stanley filing describing Mr. Archibald's new Stanley contract.

In addition to the continuance of his own $10 million per year pay package for each of the next three years and a guarantee of the same for 2009, regardless of the company's poor performance, Mr. Archibald alone among Black & Decker executives, was being awarded a "cost synergy bonus" of up to $45 million for cutting costs and eliminating jobs in the new combined company. And there was more.

In addition to his current holdings of Black & Decker stock, which I estimated to be worth over $110 million, Mr. Archibald would also receive one million in options in the new Stanley Black & Decker at the price of the stock when the trasaction is closed.

My estimate is that Mr. Archibald can increase his personal wealth by $70 million or more in the coming years, not including his $10 million plus annual salary and benefits, based on the achievement of the $350 million of cost synergies and a reasonable yearly rise in the value of the new Stanley Black & Decker stock.

You might wonder how hard Mr. Archibald will be working to earn this cost synergy bonus -- a bons based on consolidating plants and operations and eliminating jobs in the middle of the worst U.S. employment crisis in decades.

Subsequent filings have shown that Mr. Archibald is the only Black & Decker member on a six-person integration steering committee that has begun overseeing the consolidation planning prior to closing the transaction. Stanley management, as might be expected of the acquirer, is already hard at work on consolidation and cost-cutting.

Imy opinion, and it is not much of an intellectual leap to get there, this "cost synergy bonus" was created by Stanley and its advisors to make a major influencing payment to Mr. Archibald more palatable and less overt. No matter how you dream it up, the payment's purpose seems quite obvious and simply falls in line with established corporate takeover practice. A U.S. CEO is enriched as he supervises the sale of his company. Just another dog bites man story on Wall Street.

On December 4, 2009, Stanley filed its Form S-4 (subsequently amended), a joint proxy statement/prospectus describing all the details of the proposed transaction and its history. This is the document upon which investors and shareholders rely to make an informed decision about whether to support or reject a transaction.

It contains one of the most remarkable narratives I have ever read in a public filing. Page after page describing how Mr. Archibald led Black & Decker's negotiations, how the emphasis shifted from wishful thinking Black & Decker acquisition to a Stanley one, how the "cost synergy bonus" was devised, how the discussion began to include an emphasis on satisfying Mr. Archibald's contracts with both companies, how in meeting after meeting the board of both companies addressed both the transactions and Mr. Archibald's contracts, and how, in a final board meeting, with his unique and rich new contract in the offing, Mr. Archibald was "very supportive" of the transaction before excusing himself from the final vote due to the obvious conflict of interest.

Who is this Black & Decker board? I wondered. After digging through public filings and the Internet, it became clear that the board lacked epxerience in the tool and manufacturing sector as compared to Stanley[s board, and it contained at least three out of 10 "independent" members who had personal and/or professional ties to Mr. Archibald.

In addition, I found that two of the board members were on the elite Deutsches Bank Americas Advisory Board, whose mission includes "business development." Deutsches Bank is, along with Goldman Sachs, the investment banker to The Stanley Works and appears involved in first suggesting that a transaction be reviewed.

After uncovering all of these less than obvious facts and reaching some conclusions about why this transaction was fated to happen and which company's leadership was more competent, I shut down my computer and was done with that public burial of an old U.S. corporate name. So I thought.

In the weeks that followed the publication of the second commentary (on public filings of the Black & Decker merger with The Stanley Works), I heard from many readers. but two readers, who had been on the inside of Black & Decker, knew one fact that I did not know. One fact that seemed pertinent, yet in the wisdom of our system, this fact apparently did not require disclosing in the transaction filings. These two readers were angry and bitter, believing strongly that their CEO had stepped over the line.

Both readers steered me to a public website for "Red Ledges." Red Ledges is a "private, four-season recreational development in the beautiful Heber Valley" of Utah. It includes a brand new Jack Nicklaus Signature Gold Course, luxury lots for sale, and many other activities (such as tennis, an equestrian center, a spa completed or in design). Red Ledges is a short drive from Deer Valley and Park City mountain ski resorts. Red Ledger sells lots for building upon or finished "cottages" for $1.2 million and up.

