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Add voter registration to the President Trump 100-day to-do list. Why? Because voting is a broken foundational system of our Democratic Republic and must be saved. The federal government must pass a low dictating the way forward and then give the states a year’s time to get a fraud-free system in place before the 2026 off-year primary elections begin.

Here is a Newsweek headline that illustrates exactly what the Liberals are thinking and doing whenever they discover the Republications are planning to initiate a fix for the broken voting system. “Within 24 hours of Independence Day 2022, Biden’s Department of Justice announced its plan to sue Arizona for a state law that requires proof of American citizenship to vote in presidential elections.” As incredulous as it may seem, you read that right; the DOJ was suing Arizona for making sure that people who are not citizens are not allowed to vote for president of the United States.

Additionally, every time any possible solution to fraudulent voting is raised it is by the Republicans. And every time it is loudly and frequently declared “racist” by the collective Democrat leadership.  Every time.

The irony of the Democrats’ “racist” claim is that the statement is in and of itself racist and demeaning. Their implication is that the process of lawful voter registration is so onerous that minority adults will not be able to accomplish the process.  Hogwash.

A University of Maryland study released in 2023 tells us that at least 20 million voter-age Americans do not have a current government photo ID. The ACLU in particular and Democrat leaders in general are quick to point out that a disproportionate share of those 20 million are minorities. Therefore, they conclude, voter ID must be a racial issue. Fact, every adult has access to a state-run ID facility.  Fact, voting is both an American privilege and responsibility. We should not, must not denigrate the right to vote or a guaranteed honest election result because adults of any race make a personal decision to not have an ID.

This Democrat behavior cannot be allowed to continue. Mr. President, make it a national issue and fix it now.

Democrats are insistent that we need mail-in voting.  They also insist that presenting Voter ID in the form of a driver’s license, passport or other state or federal ID is somehow a violation of citizens’ rights.  Let’s take a look around the world:

Is the United States the only country that has experienced a mail-in voting problem?   Certainly not but at least others have done something about it and for a good reason. This research was compiled by a friend of mine.  I’m certain it is fact-checked (thanks, Joe).

• France banned mail-in voting in 1975 due to fraud.
• Mexico banned mail-in voting in 1992 due to fraud.
• Belgium banned mail-in voting in 2018 due to fraud.
• Sweden does not permit mail-in voting.
• Italy does not permit mail-in voting.
• Ukraine does not permit mail-in voting.
• Russia does not permit mail-in voting.
• Japan does not permit mail-in voting.
• No Middle Eastern nation permits mail-in voting.
• No Latin America country permits mail-in voting.

THE PROBLEMS

The key elements are mail-in ballots, drop boxes (stuffing), ballot harvesting (sorted by unauthorized persons) and out of date error-ridden voter registration rolls.

The cause-and-effect are that the validity of the mail-in ballot is directly linked to the validity of the mail-out ballot. Voter registration rolls are the source of addressing the mail-out ballots and across the country the voter registration rolls are in pathetic condition involving millions of legal voters/illegal voters.

FACTS SUPPORTING THE PROBLEM STATEMENT

Judicial Watch is a nonprofit activist group that focuses on promoting transparency and accountability in government through litigation and investigations.

Judicial Watch relies on its voter registration studies to warn and/or sue states that they are failing to comply with the requirements of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which requires states to make reasonable efforts to clean their voter rolls. Judicial Watch can and has sued to enforce compliance with that federal law.

Some Judicial Watch actions:

Los Angeles County, the most populous county in the U.S., had a 2022 population of 9.86 million residents. Judicial Watch filed a federal lawsuit against Los Angeles County that was finally settled in 2017 after the county complied by removing 1,207,613 ineligible and inactive voters from its voter rolls. Without that successful law suit, those 1,207,613 ineligible voters would have presumably received a mail-in ballot.

September, 2021 California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 37 making California the eighth state in the nation with a law on the books requiring every voter (that is, voter name on the registration rolls) to be mailed a ballot.  

Other Judicial Watch recent settlements: New York City was forced to remove 441,083 ineligible names from voter rolls. In Kentucky, “hundreds of thousands” were removed. In North Carolina “over 430,000 inactive registrations were removed.”

Though all states offer some form of voting by mail, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Washinton state and Washington, D.C., now mandate that every “registered” voter be mailed a ballot ahead of an election by default; it’s called all-mail voting, aka all-fraudulent voting.

All of the above could be OK if, and this is the big IF, the voter registration rolls were up to date (no dead people), correct (actually living at the recorded address) and are in fact eligible to vote (U.S. citizens). 

HOW WIDESPREAD IS THE NATIONAL VOTER REGISTRATION PROBLEM?

Judicial Watch announced that a nation-wide September 2020 study revealed that 353 U.S. counties in 29 states had more registered voters than eligible voting-age citizens. In other words, the registration rates of those counties exceeded 100% of eligible voters. The study found eight states showing state-wide (all counties) registration rates exceeding 100%: Alaska, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

Two questions: First, where the Judicial Watch study methods valid? The September 2020 study collected the most recent registration data posted online by the states themselves. This data was then compared to the Census Bureau’s most recent five-year population estimates, gathered by the American Community Survey from 2014 through 2018. ACS surveys are sent to 3.5 million addresses each month, and its five-year estimates are considered to be the most reliable estimates outside of the decennial census. Yes, the study methodology was valid.

Second, what number of ineligible voters is considered significant? The candidate for dog-catcher in Po Dunk township expects and deserves a legal election just as much as a presidential candidate. The dog-catcher election in that small community can come down to a single vote. Bottom line, one ineligible voter is one too many. 

During the 2020 presidential campaign, U.S. President Donald Trump claimed during his first debate with Democratic challenger Joe Biden that mail-in voting will lead to “fraud like you’ve never seen,” thereby challenging the integrity of the upcoming election.

Biden countered: “No one has established at all that there is fraud related to mail-in ballots.” Oh yes, they have Mr. Biden, you just didn’t like the answer so you and your Democrat followers continued lying with the denial and the “racist” accusations. Judicial Watch pretty much settled that question.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The data highlights the recklessness of mailing blindly ballots and ballot applications to voter registration lists. Dirty voting rolls can mean dirty elections.”

Right now, the Democrats need to stop lying to themselves and we-the-people about the mail-in ballot fraud issue.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT VOTER FRAUD? A SIMPLE FEDERAL LAW AND A NUMBER.

We cannot just sit by, do nothing and hope for the best. Hope is not a process and doing nothing is irresponsible and cowardly.

The federal government should pass a law as soon as possible that mandates two actions at the State level.  The SECURE U.S. ELECTIONS ACT should easily be less than ten pages, easy for everyone to understand and easy to execute. The Act should tell us:

• First, as of a date-certain in 2025 every voter registration roll in every state must become null and void. 
• Secondly every eligible voter who wishes to vote in the states’ next election must re-register in 2025 or 2026. Simply stated, we desperately need a one-time, 100% reboot of the voter registration system. 

• The law will then go on to specify how the voter will go about proving in person that they are in fact, an eligible voter.

THE REAL ID ACT 2005 CAN/SHOULD PLAY A CENTRAL ROLE

In accordance with that law (finally) on May 7, 2025, U.S. travelers must be REAL ID compliant to board domestic flights in the U.S. 

Secure driver’s licenses and personal ID cards are a vital component of our national security framework. The REAL ID Act enacted the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation that the Federal Government “set standards for the issuance of sources of identification, such as driver’s licenses.” Every state is required by this federal law to provide the facilities capable of providing REAL ID drivers licenses or personal ID cards.  The applicable parts of that law are:

• The person’s full legal name.
• The person’s date of birth.
• The person’s gender.
• The person’s driver’s license or identification card number; critical.
• A digital photograph of the person.
• The person’s address of principle residence.
• The person’s signature.
• Physical security features designed to prevent tampering, counterfeiting, or duplication of the document for fraudulent purposes.
• A common machine-readable technology, with defined minimum data elements.
• An expiration date.

• As millions of Americans already know, when you appear to get the REAL ID, you must have in your possession proof of all the above information; birth certificate, U.S. passport, social security card, a current bill addressed to you at your legal address.

Why does anyone believe we should have anything less to prove that we are eligible to vote?

HOW THE REAL ID CAN WORK FOR VOTER REGISTRATION

At some date when a state is ready to begin reconstructing its voter registry, an eligible voter may appear at a voting office in their area or download their REAL ID data onto an online application form that can be mailed to their local election office. The name, address, expiration date and most importantly the number on the driver’s license or personal ID will be entered into the new state voter registration data base. 

It is the number on the ID that will make voter fraud very difficult.  As part of this new voter fraud law, every single ballot, either mail-in or in-person voting will have a number on it; a REAL ID number, a Voter ID number if required by that state or a social security number. Every single ballot will have a number on it that directly links it to one eligible voter.  Period.

This new law, let’s call it SECURE U.S. ELECTIONS ACT, will also specify that every voting machine in the nation will be updated to reject any ballot that does not contain a voter number, that the number corresponds to a particular individual whose name and address is on the ballot and that the number has not been previously used during that election cycle. 

Getting dead voters off the rolls. Under this system, part of the on-going process with the voter registration roll is that when a Voter ID reaches its expiration date, that person will be automatically dropped from the rolls.  Also, each time a REAL ID license or ID is renewed, that data will be automatically forwarded to the state voter registration to put that individual back on the voter rolls. On a continuous basis, this cleans out the dead voters.

