Maastricht Treaty revisions needed?

[kandrathe]

I would love to see minimum government, and at the lowest level, but first I want to see efficient government that meets the needs of the people.

I would be satisfied with the same three requirements. An objective of efficiency would mean that someone were measuring their results for a change. Minerals Management Service, or FEMA, for starters.

Can they? Item one only by eliminating federal financial aid to education, but I'm sure the residents of New York will voluntarily support the schools in Idaho.

Being that HEA Title IV began in 1965, and the Dept of Ed didn't begin operating until 1980, it seems we got by without it for managing financial aid. That is also setting aside the inflationary effect that federal financial aid is having in driving up the costs of tuition. #2 has also been done, and is in fact being done voluntarily in many other areas outside the government (such as the NSLC, now the National Student Clearinghouse). If you go get the US News and World Reports guide to colleges and universities, they contain 10 times more data than IPEDS collects.

The same is true for item three, but they'd have to come to some agreement -- is the major problem immigrants, poverty, gangs, race tensions?

That really depends on the State. This is where a state or district specific plan can focus on a problem. Just as with transportation, and agriculture, there aren't that many issues that uniformly affect every locality, city, or State.

And as to four, anyone who lived through the late '50s and '60s will forever distrust the states on issues of civil rights.

Again, this isn't wholesale destruction of the civil rights act, nor a return to Jim Crow. The government functioned all through the civil rights time period without a Department of Education. It started after I graduated from High School, and I can't say that they've made any big impact in improving civil rights or even on education.

You have taken the extreme, minority, position. It might be right, but it does require support.

It's not that extreme and has been proposed for awhile, and it might be in the minority presently. My view is that someday soon, we need to trim back on some of the "nice to haves", just to get the deficit under control, otherwise, we will be cutting back on shelter, food, health care and medicine for seniors, and poor people.

Each of these goals can be handled inside of a Federal structure. By one organization instead of 50+. With uniform standards that mean a child from New York can move to New Mexico and be neither ahead nor behind his new classmates. Standards that mean a person who has earned his teaching credentials can move from Florida to Alaska and not have to re-certify. With standards that mean an A student from Redmond WA and one from south Chicago have equivalent knowledge, at an equivalent level, and an equal probability of success in college. Not to mention an equal probability of getting to college.

Each of these things does happen already, without the federal government being involved. Teachers can be trained and certified in one state, and then work in any other state. This reciprocity is coordinated by NASDTEC and includes all 50 states, DC, territories, DOD, and Canadian Provinces. It began in the early to mid 1950's. The original incarnation of GWB's "No Child Left Behind", was Lyndon Johnson's 1965 ESEA act. So, again, no need for the Department of Education here either. You'd be surprised at what can be done to bring together educators across 50 states, without the need for a federal mandate.

Yes, I believe that less government is better government, but that is secondary to the original topic of this thread... How do we trim back on spending to avoid going the way of Greece? This question is being asked throughout the EU as well. We seem to be one of the few nations on seven continents who believe we can spend borrowed money as a path to prosperity.