Development of a project of this magnitude takes an enormous amount of time and planning commitment and many millions of dollars of up-front capital to create.

The grand opening of Red Ledges occurred in July of 2009, straight into the headwinds of one of one of the worst markets in memory for golf course expansion and luxury real estate and, coincidentally, in the middle of negotiations between Stanley and Black & Decker.

Red Ledges is a private enterprise described as having two equal owners: Nolan Archibald, the chairman and CEO of Black & Decker, and Tony Burns, the managing owner of Red Ledges.

Who is Tony Burns? Tony Burns is a lifelong friend of Nolan Archibald, dating back to college days. Tony Burns is described in the annual Black & Decker prospectus as Mr. Anthony Burns, chairman emeritus of Ryder System, Inc., a description that does not mention Red Ledges.

Tony Burns is a board member of Black & Decker, a board member who I included in the category of not having relevant experience in the tool industry but one who I missed counting as having a personal relationship with Mr. Archibald. Instead of three of 10, there were now at least four of 10 to be counted as owing their board seats to a relationship with the chairman and CEO.

Mr. Burns's name triggered a memory and a reference. I returned to the original S-4 filing and found what I thought would be there. The Black & Decker board had chosen Mr. Burns to be one of three independent directors on the special "Black & Decker transaction committee."

This committee, as explained in the S-4 narrative, played a crucial role in evaluating and approving the Stanley transaction for the entire Black & Decker board. This committee was instrumental in negotiating with Stanley and its advisors as well as in reviewing and recommending to the board Mr. Archibald's contract with Black & Decker as it related to the new, even more lucrative one with Stanley. In determining whether the 100-year-old company would live or die, Mr. Burns was given a special position of leadrship.

At this point, one has to wonder whether the Black & Decker board had been vaccinated against the spread of common sense.

From a regulatory standpoint, one presumes that Mr. Burns is labeled an "independent" director because he is not an employee of Black & Decker, nor does he do business with the company. But Mr. Burns is in a major business partnership with the chairman and CEO.

This business partnership involved the sale of luxury real estate during a recession. The financial success and well-being of Mr. Burns's business partner is critical to Mr. Burnsis own interests. There are tens of millions of dollars at risk. Yet, the Black & Decker board deemed Mr. Burns sufficiently independent to place him on the three-person committee that passed judgment not only on the transaction but on the appropriateness of his business partner's compensation.

If you, as a shareholder, think it is important to know information such as which board members have personal connections with the chairman and CEO and which board members do business with the CEO, then don't look to the Security and Exchange Commission for help.

The SEC is silent on this point, choosing with unpredictability when and where it becomes an advocate for disclosure. The question is not what Black & Decker failed to do, because presumably the company has stayed within the rules as they exist today. The question becomes what Black & Decker (and other public companies) should do to be more responsible and transparent for shareholders and the market.

One answer to these questions is how Black & Decker was led and governed over the last two decades.

In its final chapter, Black & Decker becomes a parody of good corporate governance. Good governance encompasses best industry practices, and Black & Decker falls short in many categories.

None of these failings appears to violate any explicit rules or regulations. None of them are unique to Black & Decker. They can be found across the universe of today's major public companies. But together they seem indicative of a tradition of misguided governance that has brought Black & Decker to its final days:

. ENTRENCHED CEO. Black & Decker's chairman and CEO has retained his position for almost 24 years -- an extraordinary record of longevity for corporate American. But this level of imperial leadership begets many shortcoming in a typical company. Potential rivals within the executive ranks are eliminated or marginalized. Succession planning is made irrelevant. Innovation and rejuvenation are stifled. At the end of over two decades at the helm, Nolan Archibald became synonymous with Black & Decker. As he is elevated to his non-managerial role with Stanley, little remains of Black & Decker management. No other Black & Decker leader after Mr. Archibald is invited into the executive suite. From a governance viewpoint, it is no coincidence that the legacy of a 24-year CEO is no legacy.