THE PERSON WHO DOES NOT WANT TO GET A REAL ID BUT DOES WANT TO VOTE

The SECURE U.S. ELECTIONS ACT will provide for in-person election day voter registration (to include early in-person voting dates).  That voter must present the same documentation required for a REAL ID and present it at the voting venue.  The documentation must include a Social Security card and the social security number will become the voter number used on that ballot, that day.  

STATES’ RIGHTS

States have proven they cannot be trusted when left to their own devices when it comes to voter security.  Therefore, a federal law, Secure U.S. Elections Act, will prescribe a single nation-wide system that every ballot will be paper, contain a valid ID number and be signed by a voter who has proven their U.S. citizenship.

Left up to the states are issues such as early voting (when, where and for how long), and absentee ballots (deadline for requesting one and for receipt back).  Mail-in voting is authorized if the mail-out ballot has a valid Voter ID number preprinted on the ballot and is sent to a valid address that matches that of the legal voter. Ballot boxes and Ballot Harvesting are absolutely prohibited.

CONCLUSIONS

This law, SECURE U.S. ELECTIONS ACT, can/should be an easy, quick fix to support our next election cycle that, without a fix, could be the one that completely crumbles one of the most sacred foundational elements of this country; free and honest elections.

The basis for this new law is already on the books, THE REAL ID ACT.  The states are already performing the functions to produce IDs for eligible voters. Tens of millions of Americans already have a Real ID. All that is needed is a requirement to reboot the voter registration rolls during 2025

This is not rocket-science; it’s just a name, an address and a number. Any attempt to manipulate the data for political gain is voter fraud and someone should go to jail. 

BOTTOM LINE

What this all boils down to is this question; are eligible citizens at least patriotic enough that they will make the same effort for the right to vote that they would make for eligibility to get on a U.S. airliner?

The answer to that question seems to be a resounding YES. How resounding?

On 24 October, 2024 Gallup released polling data that revealed overwhelming support for voting reform as follows:

• 84 % of Americans back having, “all voters give photo identification at their voting place in order to vote.”
• 83% back having, “people who are registering to vote for the first time provide proof of citizenship.”
• 80% of people of color support Voter ID.
• 76% of people of color support a proof of citizenship requirement.

Mr. President, make it happen now in this sequence.

• Draft the SECURE U.S. ELECTIONS ACT in the White House.
• Address the nation on this subject with these objectives:

One, use fact-checked numbers from Judicial Watch to take away Bidens claim that, “no one has established at all that there is fraud”, and the Democrat leaders’ “racist” claim and the Left media’s noise about “undemocratic” and “unconstitutional.”

 Secondly, tell the American public that there has rarely been a serious national issue that has this kind of bipartisan support by using the Gallup poll numbers. Tell Americans, “We are doing this because more that 80% of you want us to.”

 Also spend some time talking about free and honest elections being one of the hallmarks of this great nation and we must do whatever is necessary to insure its purity. While we recognize that at least 20 million voting-age Americans do not possess any form of non-expired, government-issued photo identification, voting is not only a right and privilege it is also a responsibility. Your state has a facility where you can get a Real I.D.  Under this Bill, that I.D. is all you will need to be a lawful voter. I encourage all of you to act responsively and be ready to vote in the next election.

• Send the draft Bill to Congressional leaders with a personal cover letter requesting their bipartisan support for the will of 80% of Americans.

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, FIX THE SYSTEMS, TRANSFORM AMERICA as well as the author of a blog WeThePeopleSpeaking.com.

HOW IS THE IRS DOING AS AN OPERATING ORGANIZATION?  

Here is a summary of some reports from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration:

• In the 2021 filing season, the IRS received 167 million calls for assistance but only answered 9% of them.
• IRS ended 2022 with a backlog of 1.4 million unprocessed individual and business tax returns.
• $19 billion, 28%, of earned-income tax credit payments in FY 21, were “improper.”
• 67,000 claims, $15.6 billion, for low-income housing tax credit from 2015 to 2019, “lacked or did not match supporting documentation due to reporting errors.”
• A May 2022, audit found that 26%, $1.9 billion, of its American opportunity tax credits for education expenses were “improper” in FY 2021.
• 27%, $541 million, of its net premium tax credits (Obamacare) were improper in FY 2019
• May, 2022 audit,13%, $5.2 billion of its enhanced child tax credit payments were “improper”.
• September, 2020, the IRS issued 89,338 notices to taxpayers insisting that balances were owed even though the taxes were not actually due.
• February, 2022, audit found the IRS department responsible for ensuring retirement plan tax compliance suffered a 23% decline in the quality of its examinations from 2018 to 2020,
• In 2010 the Congress passed the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act to identify wealthy Americans using undisclosed foreign accounts. The intent was to raise $9 billion in revenue by 2020. An April 2022 audit showed the IRS spent $574 million to implement the law and had found only $14 million in revenue
• In 2010 the IRS began a program to examine returns from “high income” individuals (those with incomes of over $200,000). But from FY 2015-2017, 73% of the targeted returns were for those earning less than $200,000. Again, intent and results mismatch.

Those pieces of information present a picture of an organization in chaos with low standards, ingrained mismanagement and little or no viable leadership. In spite of this reality, Congressional Democrats and then President Biden believed it was a good idea to spend $80 billion to double the size and weaponize one of the most inept, inefficient departments in the government.

Is the IRS’s problem that they are short 87,000 employees? Of course not, but too many in Congress and Biden/Harris continued to believe that every problem can be solved by throwing thousands of bureaucrats and billions of dollars at it.

What President Trump needs to do is define the base problem first.  Then, and only then, develop a specific plan to fix the problem. 

HERE IS THE PROBLEM

According to the Public Law 117-154 (23 June, 2022), the U.S. Tax Code is 6,871 pages. But when you include the federal tax regulations and the official tax guidance, it rises to approximately 75,000 pages.  That’s the problem.

How do we fix it? First, how not to fix it.  Do not appoint a special commission to work their way through 75,000 pages adding, subtracting and rewording.  Doing so will probably result in an even worse 80,000-page document. 

Instead of trying to fix it, hit the delete button, all 75,000 pages, and start over with a clean sheet of paper.  Start out with a long-range strategic planning maxim; that is, begin planning at the end.  In this case define the dual end state factors first. After that, plan for the specific issues: how much tax, what types of tax, how are they divided up among taxpayers and the IRS role in administering it.

DUAL END-STATES

 The first is the alignment of overall annual government budgeted requirements with accurately projected revenue. The second is based on the assumption that few, if any, Americans can accurately articulate what the current Tax Code is about.  What we need to end up with is a new Tax Code that can be read in a few minutes and understood by every taxpayer in America.  Both are within the art of the possible as follows:  

NEW TAX CODE, CHAPTER ONE, INDIVIDUAL GROSS INCOME

All taxes will be based on individual gross income. So, the first thing is to define exactly what constitutes individual gross income, how it is derived, how it is reported and how it can be verified.  Also begin with a threat of very harsh penalties for anyone who is caught hiding or misstating their gross income. Fear of going to jail is a powerful incentive.

CHAPTER TWO, TAX DEDUCTIONS

The current 75,000 pages of tax code/regulations undoubtedly contains hundreds of possible deductions. Therein lies a big part of the problem and requires thousands of IRS employees to deal with it. 

Under this plan there is one and only one authorized deduction from personal gross income; charitable contributions. But the charities have to be real and operate under a strict set of standards in order to qualify.

The Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation’s tax return, 2014, provides a perfect example of a charity that would not qualify as a tax deduction by donors.

In 2014 the Clinton Charitable Foundation total revenue, in rounded numbers, was $178 million. From that, actual grants to charity amounted to about $5 million; three per cent.

This Tax Code chapter on contributions must include standards for a charity to qualify for a tax deduction. For example, grants to charity must be at least 75% (or whatever we determine the correct number should be) of charitable revenue for an organization to qualify.

Every charitable organization would be required to submit income and expenditures annually to the IRS and be subject to audits.  For each tax year the IRS would publish the list of qualifying charitable organizations to be cross-checked with individuals’ tax return deductions. This will guarantee every doner that their money is actually going to a worthy cause.  If the charity can’t pass the smell test and make the annual IRS list, they will probably soon be out of business, which may be a good thing.

 CHAPTER THREE, CORPORATE TAX

Let’s begin this discussion with a fact: corporations do not pay taxes, people pay taxes.  The so-called corporate tax is, to the corporation, just another cost of producing their product.  The tax is no different than the cost of raw materials, salaries, marketing, etc.  The money that a corporation pays to the government in taxes, has already been passed on to workers in lower wages, to customers in a higher priced product and results in a lower competitive product in the global market.

So, let’s do away with all that nonsense and the hundreds of millions of dollars that businesses spend on accountants and lawyers to compute their tax returns.

Under this plan, there will be no corporate taxes.  There is another way, a more sensible way, to turn corporate income into government tax revenue.

Let’s say for example that General Motors has a very good year.  As a result, they might raise wages and salaries, hire a few hundred new employees, build a new plant (future wages/salaries), pay more and higher bonuses to their top performers, and pay higher dividends to stockholders.  All of those corporate actions will translate into higher individual gross personal income for thousands of tax payers. Bottom line, the government gets their revenue from individual gross income tax, the corporations’ products become more competitive in the global marketplace and the gross domestic product goes up. 

Therefore, under this new tax plan corporate tax gets explained in a sentence, “no corporate tax”, instead of thousands of pages of tax regulations. And, perhaps more importantly, corporate tax will no longer be a political yoyo. 

Taking taxes off the table for businesses and corporations has many positive residual effects.  As an example, in 2017 President Trump cut corporate taxes from 35% (highest in the world) to 21%.  Economists predicted one of the positive delayed impacts would actually be increased tax revenue rather than reduced federal income. They were correct because cutting corporate taxes resulted in higher wages, hiring went up, businesses expanded and generally the entire economy grew and pushed government revenue to the highest levels in history.

Taking corporate taxes to zero will cause an economic revolution: overseas manufacturing will come back to the U.S., we will be less dependent on China, wages will go up, unemployment down, those who can work will be forced off the welfare rolls, GDP will increase and overall government revenue will shoot up.

CHAPTER FOUR, CAPITAL GAINS TAX

Capital Gains Tax is currently a separate tax that is levied on profits an investor realizes when they sell a capital asset for a price that is higher than the purchase price.

As of 2021, the long-term capital gains tax was typically either 0%, 15% or 20% depending upon your tax bracket.

Under this new Tax Code there will no longer be a separate tax on capital gains.  If you invest $10,000 and can prove it and then sell it for $15,000 at a later date, that is simply a $5,000 addition to that year’s gross income that may or may not put you in a higher tax bracket. 

Capital losses occur when an investment is sold for less than its original purchase price. Under the new Tax Code this will have zero bearing on your taxes.  Why should you get a tax break for making a bad decision and losing money?

This simplified formula for Capital Gains Taxes also does away with the Biden/Harris proposed nonsense of taxing Capital Gains on investments that have not yet been sold.

CHAPTER FIVE, DEATH TAX, AKA ESTATE OR INHERITANCE TAX 

Death taxes are the most morally corrupt initiative in our government.  Therefore, in the new Tax Code there will be no such thing as a Death/Estate/Inheritance Tax.

Death Tax is a tax on your right, even though you are now deceased, to transfer everything you own at the time of your death.

The Death Tax habitually hits rural America especially hard. Farmers and ranchers generally fall into an economic category of being, “land rich and cash poor.”  Agricultural land has almost always increased in value over time; that’s the good news; land rich.  The problem with agri-business is that there is little or no consistency in profitability from year to year.  Perhaps last year’s harvest put a pile of money in the bank. But this year a 30-minute violent hail storm cut your soybean yield by 50%. In Southeast U.S., a sustained drought cut the 2022 cotton harvest by about 50%.  A few years ago, farmers were not anticipating that the anhydrous ammonia fertilizer they would need in 2022 would go up by $86,000 for 1000 acres of crop; cash poor.

So, Mom and Dad pass away and the two kids now own the farm; a farm they love, where they labored as youngsters and where their children might someday want to farm.  But both middle-income kids have a house mortgage, car payments, some student debt and a couple overdue credit card payments.  No way they can dig up a few hundred thousand dollars to pay the Death Tax. They have no choice; they have to sell.  Some of you are thinking, but there are estate value limits before the death tax becomes applicable.  Yes, you are correct but you are also missing the larger issue; we need to get this monster off the books forever.

Death tax is unamerican government-greed insanity.  Under this proposed Tax Code, you inherit it, you own it; period.  Do what you want with it, not what the greedy government tells you to do. 

CHAPTER SIX, TAX BRACKETS

The concept of operations for this plan is to divide personal gross income into many brackets ranging from zero to billions of dollars. That could end up to be a lot of pages depending on how small each bracket is.  The good news is that the individual taxpayer only has to refer to one of those pages; the page that lists the tax rate for their particular gross income.

The tax rate for each of the succeeding bracket would be progressive but also careful to not disincentivize a taxpayer.  True story:  An acquaintance of mine is a successful upper-level executive in France.  She told me that upon getting a promotion resulting in greater responsibility and longer working hours, the salary increase put her into a new/higher tax bracket that resulted in her net take-home pay actually being less than before the promotion.

THE TAX CODE MODEL will look something like this and I will use some numbers just to illustrate the intent:

First, define the gross income brackets. For example,

• Zero to $100,000 divided into 4 separate brackets: $0-25K, $25-50K, $50-75K and $75-100K gross income.
• 100K to one million,10 increments separated by $100K.
• One million to 10 million, 10 increments separated by $1 million.
• 10 million to 20 million, 5 increments separated by $2 million.
• 20 million to 100 million, 8 increments separated by $10 million.
• 100 million to one billion, 10 increments separated by $100 million.
• Remaining increments of $500 million each.

That’s 47+ brackets but the number is immaterial to the Tax Code model; there could be hundreds of smaller brackets, the taxpayer simply finds the bracket that fits their situation.

Second, beginning with the $25-50K bracket, assign a tax rate percent, for example 7.5%. The tax rate will be consistently progressive from the $25K bracket to the $500 million bracket with each bracket’s tax rate increased by .5%. With this concept the tax rate for a gross income of $100,000 to $200,000 would be 9.0% (25-50 = 7.5%, 50-75 = 8%, 75-100 = 8.5%, 100 -200 = 9%………900,000-1million = 13%)

Third, determine the number of taxpayers in each bracket.  After the first year under the new Tax Code that will be easier to do and should be updated every year.

Of course, all of these brackets and rates are examples.  But they represent how easily they can be plugged into a simple computer model to achieve a pre-determined overall federal revenue for a given year. This simple model plus a big computer makes “what-iffing” simple.  What if we begin the $25K bracket with a 6.5% tax rate rather than 7.5%?  What if we have 100 smaller brackets rather than 47?  Etc. etc?  Easily and quickly answer tough questions.

Fourth, begin by running the first model with next fiscal year’s budget total as determined by the Congress by 30 September each year.

So, the president submits his budget to Congress the first Monday in February. February through September Congress works to produce a final annual Federal Budget by passing 12 Appropriations Bills all by 30 September.  Let’s say the budget is $4.436 trillion beginning the fiscal year on 1 October. 

The first run of the model would spit out a projected revenue number.  If it falls short of the budget, simply increase by perhaps a tenth of a percent, the tax rate for each bracket. The point being within a few minutes of adjustments the projected revenue from taxpayers’ gross income can equal the budget request; a balanced budget.

BACK TO THE IRS:

The problem with the IRS is not that they don’t want to do good work or that they lack resources; they had more than 100,000 full-time employees at the end of FY 2024 with a budget of $12.3 billion. The problem is the ridiculous 75,000-page tax system.  Fix the system, transform America. Perhaps the IRS, under this system may only need a few thousand folks.

BALANCED BUDGET

Fixing the IRS should not be a stand-alone effort. It can also present an opportunity to pass a Balanced-Budget Amendment.  The national debt is currently headed towards $37 trillion at a rate of about $6.6 billion per day in deficit spending and there is no relief in sight. The total transparency of tax and revenue with this new Tax Code plan will provide the opportunity to fix our current deficit spending mania. 

Congress, whatever party is in power, has clearly demonstrated they do not have the discipline to control spending.  We do not have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem.  A Balanced-Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution would constrain total government spending to be less than or equal to total tax collections. Given Congress’ predilections towards annual deficit spending, a new Tax Code is a viable way we can get our national debt under control. 

THE WHITE HOUSE ROLE; A CRITICAL CENTER OF GRAVITY

President Trump should pull together a few super-stars, give them a blank sheet of paper and task them with writing a new Tax Code; all the while keeping Congressional leaders in the loop.

Under no circumstances should the existing IRS be involved.  Additionally, if the task of producing a new Tax Code is left up to Congress, it is highly likely it will be a disaster. Multiple Congressional committees in the House and Senate will be involved with perhaps dozens of staffers doing the writing, offering advice, negotiating changes, suggesting compromises and adding input from lobbyists into the mix. It may not end up to be 75,000 pages but will surely be thousands of pages more than necessary and probably make no sense. 

THE NEW IRS, HIT THE DELETE BUTTON

The new organization will be so dramatically different, under no circumstances should it be a slimmed-down version of the current model.  This must be another blank sheet of paper operation that comes out of the White House. Recall earlier in this paper a few answers to the question, how is the current IRS performing. It’s a disaster.

One cannot “create” a new organization from the top down by sorting through a bureaucratic mass of over 100,000 government employees.  Begin at the bottom with a new mission statement and a new statement of intent. Build up as follows:

• Divide the tasks to be performed as dictated in the new Tax Code. Separate them and that can identify the separate Divisions. 
• For each Division look at specific tasks and potential volume of work.
• From that begin to build up the boxes in the organization diagram, paying particular attention to layering (not much) and span of control (the right amount).
• Err on the side of sparce numbers.  It will be easy to add essential elements after they are determined to be actually essential to day-to-day operations.
• The overarching objective in building the new IRS should be synergy.  “The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.”  That is, create an overarching synergistic effect that one can see and feel while observing the totality of the IRS in action on a daily basis.
• The operational whole must be greater than the sum of the parts.  Every day while building the new IRS, the leader must be working hard to make 2 + 2 = 5.