. CHAIRMAN AND EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS IN ONE PERSON. A CEO who is also chairman of the board is effrectively his own boss and employee. Where are the checks and balances on his tenure, compensation, board appointment and more? The SEC has only recently flagged this obvious and most common corporate conflict as one for concern and disclosure.

. BOARD PATRONAGE. Aside from Mr. Archibald, the Black & Decker board consists of 10 "independent" members as defined by the SEC and an internal Black & Decker code. Yet, many directors have personal connections to the chairman and CEO (at least 40%). These relationshipss marginalize the board's ability to question, discipline or fine its chief executive.

. EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION. Per dollar of market capitalization, Mr. Archibald is one of the highest paid CEOs in the United States when compared to the Standard & Poor's 500 Index of companies in general and Black & Decker's peer group in particular. In 2008, his total compensation was over three times that of the CEO/chairman of his counterpart at The Stanley Works. In 2007, it was over twice that of his acquirer. In addition, Mr. Archibald's perks total over 30% more than CEOs of S&P 500 companies that average twice the size of Black & Decker. Over 24 years, the Black & Decker board has helped Mr. Archibald amass a fortune in Black & Decker stock and stock equivalents worth, by estimate, at least $110 million, making him the largest individual Black & Decker stockholder and an equal to the company's largest institutional shareholders.

. CONFLICTS OF INTEREST. It is a long list with this board. A fraternizing investor relationship between board members. board members on an advisory board of an acquirer's investment banker. A CEO leading sales negotiations while negotiating personal contracts with both companies. The CEO's investment partner on the board committe that recommends the transaction to the full board. The word that comes to mind is sloppy. Sloppy controls and sloppy governance.

On March 12, 2010, at a special meeting of stockholders, Black & Decker will be consigned to the dustheap of famous U.S. corporations that have met their end through acquisition by competitors. The 100-year-old brand name will be tucked behind the Stanley name. Good jobs will be lost in Maryland and elsewhere as Stanley takes costs out of the combined businesses to make the transaction a success. No tears will be shed for senior Black & Decker management. They are well cared for, particularly the chairman and CEO.

Few will remember that Mr. Archibald was once hailed as a young innovator, the Harvard Business School trained executive who brought his team to save a struggling old tool maker. Twenty-four years later, he will be remembered as the last Black & Decker CEO, the man who had no successors and no surviving strategy, except to sell the company.

Black & Decker had a special anniversary in 2010. In January, the company rolled out a press campaign entitled, "Black & Decker Celebrates 100 Years of Innovation." If it were true at the governance level, this story might have had a different ending.

The author is CEO and Managing Director of Chessicap, Inc., a financial services and information company. This article originally appeared in the Baltimore edition of Citibizlist from which it is reprinted with permission.

ROVE'S BALONEY CHRONICLES: DEFENDING THE INDEFENSIBLE

By H. N. Burdett

That elegant phrasemaker, New York Governor and 1928 Democratic presidential nominee Al Smith , coined this gem regarding hyperbolic political rhetoric: "No matter how you slice it, it's still baloney."

Smith's apt words came to mind while wading through Courage and Consequences, the memoir published this week of Karl Rove, the strategist credited with elevating George W. Bush to the governorship of Texas and then to the presidency of the United States. Rove's voluminous apologia is heavy on "consequences," but feather-light on "courage."

A disciple of Lee Atwater, who turned political campaign dirty tricks into an art form, Rove has grinded out the literary equivalent of taking a bullet for the boss. In fact, he seems ready and willing to take a whole barrage of rounds for the 43rd President of the United States who is a leading contender to be remembered as its very worst. Still, to portray this as "courage" would be a stretch.

On his deathbed 19 years ago this month, Atwater, suffering from aggressive brain cancer, proffered a belated but apparently heartfelt apology for his "harsh cruelty" toward Democratic nominee and former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential campaign. It was Dukakis to whom Atwater referred when he once vowed to "strip the bark off the little bastard" and "make Willie Horton his running mate" -- the latter a reference to a convicted murderer who committed rape while on a weekend furlough from a Massachusetts prison. But there's not much mea culpa in Rove's 600-plus page tome, large parts of which read like an overblown closing argument for George W. Bush's defense against the presumably inevitable long knives of future historians.