CONCLUSIONS

Today taxation is a complete mystery to almost every taxpayer. We all live with the “April surprise” when our tax accountant tells us how much we owe or will get as a refund.  No more April surprises.  Now a family can sit down at the kitchen table, calculate what they expect their gross income to be and from that know exactly what their tax burden will be and proceed to work up their family budget.

Considering the minimal amount of data taxpayers will now be required to provide, this should reduce the IRS personnel requirement by tens of thousands of employes and billions of dollars.

Currently it is safe to say no one understands everything contained in those 75,000 pages of tax law, tax regulations, and legal findings over the decades.  Now every citizen will be capable of knowing it all.

BOTTOM LINE

This proposed legislation is potentially one of today’s most needed and most important transformations during this time of change that President Trump is leading. It is so common sense that it should be non-political but unfortunately won’t be.

This proposal is a potential game changer for America and will be readily understood and accepted by most citizens. 

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, and a new book May 2022, FIX THE SYSTEMS, TRANSFORM AMERICA as well as the author of a blog WeThePeopleSpeaking.com

PART 1

The what? An Executive Order from the Speaker? President Trump signed 118 Executive Orders within houses after taking the oath of office on 20 January aimed at the Departments and Agencies in the Executive Branch.  Why can’t the Speaker of the House do the same for his part of the federal government? There is an applicable quote that covers this situation, “When in charge, take charge.”  

THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE ADDRESSING THE ASSEMBLED MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

Good morning, thank you for showing up. For those members who decided not to attend, I will speak to them tomorrow evening after work. For your information, as I speak, this Executive Order is being sent electronically to your offices.

SOME BACKGROUND DATA

In 2020 when the pandemic was beating up every aspect of our society the Congress concocted a 5,593-page-Bill monstrosity for Covid-19 relief, The Cares Act.  Of course, it passed; nearly everyone could use a little relief from Covid and the taxpayers were stuck with the Bill, all $1.8 trillion dollars. 

But here is the pathetic part; under the guise of helping Americans through the pandemic, members of Congress seized on the opportunity to pork-up the Bill with dozens, if not hundreds, of earmarked funding directives that had absolutely nothing to do with Covid or Covid relief.  Here is a small sampling:

• $10 million for “gender programs” in Pakistan,

• $300 million for fisheries,
• $100 million for NASA,
• $300 million to Endowment for the Arts,
• $300 million to Endowment for the Humanities,
• $300 million to Public Broadcasting,
• $500 million for Museums and Libraries, 
• $720 million to Social Security Administration,
• $315 million to the State Department,
• $90 million to the Peace Corp,
• $492 million to National Railroad Passenger Corp,
• $526 million grant to Amtrak and
• $4.7 Billion in foreign aid to nine countries (average $522 million each country).

The first takeaway from this example is that under different circumstances, each of these expenditures could have/should have seen the light of day in one or more congressional committees where expert witnesses would have testified to the pros and cons of passing the funding.

The second takeaway is that the Covid Relief Act was not a one-off occurrence. Producing multi-thousand-page Bills has become the norm. No one who votes for them has actually read them and therefore do not know what they are voting for or against. Should we be borrowing money for earmarks that have never been exposed to public scrutiny? If viewed separately by the American taxpayers, would they all pass the smell test?  Absolutely not.

The third takeaway is a couple questions to each of you in this assembly; how many of you actually read the 5,593-page bill before you voted on it? How many of you knew you were spending $10 million on gender programs in Pakistan?

Let me remind you of a second spending example: For years politicians have been emphasizing the need for infrastructure spending.  So, in 2021 Congress finally passed, in a bipartisan vote, the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act which, by the way, is also funding:

• Universal pre-K,
• Child care,
• Enhanced child tax credit,
• Earned income tax credit,
• Affordable Care Act subsidies,
• Medicaid expansion,
• Medical hearing benefits,
• Affordable housing,
• Pell grants,
• Children’s nutrition,
• Immigration,
• State and local tax deductions,
• Etc. etc. etc. 

Only about 25% of the expenditures actually exist for real infrastructure such as roads, bridges and airports. What happened to the remaining $900 Billion?

We finished fiscal year 2024 with $1.8 trillion in deficit spending, up from $1.7 trillion in 2023. Just a reminder that the uncensured add-ons to the two Bills I just outlined for you represent a huge piece of the annual deficit spending we have become too used to.

Those opening remarks are just attention getters.  Now to reality.  It has become obvious in the short time since the 2024 election that the people we work for, the voters who sent us here, want change, are ready for change and expect change.

How many times do you hear in this body, “the reason we do things this way is because, we have always done it this way.” Well, that doesn’t make it right. That is not a good enough reason to spend $10 million on gender programs in Pakistan.

The downsizing and reorientation of the Executive Branch that is currently underway will undoubtedly cut hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud, waste, abuse and unnecessary spending.  But there is a second arena that when turned inside-out and looked at through a microscope can potentially save additional hundreds of billions of dollars annually. That is us in this room; the U.S. House of Representatives.  

As your leader, I am presenting to you today in an Executive Order a concept of operations for the House which is currently an undisciplined failure as an operating organization.

How do our constituents think we are doing? The recently released annual Gallup Poll ratings of U.S. professions provide some interesting insights. The top three professions rated “high/very high” are nurses 76%, grade school teachers 61% and military officers 59%. The bottom three rated “low/very low” are TV reporters 55% and tied for last place are lobbyists and Congress 68%. Low to very low; we can do better, we must do better.

For most of the last 49 years Congress has been at or near the bottom in this annual Gallop poll.  One would think, out of sheer embarrassment that we would want to clean up our act.

Let’s agree right now that change is absolutely necessary if we are to be all we can/should be.

My proposed concept of operations begins by institutionalizing a set of eight operational standards and then establishes a small oversight organization that will make sure the standards are in place and utilized every day in every way.  An organization without standards is a failed organization; that’s where we are today.

THE CONGRESSIONAL LEGISLATION STANDARDS AUTHORITY, CLSA

A small team of operators will be set up in the office of the Speaker called the Congressional Legislation Standards Authority. The CLSA’s sole purpose will be to enforce these eight standards and to administer the life-cycle of a piece of legislation. The CLSA will NOT be in charge of the Congress.  They will NOT make policy.  But they will become the administrators of the day-to-day process of creating new legislation and a new budget.  The Congress has proven that it is incapable of successfully and efficiently administrating themselves.  The CLSA can become something akin to the very valuable oversight we see from the Congressional Budget Office whose work is objective and nonpartisan. 

Under the CLSA every Bill will first appear on a Congressional web site operated solely by the CLSA that is totally dedicated to enforcing the standards for every Bill.  Every member of Congress will receive an alert each time a new Bill is proposed and posted on a new Congressional Legislation Website. 

This website will be managed solely by the CLSA; The sponsors of a Bill may contact the CLSA at any time to update schedules, to notify members of committee hearings, to make changes to the legislation, etc.  But the CLSA team are the only ones who can access the site to add, delete or change any piece of information.

The CLSA does not have the authority to recommend changes, additions or deletions to the intent of the legislation.  Their function is to determine if the proposed legislation meets certain established standards, with particular emphasis on Standard Number Three, Applicability which I will get to in a moment, and on meeting previously established suspense dates.   

STANDARD NUMBER ONE, OUTLAW “EARMARKING”

As you are all aware, an earmark is a provision inserted into a discretionary spending Billthat directs funds to a specific recipient while circumventing the merit-based or competitive funds allocation process. Most earmarks are attached to a “must-pass” Bill so that it is protected from non-passage or presidential veto. My definition of most earmarks is an idea that would not have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting passed if, standing alone, it was exposed to the light of day. This standard alone will cut billions in spending as illustrated in the two Bills I discussed previously.

STANDARD NUMBER TWO, SUNSET LEGISLATION

As you know, sunset legislation is a measure, within a statute or regulation, that provides that the law shall cease to have effect after a specific future date, unless further legislative action is taken to extend the law. Most laws do not have sunset clauses and therefore remain in force indefinitely. Keep in mind that most laws cause some new Executive Department organization to be created.  Our government is full of agencies, divisions and branches that require annual funding, while having outlived their requirement to exit.

STANDARD NUMBER THREE, APPLICABILITY

 As previously pointed out in 2020 the 5593-page Covid-19 relief Bill there were scores of organizations funded from that Bill that had absolutely zero association with the Covid-19 outbreak or relief thereof.

Hereafter all of the provisions of a particular Bill must clearly identify with the subject, purpose and intent of the Bill which will save additional billions of needless expenditures per year.  It will prevent publishing Bills that are too lengthy to read.

STANDARD NUMBER FOUR, STAND-ALONE

Every Bill will be a single-issue piece of legislation. Period.

STANDARD NUMBER FIVE, TIME LIMITS

There are two different situations to consider.  One is the federal budget process and the other is all Bills other than those in the budget process. 

The non-budget Bills will get processed in one continuous timeframe not to exceed 90-days per Bill.  The CLSA will grade the scheduling of all activities to insure it is ready to be voted on within the 90-day timeframe.  The exception to this is, at any time the Bill’s sponsor or committee may pull it from consideration. (We will get to the federal budget process in a few minutes.)

STANDARD NUMBER SIX, LEADERS CANNOT HIDE A PENDING BILL

Speakers of the House have too often practiced sitting on Bills, not allowing them to be voted on for protracted periods of time. This will not be allowed.  Every Bill will be voted on or before the end of its 90-day life-span.

STANDARD NUMBER SEVEN, WEBSITE FORMAT

Every piece of legislation will be formatted with four specific sections and pages as follows:

SECTION ONE, PAGE ONE of the CLSA standard format is all about accountability and transparency and will consist of continuously updated information.

• Current as of date: __________ each time there is a new or changed data point posted on the website for this piece of legislation, the CLSA will update this “current as of” date.

• Title of the legislation:  ___________________________________

• Start date: ________ the date the CLSA initially uploads it onto the website and notifies all legislators that it is there for them to review and act on.

• Not-later-than-date to be presented, debated and voted on the floor of the House of Representatives.

• The member of Congress who is the principal sponsor _________________

and co-sponsors

• Author of the proposed Bill: ______________ (a member of Congress, the White House, a Congressional committee staff, Executive Branch Department, Non-governmental organization, lobbyist, private citizen, etc.)

• Sunset legislation date:  ___(a date that must be included inside the Bill)_______

• Schedule for committee hearings: _______________________________________

Before moving on to section 2 of the format, some

COMMENTS ON DRAFTING OF LEGISLATION:  

Lobbyists. There are nearly 12,000 registered lobbyists in the U.S. and most of them seem to reside in Washington D.C. They work for businesses, professional associations, cities, states, non-profit organizations, etc.  They get paid to make things happen in government and mostly that is in the form of special interest legislation. Lobbyist are a prime source of today’s legislation and especially earmarks. It is not a completely negative concept but the downside is that they can too frequently get politicians to earmark appropriations that are self-serving and not in the best interest of the general public.  It’s called waste and abuse of power.

Congressional committee staffers.  Staffers write much of the legislation today and therein lies a big problem.  Because many issues rarely fit nicely inside the domain of a single committee, there will ultimately be multiple committee staffers, working on behalf of their politicians and bringing their individual thoughts and prejudices to the effort. Too often, having begun in good faith to build a thoroughbred race horse, they end up with a herd of camels. Under today’s system that “camel” ends up earmarked to some “must pass” Bill and eventually in some Executive Branch, department or agency for execution. By then, the original intent for the Bill may be so convoluted that it is potentially a complete waste of time, energy, money and is one of the causes of the gross inefficiency of government. 

I believe the Executive Branch of government, to include the president, should author a larger portion of the Bills.  Why?  Because they know the who, what, when, where, why and how details of their proposals that should not be delegated to lobbyists or congressional staffers. Why not let the experts, those who will be responsible for execution, do the up-front piece?  For example, if the Department of Homeland Security needs $400 million for border security, they should write the proposed Bill and seek out some member(s) of Congress to sponsor it.

SECTION TWO, PAGE TWOof the CLSA standard format is all about intent

• Current as of date: __________ each time there is a new or changed data point posted on the website for this piece of legislation, the CLSA will update this “current as of” date.

• Intent is one of the most powerful tools available to a leader. Therefore, it should be used judiciously, be brief, never exceed a short paragraph or two and must begin with the words, “ the purpose of this legislation is to…….”

• The power of intent is that if properly phrased and distributed, it will let everyone into the mind of the author. Intent is one of the least used and most important aspects of any law.  Congress and the authors of a Bill should not leave it to the applicable governmental departments to infuse their own intent for what the laws should or should not be about and thereby create unintended consequences.

SECTION THREE, PAGE THREE of the CLSA standard format is the component outline.

• Current as of date: __________ each time there is a new or changed data point posted on the website for this piece of legislation, the CLSA will update this “current as of” date.

• Provide an outline of the major elements.  The format will be similar to a Table of Contents but with a sentence or two explaining each entry.

• This is an especially valuable tool. We the people, the media, all of the members of Congress, congressional committee members and  staffers want to/need to get a thorough sense of what the Bill is all about without using valuable time reading the entire document.

SECTION FOUR, BEGINNING ON PAGE FOUR of the CLSA standard format is the entire Bill.

• Current as of date: __________ each time there is a new or changed data point posted on the website for this piece of legislation, the CLSA will update this “current as of” date.

• How many pages should it be?  Certainly not 5593. I believe we can provide some leeway but any Bill that exceeds 50 pages should be justified.

WE THE PEOPLE QUESTIONS ABOUT THE PRODUCTION OF LEGISLATION

How do the people who sent us here, find out what we are doing?

How do they know what is in the Bills that are under consideration?

How do they know when important issues are going to be in Committee, which Committees, when will it be voted on the floor?

How do they know the intent of each proposed piece of legislation?

How do they find out how many important issues are in a Bill?

How do they find out how many pages long the Bill is?

The answer today is generally speaking they don’t know any of this. That is unacceptable. We are, but should not be a secret operation. The answer to every one of the above questions can become common knowledge that is available 24/7 and current all of the time. No secrets, no ambiguity. That is all within the art of the possible without building a massive bureaucracy to run it.

BACK TO THE EIGHT STANDARDS, (1 no earmarks, 2 sunset legislation, 3 applicability, 4 stand-alone bills, 5 time-lines, 6 hiding bills, 7 standard format)

STANDARD NUMBER EIGHT, MILESTONES

One of the most important parts of every plan is the end-date and end-state. Without them indiscipline will flourish and the organization will perform ineffectively and inefficiently. That is where we are today.  That has to change.

A note to committee Chairpersons.  Establish, enforce and achieve milestones or, you are hereby informed, you will be replaced.  Believe me, there are a lot of Representatives who would like to have your job. 

CONCLUSIONS about having Congressional Legislation Standards Authority oversight of day-to-day stand-alone legislation.    

• “$10 million for gender programs in Pakistan”. After the fact, that’s when we found out about this and dozens more ridiculous “Covid-19 relief” packages.  Who knew about them before they became law?  None of us.  Why?  Because the Congress can waste our tax dollars almost at will while hiding behind a wall of anonymity. What happened to accountability?  Without standards there is no accountability.

• Under the above proposed CLSA program, we would have known on day-one who sponsored this insane earmark.  We would have known when a committee was going to discuss it.  We would have known weeks in advance when it was going to be voted on.  We would have known all this because it would have been a stand-alone Bill, not hidden inside a 5593-page unread Bill.  Accountability and transparency would have been front and center. The fact is, “$10 million for gender programs in Pakistan.” would never have made it to the floor for a vote because visibility by the press and by we-the-people would have caused it to go away.  Furthermore, one of the great advantages of a standards-based legislative process is that in all likelihood, the Bill would never have been written because anonymity is non-existent.

• Journalists will use the CLSA website as a source for up-to-the-minute reporting on pending legislation.  Citizens can read it, learn what the legislation is all about, understand the positives and negatives of the intent and weigh in with their elected legislators before, not after, it becomes the law of the land.

• After about a year, this simple process will guide all new-legislation activities in the Congress and will be accepted as the new normal.  This process has the potential to save hundreds of Billions of dollars per year.  It will have the effect of spending our tax dollars first in support of we-the-people.

• Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, this more disciplined approach to legislation could have the long-term impact of moving toward greater fiscal responsibility building towards a future balanced budget mindset.  

• Successful, admired organizations operate this way every day. It is as simple as one-two-three.  One, thoroughly define a single TASK at hand.  Two, define the CONDITIONS, in this case stand-alone Bills. Three, set and enforce the operating STANDARDS without exceptions.  Task, conditions, standards; this new approach to doing the peoples’ business in Washington is within the art of the possible and it will not cost a dime to adopt and institutionalize operational change.  We must do this.

As I previously stated in STANDARD NUMBER FIVE, TIME LIMITS, there are two different situations to consider; the non-budget related Bill with website sections one through four and now a look at the federal budget process legislation.  

THE FEDERAL BUDGET PROCESS LEGISLATION

To develop and pass a new budget with twelve separate appropriations Bills is supposed to be a standardized eight-month process from early February through the end of the fiscal year on 30 September. 

THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH RESPONSIBILITIES

Each October federal agencies begin compiling their budgets for the following fiscal year and submit their proposals to the President via the Office of Management and Budget. OMB edits, calculates, and coordinates the budget for final review and approval by the President.  The President then forwards the approved proposal to the House and Senate, hopefully, by the first Monday in February.  

CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE ACTIONS:

The Budget Act of 1974 lays out the required congressional actions, February through September of each year, in order to have a completed, agreed upon and signed budget by 30 September. Upon receipt of the president’s budget, various Committees begin reviewing their respective sections of the budget; the process is spear-headed by the Budget Committee.

BUDGET RESOLUTION: 

Upon receipt of the President’s Budget, the Budget Resolution document is then worked in the House and Senate. The budget resolution process allows Congress to establish a framework within which the House and Senate will consider budget-related legislation and set revenue and spending levels. The Budget Act set a target date of 15 April for adoption of a budget resolution by both chambers. The CLSA will closely monitor the resolution process looking for violations of the standards on earmarking and applicability.

BUDGET RECONCILIATION

 The Budget Act further sets a target date of 15 June for completing action on reconciliation legislation if required in able to complete the resolution. Without resolution between the House and Senate there are no rules, no timelines, no standards and no discipline.  All of that leads directly to the chaos and disasters of completing a budget for all twelve separate appropriations Bills by 30 September.