Rove does take the blame for the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, thus damaging the Bush 43 presidency. Even here, the author does not propound remorse for failing to discourage the president from invading Iraq before the weapons could be located. What Rove regrets is not having countered Democratic attacks when no WMD were located, "in a forceful and overwhelming way. We should have seen this for what it was: a poison-tipped dagger aimed at the heart of the Bush presidency."

That statement, in itself, is prima facie evidence against Rove for moral bankruptcy, particularly when he admits on these same pages that he doubted Congress would have supported preemptive war against Iraq without WMD.

"So, who was responsible for the failure to respond?" he asks. "I was. I should have stepped forward, rang the warning bell, or pressed for full-scale response. I didn't." Why? Well, you see, he had other priorities. "Preoccupied with the coming campaign and the pressure of the daily schedule in the West Wing, I did not see how damaging the assault was."

Surely Rove can be forgiven for the slight indiscretion of placing a political campaign above legitimate concerns about the justification for landing U.S. troops on foreign soil.

Rove writes: "The Bush administration itself would probably have sought other ways to constrain Saddam, bring about regime change and deal with Iraq's horrendous human rights violations. . ."

Really? So there were, after all, other ways of confronting Saddam without the investment of, as of the end of last month, a total of 4,379 American lives lost, another 31,693 wounded, to say nothing of the Associated Press estimate of more than 110,000 Iraqis killed.

And the beat goes on now that President Obama has chosen to own the war he inherited, albeit with a plan for limiting the

venue to Afghanistan.

There remain eerie echoes of the words of a young ex-Naval officer named John Kerry testiying in 1971 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on behalf of Vietnam Veterans Against War: "How do you ask a man to be the last one to die for a mistake?"

Others may forsake Dubya and just as soon have us forget they had anything to do with his disastrous eight years in the White House, but not "Turd Blossom," as the former president affectionately dubbed Rove. For the man who has also been called "Bush's brain" and, when he pulled off one of his many grand coups -- like wiretapping his candidate's office in Texas and calling in the press to blame opponents -- W. substituted for the aforementioned less delicate down-home nickname, the sobriquet, "Boy Genius."

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Rove now acknowledges that the White House response was "too passive for too long," then segues seamlessly into faulting the interminable delay in providing rescue and relief efforts on Democratic leadership in Louisiana and New Orleans squabbling over who should take control and how to cooperate with the federal government.

In truth, there was plenty of blame to spread around in the aftermath of Katrina, but that Rove continues to find it necessary five years after the fact to bob, weave and deflect by pointing fingers at others -- a game he has more than mastered -- is indicative of a man who shudders at the daunting thought of being crushed by history's final judgment.

But Karl Rove does not want to leave us with the impression that he is the cold, calculating, bloodless monster portrayed in the liberal press. Such creatures are devoid of tears. Rove, however, confesses that he has cried. After receiving assurances that he would not be indicted in the CIA leak case in which Valerie Plame's identity was compromised, Rove confides that he cradled his telephone and wept. Most touching.

VIRGINIAN IS TELLING IT LIKE IT ISN'T

by H. N. Burdett

Like him or not -- and what's not to like? -- one thing you've got to admit about House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, is that the kid's got chutzpah.

The clean-cut bespectacled congressman from Richmond, who seemingly epitomizes what every mother would be overjoyed to bring home to Friday night dinner and maybe introduce to her daughter, has been all over the tube telling the Stephanopouloses and Gregorys that the Republicans do too have a health reform plan.

As I was getting my talking heads fix last Sunday morning, this came as such a bolt from the blue, such a revelation of truly Biblical proportions, that I nearly overturned my cup of Earl Grey trying to find the remote to punch up the volume.