Following budget resolution and reconciliation, April through June, the 90-day CLSA standard window will begin for passage of the twelve budget appropriations. 

The Budget Act of 1974 lays out the timelines for Congress in the passage of an annual budget by 30 September each year.  So, how are we doing?

The Congressional process, according to the Pew Research Center, has been a monumental failure for decades.  “Congress has had to pass continuing resolutions to keep government agencies running between budgets in all but four of the last 40 years. The last time Congress completed all Bills on time was in 1996.”

Additionally, Congress has only adopted a budget resolution prior to the April 15 target date on four occasions since fiscal year 1985, with the most recent being fiscal year 2004.

Because Congress usually doesn’t pass its 12 appropriations Bills on time, it then uses continuing resolutions and omnibus Bills, which cover several appropriations. The consequences are a less effective, more expensive government that wastes taxpayer dollars and burdens current and future generations with massive debt.

The 12^th and final appropriations Bill for FY 2024 was finally passed 23 March 2024; six months late.

Before adjourning for the summer recess last August 2024, Congress had passed only one of the 12 appropriations Bills for FY 2025. By the time we all got back to work, we had only 11 days to pass the remaining 11 appropriations.  It didn’t happen. September, 2024 the House and Senate approved a stopgap measure to keep the government funded for three months. This is unacceptable.

One of the most basic Constitutional tasks for Congress is to pass a fiscal year budget and do it on time.  However, Congressional indiscipline continues to place the day-to-day functioning of the federal government in jeopardy and thereby negatively affecting nearly all Americans in some way.

My position is that this is unacceptable institutionalized irresponsibility and ineptitude.  The system is seriously broken because of the failure of the senior leaders, House Speaker, Senate Majority Leader and Committee Chairpersons.

STANDARDS FOR THE ANNUAL BUDGET PROCESS, FEBRUARY THROUGH SEPTEMBER.

STANDARD NUMBER ONE:  Leaders publish detailed plans, well in advance, for action with hard suspense dates for accomplishing all assigned tasks. That includes all Committee chairpersons. 

STANDARD NUMBER TWO:  Leader’s schedule and take frequent IPRs, In-progress reviews.  If committee work is behind schedule, the senior leaders will direct night and weekend work to ensure on-time results.

STANDARD NUMBER THREE:  Runing out of time is not a valid excuse.  Work hard, work long, work weekends if necessary but get it done.

STANDARD NUMBER FOUR:  Election year schedule. When 435 Representatives and 1/3 of the Senators are home campaigning every other year, that needs to be taken into consideration and not become a valid excuse for not accomplishing budget tasks on time.  

The Congressional Legislation Standards Authority needs to come into play again as follows beginning with these website pages:

CLSA and THE ANNUAL BUDGET PROCESS

The Speaker of the House and the Budget Committee chairperson will prepare and publish a Concept of Operations for the next fiscal year budget preparation process published on the CLSA website not later than 15 January.  Their narratives will cover the who/what/when/where/why and how of the process in great detail.  

What I have presented to you today is a picture of institutionalized failure by an operational organization. We were not sent here by the American people to fail. We must change. We can do better. We must do better.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE CULTURE

I want to close with comments about our culture. We must first recognize that culture is a powerful and pervasive force and there is an existing culture in every organization no matter how small or large. Culture can be recognized by an organization’s leaders, continuously worked to keep it on track and benefit from its positive power.  Or, culture can just be left to evolve on its own to be a positive or negative force.

The culture of an organization can usually be categorized in a word or phrase. For example, “compassionate, ugly, benevolent, self-serving, innovative, industrious, incompetent”, whatever.  You get the picture. If you were asked to define the personality of your friends and family, you could do that easily.  A good way to think about culture is that culture is simply the personality of an organization.

When sitting back and looking at one’s organizational culture there are four relevant questions.

• Can you describe your organization’s culture? The answer is yes you can. But to do so, one has to be completely honest, introspective, willing to do so and willing to change if necessary.

• Second question, having defined the culture, is it what you want it to be? The answer is usually no.  We do not live in a perfect world and there is almost always room for improvement.

• Third question, can you define exactly what you want the culture to be?  Yes, you can and you must do so.

• And finally, the most difficult task, how are you going to go about institutionalizing the culture you have chosen?

I want you all to be thinking about those four questions because today I am selecting a team of four of your colleagues to provide to me their collective answer in about ten days and they may be seeking your thoughts as part of their research.

My personal view is that the culture of the House or Representatives has been moving in a negative direction over the past two or three decades to the point that we have become dysfunctional and not respected.

I believe we have become so ideologically opinionated that if one party suggests a path forward the other party seems duty-bound to immediately oppose it irrespective of the greater good for, we the people. But we do not politely oppose the other party’s proposal with a logical counter position, we too often oppose it publicly with vile language and an attitude bordering on hatred.

The most recent demonstration of ugly behavior occurred during the confirmation hearings for President Trump’s senior leaders in the Executive Branch.  While I understand those nominees would not have been the choices many of you would have made, those ladies and gentlemen are all intelligent patriots who love our country and want to serve in positions of great responsibility. But too many of you attended the hearings prepared not to ask important questions but to engage in loud, ugly character assassinations that were unbecoming of your position in government and our organization.

And then there is the seemingly daily dose of blame, blame, blame.  Everything that fails to be positive in your opinion is declared a failure and blamed on the other party. I believe our overarching culture can be characterized as one of hate and blame. The American people are sick and tired of it and think less of us for it.

A thought from an unknown author, “The only thing that happens when you throw dirt is that you lose ground.”  Hate and blame do not inspire, it breeds malcontent, discord, disarray, frustration and ultimately, in this case, failure for the entire nation.

The larger problem is that what goes on here in our House is constantly visible to the entire nation. The culture of hate and blame has spread across the country and is broadcast daily by too much of our media.

On 5 November 2024 the American people sent a powerful message to us; they want change and they want it now. Change should become our near-term mission.

If I was called upon today to choose a culture for the House of Representatives, my choice would be a collection of three simple, powerful, meaningful words that fit together nicely, complement and reinforce each other. They are an operational culture of accountability, respect and trust. It will fix a broken organization and it will make us better Representatives. Think about it.

Thank you for your time and attention.

End of the Speaker’s presentation to the House of Representatives.

 PART TWO

THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE AND MAJORITY LEADER OF THE SENATE EXECUTIVE ORDER

“Kill two birds with one stone.” Ditto all of the above; substitute “Senate” for “House of Representatives” and present this to the assembled Senate by the President of the Senate J.D. Vance and the Majority Leader of the Senate, John Thune.

A FINAL THOUGHT: the last attempt to bring some budgeting discipline to the Congress was the Budget Act, 51 years age and it failed miserably. This concept of operations is simple, 21^st Century technology and doesn’t cost anything. Why not try something new especially since we are drowning in debt.

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of two books, Vision to Execution and Fix the Systems, Transform America as well as the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com

NOW, FEBRUARY, 2025

During the first three weeks of President Trump’s new administration he:

Sent his Secretary of State to Panama to talk sense and send China a message about their intent to control the Canal.

Sent his Secretary of Defense to Europe to talk defense and deterrence.

Sent his Vice President to Europe to speak at the European Security Conference.

Successfully negotiated a prisoner release with Putin.

Planned for a meeting with Putin to discuss ending the war in Ukraine.

Met in the White House with Israeli President Netanyahu.

Met in the White House with India’s President Narendra Modi.

Met in the White House with a long-time friend to the United States,

Jordan’s King Abdullah.

Convinced Mexico President Sheinbaum to send 2,000 troops to help secure the Southern border.

Convinced Canadian Premier Trudeau to implement a set of sweeping new security measures along the U.S. Canadian border.

By suggesting that the U.S. rebuild Gaza he thoroughly embarrassed the terrorist-loving Palestinian nations who have refused to take in the millions of Gaza refugees.

Offered to buy Greenland.

In just a few days’ time, President Trump walked onto the world stage and made it crystal clear that he is not about to exit stage left any time soon. 

 The point being, there is every indication that President Trump is willing and able to think out of the box, think big and think about the welfare of everyone; in this case not just every American but everyone on earth.

Three years ago, I published a concept of operations for establishing world peace forever. Do we need it? As of January 2025, the Russian forces have suffered over 800,000 losses in the war in Ukraine; Again Israel  has had to fight off Palestinians on four fronts in order to survive; Iran is now part of the China/Russia/North Korea cabal; Rebels recently killed nearly 3,000 people in the city of Goma in the Republic of Conge; Iran can be a nuclear power in days or weeks; North Korea has, since 2021, fast-tracked its nuclear missile-delivery capability as a threat to the U.S.; terrorists are at work all over the world.

When the World Peace Forever concept was published, it was, at that time, a total waste of good ink. The entire Biden/Harris administration was incapable of comprehending or leading such an endeavor. 

Back to one of my favorite quotes from Shakespear, “There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures.”

For sure Biden/Harris had our once-great nation “bound in shallows and in miseries” on the world stage.

It is time for the United States to fix this ugly world and we have a leader hell-bent on doing so. World Peace Forevercan be the center piece.

 BACKGROUND ON WORLD PEACE PROPOSALS

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS: 

With technically-advanced machine guns, tanks, and chemical warfare, World War I was optimistically referred to as “The war to end all wars.”  January 1918, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson outlined an idea for an organization that would be charged with resolving conflicts before they exploded into bloodshed.  In 1919 the structure of The League of Nations was laid out in Paris and the Treaty of Versailles went into effect in January 1920 with 48 member countries. The U.S. Congress failed to ratify our membership in the League.  Between 1920 and World War II there were numerous opportunities to act, but it never did.  The League of Nations was abandoned during World War II.  The League was not necessarily a bad idea, but numerous times, when actions were required, European countries found it too difficult to put together an effective united front against an aggressor to include the rise of Germany.

THE UNITED NATIONS:

In June 1941 representatives from thirteen nations (the U.S. was not included) met in London and signed the Declaration of St. James’s Palace expressing a vision for postwar world order.  The next step was the Atlantic Conference in August 1941, at which President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill laid out a more detailed form of the alliance called The Atlantic Charter. The final step was the Yalta Conference, in February 1945 when Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin agreed on the establishment of the United Nations as well as the structure of the Security Council.   

Despite having endured for 80 years, generally speaking, the UN is a weak-intentioned, expensive, bureaucratic mass that is involved in everything and accomplishes very little.  Case in point, did the UN even bother to responded to the Russian 24^th of February invasion of Ukraine?  Yes, on March 3rd they voted overwhelmingly for a resolution deploring Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and called for the immediate withdrawal of its forces.  Wow, that must have shaken Putin to his core.

The UN is an established international organization perfectly positioned to be a greater force for the greater good of the collective world.  But in its current condition, it is incapable of deterring or bringing to a close aggression anywhere in the world. We need to completely rethink this issue, right now while at “the flood”.

THE UN AND THE SECURITY COUNCIL TODAY: 

The UN’s number one priority has always been and continues to be, “to insure international peace and security.” How are they doing?

The Security Council consists of five permanent members, the U.S., China, Russia, France, and the UK (allies during WW II), and ten elected member nations.  The presidency of the Council rotates among the fifteen members, each serving for one month.  Is anyone surprised that Russia was president of the Security Council in February 2022 when they attacked Ukraine? But it gets worse. All important issues and initiatives in the UN pass through the Security Council for a vote of approval. To pass, there must be 9 of the 15 votes for approval and the nine must include all five of the permanent members.  Stated another way, any single permanent member can vote “no” and the issue is dead. With Russia and China as permanent members, nothing positive rarely passes.

Under the United Nations Charter, the principal function of the Security Council is to also “Ensure international peace and security.”

Given these clearly articulated responsibilities and authority, we can conclude that the UN in general and the Security Council, in particular, have been abject failures for eight decades. 

First of all, can you imagine a large international company CEO having fifteen Executive Vice Presidents, each allowed to lead for a month every fifteen months; thereby allowing each to bring his or her biases and priorities to the forefront? It’s at least stupid if not also insane.

CONCLUSIONS TO THIS POINT

The world is a tinder box ready to explode.

Neither the United Nations nor the Security Council  have not, can not and will never be able to take on its priority mission, “to ensue international peace and security.”

We need a new way to think about and then to accomplish continued peace and security for the whole world. President Trump can make this happen.

HOW PRESIDENT TRUMP SHOULD PROCEED

First, what not to do.  Do not turn this over to the State or Defense Departments; it will immediately have a staff of hundreds doing nothing productive. Do not get Congress involved yet.

The president should initially work this action within the White House with a small team set up in the National Security Advisor’s office.  Keep it close hold initially.

The way ahead is for President Trump to get a few national leaders on face time or teams meet. Begin with our long-serving allies through the Cold War; UK, France, Canada, Germany and Italy.

PRESIDENT TRUMP’S TALKING POINTS TO EXPLAIN THE CONCEPT OF OPERATIONS FOR UNITED FOR WORLD PEACE, UWP.

Thank you for taking my call. As we speak, my people are sending a document to your offices which lays out the who, what, when, where, why and how to achieve and sustain world peace forever. My intent today is to talk you through the concept of operations and take your questions at the end.

Some facts bearing on the issue:

In the past year hundreds of thousands of military and civilian persons have been killed or wounded by warring factions.

For the past eighty years the United Nations has had as it number one priority mission to “insure international peace and security”. They have failed 100%.

The world is currently a powder keg in Europe, the Middle East and in Africa. We can and should end this.

I am NOT proposing we attempt to fix the UN; that is impossible with the one-vote veto available to Russia and China on the all-powerful Security Council.

What I am proposing is the creation of a new global organization absolutely and completely separate from the UN that will have as its only mission, continuous international peace and security. The mission, in a word, is deterrence. I will refer to the organization as United for World Peace, UPW.  I envision having at least 150 member nations.

The concept of operations is for every member nation to be prepared, at all times, to rapidly deploy their highly trained piece of the overall global deterrent force. For nation X their contribution might be a mechanized brigade with tanks, mechanized infantry, supporting field artillery and a support battalion.  For nation Y it could be tactical air.  For nation Z it could be naval forces or it could be special operations forces. For the 36 nations without a defense budget, there will be requirements for logisticians, medical personnel, police or provide a forward-based airfield that can support tac-air and cargo planes. For the U.S. the contribution could be its entire fleet of 900 military cargo aircraft to rapidly move forces to designated hot spots; a critical capability that no other nation can provide.  

There should be a small United for World Peace (UWP) headquarters led by a president elected by the member nations.  The staff will conduct daily operations by video with the Ambassadors from each nation who are routinely at their home-station. 

There will be a separate military headquarters with an experienced 4-star military officer nominated by the UWP president and approved by a majority vote of the member nations.

The military element will be referred to as the IDF.  Not to be confused with the Israeli Defense Force, the “D” for our organization stands for Deterrence.  This International Deterrence Force will have zero “defense” functions.  This force will be about continuous deterrence and massive rapidly deployable offensive capabilities when it becomes necessary to immediately overwhelm an aggressor nation or aggressor group.

The military staff will consist primarily of experienced operators who will lay out a vast number of potential aggressor contingencies that could possibly occur. Then they will tailor an IDF force from the coalition nations’ contributions that will, when deterrence fails, be trained to rapidly deploy to counter attack the aggressor with an overwhelming strike force.  The underlying concept for tailoring the force is, “never take a knife to a knife fight”. Always plan to overwhelm the enemy with a superior force.

Secondly, in the IDF headquarters, there will be intelligence experts pulling applicable intel from all the member nations and keeping it current for every region and every individual nation that may have a high potential for aggressor activities.

The IDF conditions will be as follows:

IDFCON 1:  Normal peacetime condition.  A completed deployment plan will be in place for every member nation.  Readiness standards will be clearly articulated and be enforced for every IDF element.

IDFCON 2:  The UWP president and IDF Commander, having identified a potential threat to a member nation, will tailor a force for deployment and place them on 24-hour alert.

IDFCON 3:  All personnel and equipment for the designated units will move to assembly areas.  Deployment aircraft will move to their first pick-up airfield. Forward deployment airfields will be manned and prepared for 24/7 operations.

IDFCON 4:  Deploy all designated IDF elements to the target area and prepare to initiate an overwhelming counteroffensive.

Let me be very clear at this point. Neither the UWP nor the IDF will necessarily be led by the United States. What I intend is for the U.S. to lead the formation of the organization and make the two headquarters functional.

Will this concept of a coalition of nations with a military mission actually work?  Yes, for example, as you know NATO was formed in 1949 with 12 members and successfully deterred the Soviet Union from its intended end state of world domination and the destruction of the U.S. until its collapse in 1991.

Can a coalition of nation rapidly deploy and launch a successful counter offensive. Yes, it has already been done. I want to refer you to the document that should be arriving at your location about now. Please study the part about the coalition action in 1990 and into 1991.

You will recall in 1990 Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces attacked, defeated and occupied Kuwait. In January 1991 a 39-nation coalition attacked and defeated Saddam Hussien’s vaunted “Mother of All Armies” in just six weeks of air and ground operations. The U.S.-led coalition of nations in a very short period of time deployed a massive air and mechanized army of about a half a million strong to conduct a counter offensive. The ground war lasted about 100 hours during which Iraq lost about 3,700 tanks, 70,000 soldiers taken prisoner and over 100,000 killed.

Funding would be by member nations for two small UWP and IDF headquarters. But, in reality your overall military budget could actually be reduced.  Formation of this organization could potentially reduce world-wide military spending by trillions of dollars per year. Member nations  do will not need to maintain a defensive force; that is what the IDF deterrence is for.

Most nations today have a full complement (air/ground/naval) force structure.  In reality, what each nation will need under this concept is to support only their element of the entire IDF.

The power in this concept of operations will be the inclusion of Article 5 borrowed from the NATO Treaty which declares that an attack on one member is an attack against all members. That is the ultimate deterrent.

With this coalition in being, potential aggressors will have to contemplate that on day-one of an attack they will face odds of 1 against potentially 150. 

With the UWP in place as Russia was deploying a massive invasion force to the Ukraine border in late 2021 and early 2022, the President of UWP and the Commander of IDF would have visited Putin and explain to him that if the first shot is fired, he would be, within 7 days, facing a massive counter offensive that would destroy his military and likely take down his government. Ukraine would not have happened; millions of casualties would have been avoided and Ukraine would not be faced with rebuilding its cities.

With the UWP in place Israel would not have been fighting invaders on four fronts for its very existence.