For months the Democrats had me fairly convinced that the GOP's sole interest in health care reform is to drive the sharpest stake it can find right through its very heart. The Republican motive for this pending legislative atrocity was surely to protect their pals and patrons in the health insurance business from being put upon by demands that even the most timid moves in the direction of reform might incur -- which indeed may be the best one might reasonably expect from this 111th U.S. Congress.

But, at long last, now we were getting the straight scoop. And from none other than this nice, clean-cut young man from the capital of the Old Confederacy exuding sincerity as he matter-of-factly reminds us that, by gum and by golly, not only do his Republican brethren have a plan, but that it was rolled out way back in July. Coast-to-coast blockbuster news that it was, the story didn't get as much as an harumph from either the Democrats or their craven lapdogs in the liberal media who somehow were constrained from publishing it in Second Coming boldface.

Cantor, whose meteoric rise within his party's ranks after taking his seat in Congress a mere 10 years ago is considered sufficiently awesome that the backroom denizens of the RNC are still figuring out ways to clone him, tells us the GOP plan "is focused very squarely on bringing down costs and health care costs for the American people." And furthermore: "Our House bill is validated by the Congressional Budget Office and will bring down health care insurance premiums."

Zap, take that Nancy Pelosi. And, zap again, you, too, Steny Hoyer. Now both of you, stand up together and take a dose of your own medicine that you and your liberal Democrats dish out when you demagogue the bejeezus out of a matter as gravely serious as health reform. Finally, you are forced to swallow the unvarnished truth as enunciated so crisply by this fine, young son of the south.

And the truth is that the Congressional Budget Office has indeed "validated" the Republican health reform alternative.

As happens time and again, however, the devil once more lurks in the details. What has been validated is that what Rep. Cantor so blissfully pitches as a viable alternative to the Democrats' expensive and devious plot to put private health insurers out of business, is, well, kind of a bubby meisah (a grandmother's tale; no charge for the translation).

You see, the plain fact of the matter is that the GOP plan touted by Cantor -- who, by the way, mothers everywhere should know, is not 27 to 37 years old as he looks, but rather 47 and very much married to the lovely Diane with whom he has three offspring, one in college already, for heaven's sake -- would cover just 3 million of the 52 million Americans expected to be uninsured by 2020.

But the GOP congressional caucus would have us believe that so-called health care reform is a figment of those wild-eyed, tax-and-spend Democrats once again overreaching by trying to do too much at once (which they know they can't do but what the hey, it gets them votes), and not caring beans that it will hit the deserving, backbone of America, salt-of-the-earth filthy rich right where it hurts the most: in their investment portfolios.

The Democrats, who want you to believe they don't have such portfolios, only worn and frayed wallets that are a lot thinner in these trying times, counter claim that it's high time Uncle Sam recognizes that this great land of freedom and opportunity is the only industrialized nation in the world without universal health coverage for its citizens, and that a healthy nation, almost by definition, is a more productive and far happier nation.

That Rep. Cantor can look his fellow Americans in the eye, albeit through the filter of network television, and tell us that his party has a health reform proposal, well, that's more than chutzpah -- it's a performance deserving of, at least, an Oscar nomination. I can't quite figure the category for which it qualifies. Maybe they'll have to come up with a new one for Best Political Performance. A really neat sure box office smash would have Barney Frank and Cantor expounding their opposing interpretations of the Talmud. I, for one, would fork over a few sheckels to see that one.

THE HIGH ROAD TO FISCAL REFORM

A very misleading story about huge risks of unfunded liabilities damaging future generations has dominated the public debate over how to think about budget priorities.

This set of claims confines the disparate issues of how we should provide adequate social insurance for young and old with issues of fiscal responsibility and reform.

As the United States confronts the largest economic crisis since the Great Depression, it is time for a reasoned and balanced dialogue about the state of our nation's finances and our fiscal future.

During this period of great anxiety, uncertainty, and confusion, the public debate would benefit from perspective that informs Americans rather than compounds fears.

Full-page advertisements in newspapers depicting an ominous iceberg close at hand, for example, are not constructive in promoting reasoned responses to the genuine but manageable challenges confronting the United States.

Organizations including the Peterson Foundation, the Heritage Foundation and the Brookings Institute have joined in promoting a skewed and narrowed definition of the problem, which, while stating that all options should be on the table, define the choices in ways that move toward lowered social investment for ordinary citizens and public needs, usually described as "entitlement reform." For instance, a February 19 statement on Barack Obama's Fiscal Summit called for "a degree of sacrifice impossible under the existing policy process."

Steering the debate toward the high road requires disentangling three distinct challenges facing the nation:
. Addressing the very real threat of continued economic decline by investing in social and physical infrastructure.
. Reducing the nation's long-term debt trajectory through responsible tax reforms and change in spending priorities.
. Preserving our system of social insurance, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Here is an overview of the fiscal landscape that in important ways differs from the more alarming picture that has come to dominate the debate:

Perspective on Federal Deficits and Government Spending

First, should we have rough fiscal balance over the business cycle? Most economists would say that, except in emergenices such as the current financial collapse, moderate deficits of 1 percent or 2 percent of Gross Domestic Product are sustainable indefinitely, as long as the economy is growing faster than the debt so that the debt-to-GDP ratio is stable or declining.

Second, what share of GDP should public outlays consume? It is possible that America's well-being, especially the well-being of the young, requires increased social investment in education, training, early childhood education, child care, and affordable housing. But we can still have responsible fiscal policy by balancing social outlays with revenues at a higher fraction of GDP. This is an option that has been overlooked in the debate, which up to this point has largely conflated lower spending with fiscal balance.

At the heart of the argument is that there is more than one road to an economy of shared prosperity and opportunity.

The high road recognizes the need for sustained investments in education, energy alternatives, infrastructure and health care. The low road represents a status quo on tax policy and drastic spending cuts in social insurance.

The reality is that it is not necessary to choose between social investment and fiscal prudence. We can have both if we finance the costs of well-designed and comprehensive social insurance, and reform our health system.

The federal government now spends about 20 percent of GDP. And due to tax cuts of both the Reagan and Bush eras, the pre-recession revenues totaled about 16 to 17 percent of GDP leaving deficits of 3 to 4 percent. These deficits will rise sharply during the recession.

When the recession ends, we need a sustained increase in public outlay to satisfy unmet social needs, and a budget that is close to balanced.

A good target for the long term would be federal outlays of about 25 percent of GDP to finance investment in early childhood education, a conversion to a green economy, and other needed social investments.

Federal revenues should be about 23-24 percent of GDP. That, of course, would require additional taxes. Good candidates for increased revenues would be a restoration of pre-Bush tax rates on the upper brackets, improved tax enforcement directed at tax evasion by the very wealthiest, as well as a small transfer tax on financial transactions.

The Public Debt

The true figure for debt -- that is, on which actual interest is paid by taxpayers -- is the public debt held by the public, estimated as of February 2009 to be about $6.64 trillion, according to the United States Department of Treasurty.

This figure is just over 40 percent of GDP, which is a far smaller portion than at any time during the quarter-century after World War II, a period of record economic boom.

The most important measure of the real debt burden is the ratio of public debt to GDP.

The debt ballooned during World War II, when we incurred huge annual deficits to re-arm America to defeat the Axis powers. Among the virtuous side effects of all that public spending were the recapitalization of U.S. industry, the re-training and re-employment of tens of millions of workers, and massive investments in science and technology.

All those investments bought a much more productive economy, and fueled the great postwar boom -- a period when the economy not only grew to an annual rate averaging 3.8 percent a year for three decades, but also when Americans across the income spectrum, and fueled the great post-World War II boom. And it was also a period when the economy not only grew to an annual rate averagomg 3.8 percent a year for three decades, but also when Americans across the income spectrum prospered while the economic inequality remained relatively modest. If public debt was crippling, the postwar boom could not have happened.

The comparison to today's situation is instructive. The debt-to-GDP ratio was about 120 percent of GDP at war's end. But within three decades, it had come down to a low of less than 25 percent of GDP because during the boom years the deficits were moderate, and the economy grew much faster than the debt.

Today, the most urgent concern is to prevent a second Great Depression, not to make fanciful debt projections for 2050. The single most important actor affecting the debt load in 2050 is the health of the real economy. If it takes deficit spending of 10 percent or even 15 percent of GDP per year for two years to put the economy back on the path to steady growth, that will be far more of a service to our children than having them inherit a prolonged depression.

If the public debt increases, say, 70 percent of GDP by 2011 as part of a necessary recovery program, the debt rate can then come down to something more normal once growth returns, just as it did after World War II.

Social Security

The Social Security program faces a relatively small 75-year budget shortfall, currently estimated by the Congressional Budget Office at 0.38 percent of GDP. The shortfall figure is so small and the margin for error so large that the program is effectively close to balance.

The economic assumptions used to produce that figure include a low rate of GDP growth, and slow wage growth. If wage growth were to return to the post-World War II trend relative to productivity gorwht, Social Security would be in perpetual surplus. Even if it turns out that the projected deficity is real, very small modifications in the sysem's tax collections or payout formulas would return the system to surplus.

Social Security is not in crisis, and relatively minor adjustments to the payroll tax would ensure the program's long-term fiscal soundness and benefits for future generations.

Medicare and Medicaid

The fiscal challenges facing Medicare are indeed serious. Medicare will go into deficit within a decade if nothing is done; but Medicare's cost inflation is a reflection of the extreme inefficiency of the larger health system of which it is a part.

Since 2000 Medicare's inflation rate actually has been lower than the private parts of the system, if we do not convert the larger health care system to universal health insurance, while making actual structural reforms needed to contain health care inflation, Medicare is on a relentless path to reduced benefits.
Absent comprehensive health reform and unviersal insurance, Congress will be forced to shift more and more costs to individual subscribers. This has huge social class implications, since more affluent retired people will be able to supplement barebones coverage with private resoruces, while ordinary Americans will not.

How to receive universal coverage as rational health policy and as a more efficient use of scarce resources, must be the subject of an urgent national debate. But far too much of the current debate centers on an 'entitlements crisis' which does not exist. The

crisis we face is a health care crisis.

Being Responsible to Our Children

One of the key strands of the fiscal conservative claims is that the national debt will result in lower living standards for future generations, or more recently, that the recovery package amounts to a 'generational theft.' Both of these claims are patently false, and divert attention from the real challenges facing today's young people to political football.

First, the living standards of our children are a function of two variables: whether we can get the economy back on a path toward higher growth and whegther we can provide the social investments necessary so that our children can become productive citizens and workers.

To sacrifice necessary social outlays on th altar of budget balancing is about guaranteed to prevent economic recovery and to reduce further the needed investments that yung Americans are already being denied.

Consider life from the perspective of 25-year-old Americans. For a great many of these younger citizens, their living standards are already below thsoe that their parents ejoyed at their age. The reasons have nothing to do with the national debt and everything to do with stingy social policies and wage inequality.

Young adults face a very steep path of entry into the middle class: high costs of housing, of health care, debts incurred to pay for college, expensive child care. Looking forward, they face diminished pension coverage. These are costs to the young and reductions in their living standards right now, not in 2050.

Conclusion

An honest debate about our economic future is required -- one that addresses the real and very distinct challenges confronting us today.

All too often this debate has been framed as an entitlements crisis or a problem of unfunded liabilities that are leading America down a path of economic destruction. But this is the wrong debate. The real debate is about what kind of social investment we need to ensure our nation advances in the 21st century and identifying responsible and sustainable mechanisms to pay for it.

The preceding is a part of a joint project of the Century Foundation and Demos. Founded in 1919 by progressive businessman Edward A. Filene, the Century Foundation is a nonprofit public policy research institution committed to the belief that a mix of effective government, open democracy and free markets is the most effecgtive solution to major challenges facing the United States. demos is a multi-issue nonpartisan public policy research and advocacy organization that works to influence public debates and catalyze change.