If UWP was in place, Rwanda-backed rebels would not now be killing Republic of Congo citizens in central west Africa. The origin of the current fighting can partly be traced back to the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 when about 800,000 Tutsis were slaughtered by ethnic Hutu extremists; 30 years of senseless killing.

What I have discussed to this point has to do with a conventional battlefield. But in the world today we must also be aware of the destruction that can be brought to bear with ciber attacks. Imagine the loss of life involved if, for example, the entire power grid of your country was taken down and could not be restored for months or years. Nations must expend continuous efforts internally to take down ciber attack capability or face the consequences of a counter ciber attack from the IDF.

Finally, there is significant discussion today about “a new world order”. It is within the art of the possible that the new world order could be world peace forever.

Thank you for listening, your questions please.

President Trump should within a few days quickly repeat this small-group discussion with Japan/South Korea/Australia/India and perhaps a couple Southeast Asian nations. Then another European non-Nato group, a Middle East group, Latin American nations and Africa.  By then the word will have leaked out.  To attempt to quiet the uninformed naysayers the President should speak to the nation with a formal address that will be picked up by the remainder of potential member nations.

Following that, President Trump should begin asking nations to commit to membership in United for World Peace and proceed to establish the two required headquarters. Make all that happen within a two -week period and build international momentum.  

WE HAVE BEEN THERE, DONE THAT

A coalition of nations can be rapidly formed to counter an aggressor. Here are the numbers associated with the 1990-91 Gulf War. it is worth going over the numbers a couple times to get a sense of the enormity of the air-lift and how quickly the nations molded into a far-superior offensive force.  

Coalition member nations: 39 countries, of which 28 contributed combat forces.

Force size: Approximately 670,000 troops from 28 countries, 425,000 of which were from the United States.

Coalition air component size: 2,250 combat aircraft, 1,800 of which were American.

Coalition airlift: 509,129 passengers and 594,730 tons of cargo carried.

Coalition sorties flown: 100,000+.

Aerial refueling: 15,434 sorties that dispensed 110.2 million gallons of fuel.

Number of dumb bombs dropped: 210,000.

Number of smart bombs dropped: 9,342.

30mm depleted uranium rounds fired by A-10 manned aircraft (tank-killers): 782,514.

Duration of air campaign before ground invasion: 39 days.

Iraqi tanks lost during the war: 3,700 out of 4,280 in inventory.

Number of U.S. Carrier Battle Groups on station: 6.

Coalition POWs taken during the war: 26.

Iraqi POWs taken during the war: 70,000+.

U.S. combat related deaths: 147

Iraqi military deaths: 100,000+.

Ground war duration: 100 hours.

This all happened between August and the following February. Beyond the magnitude of the war-fighting personnel and equipment, just think about the daily logistics of delivering food, water, millions of tons of ammunition being moved and handling 70,000 POWs all of it happening in the Saudi Arabian desert. Simply remarkable.

CONCLUSIONS

With the IDF in place, global defense spending could probably be reduced by trillion of dollars per year.  

There will no longer be a need for nations’ bilateral treaties for mutual defense. 

With world peace assurances in place, the next step could be a world without nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, or biological weapons.

The UN “peacekeeping force” budget for 2021 was $6.38 billion.  With active worldwide deterrence and an overwhelming rapidly-deployable counter-offensive force, peace will be the standard day-to-day condition.

This is also an opportunity to innovate when dealing with the possibility of World War III with China. Here is a plausible scenario that demonstrates the versatility and power of the UWP concept. 

 China continues to threaten Taiwan with aggressive air and naval operations. It is determined by the IDF Commander that the demonstrations are a rehearsal for an actual attack. President Biden once declared publicly that if attacked by China, the U.S. would provide military aid to Taiwan.  A naval showdown with China could become the U.S. worst nightmare.

 Recognizing that China’s Achilles heel is imported oil, about 11 million barrels per day, the IDF Commander could Inform China that a combined naval force from all IDF member nations is in route to the South China Sea to create an impenetrable blockade of all incoming gas and oil tankers. Additionally, missiles and aircraft capable of taking out the gas and oil pipelines from Russia will be immediately forward deployed.  This scenario could shut down China in a few weeks.  The UWP President will request China publicly sign a pledge to acknowledge that forevermore Taiwan will be considered an independent nation free of all ties to China and provocative military actions against Taiwan are forbidden. Deterrence in action in support of world peace. Deterrence in action; not a shot fired.

PROOF OF CONCEPT

One of the problems associated with a new idea is dealing with the naysayers, change and fear of the unknown. But with this initiative we have proof of concept, a rare advantage. 

With respect to the issue of deterrence, NATO vs the Soviet Union for decades is proof of concept.

The U.S. led counter offensive against Iraq in 1991-1992 is proof of concept with respect to the formation and rapid deployment of an overwhelming counter offensive force.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Mr. President, you are currently, “The leader of the free world” in name only.  Here is an opportunity to lead the world towards sustained world peace not for the sake of the United States but for the sake of the world.   Make it your number one, non-political priority. 

Author’s note:  I would not expect all of you reading this to agree with all of the details. But if you at least agree with the concept, please forward it to your Senators and Representative in Washington.  Perhaps someone with a national voice will take up the challenge.

Mister President, this will be your legacy, perhaps the greatest in U.S. history. Become the global peacemaker.

From what we have seen so far, the new Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE appears to be concentrating on spending.  That’s good, they are reportedly uncovering some massive government waste, fraud and abuse of power.

What is “spending”?  Spending is the end state of the entire, huge budgeting process.  Determining the federal spending parameters begins with the development of the President’s Budget submitted to Congress every year in early February. Congress then begins a well-defined but normally almost completely and irresponsibly ignored specific timelines to determined what will be spent, when and by whom during the next fiscal year.  

While DOGE is into spending, we must also have an in-depth look at budgeting if DOGE is to be completely successful.

President Trump can accomplish both simultaneously, efficiently and effectively and thereby arrive at the desired end state.  Keep in mind that every successful strategic plan must begin at the end; that is, by defining the end state.  But if the president does not also launch a look into the entire Executive Branch budgeting piece, the overall plan will be only half-baked. 

GROUND TRUTH:

A mammoth, sprawling, uncontrollable, federal government currently numbering over 4 million employees plus hundreds of thousands of contract personnel was never the vision or intent of the Founding Fathers.  Organizations have a propensity to grow to a point of diminishing returns; cease to be efficient, effective, and/or no longer perform the functions for which they were created.  At that point, a large organization will tend to look inward and become self-perpetuating rather than value-added for the greater good.

Some or all of that applies today to the Departments and agencies in the Executive Branch of the federal government. This results in three major problems that desperately need to get fixed.

One, it costs hundreds of billions of dollars annually to maintain and sustain office space, salaries, health care and long-term retirement pay and benefit to the massive Executive Branch.

Second, and more importantly, the annual U.S. budget boils up out of this massive organization. Every government-funded program is maintained and sustained inside these bureaucracies.  These programs are this organization’s product.  General Motor’s product is vehicles; the Executive Branch’s product is taxpayer-funded programs.  The question is, what is the value added of those programs?  An in-depth review will undoubtedly find programs that have existed for decades, their original purpose no longer relevant; programs that sounded good at their inception but have failed in execution; programs to solve a problem that should have been the purview of state or local officials; programs initiated to solve a short-term problem but have lived on forever.  The list is long.  President Reagan summed up the problem with this statement, “Government is like a baby, an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”

Why specifically do all of the organizational elements in the Executive Branch exist? For the most part they are formed to support a law, a regulation and/or an internal rule or one sent down from Congress or the White House. There is an interesting measure of an administration’s regulatory activity; it’s called The Federal Register. it is a daily journal of federal government activity that includes presidential documents, proposed and final rules, and public notices. It is a common measure of an administration’s regulatory activity.

Some recent administrations’ Federal Registry activity: According to government data, the Federal Register hit an all-time high of 95,894 pages in 2016, during the last year of the Obama/Biden administration (the Affordable Care Act contains about 17,000 pages of regulations). The first year of the Trump administration, 2017, there were 61,950 pages, the lowest recorded page total since 2001. In Bidens last 12 months in the White House, his administration created 3,248 new “rules” and finished out the year by publishing 107,262 pages in the Federal Register.

We are a regulation nation; an administrative state and it must get cleaned up.

In his first days in office, President Trump has declared that for every new regulation federal agencies must delete ten existing regulations. Not good. There is a quote that sums up that directive, “For every complex problem, there is a simple solution and it is usually wrong.”  The point being, the process of deleting regulations needs to be a critical element in the bottom-up Executive Branch review wherein there will be direct and thoughtful linkage of regulations to organizations to budget to value added and then a thoughtful decision can be made as to whether the executing organization and regulation should go, stay or be altered.

HOW TO PROCEED WITH THE BOTTOM-UP PART OF DOGE

First recognize this will be a difficult process because we are talking about change, massive change, within each Executive Branch organization. We must recognize that for any large organization, especially one as large as the Executive Branch, change is very difficult. Fear of the unknown is a powerful human force, especially in government with an entrenched, layered bureaucracy that is stiff, stifling, and, in many respects, self-serving.

How does all this get accomplished? It will be a months-long tedious but critically important process. There are no viable shortcuts to re-thinking, re-designing, and re-structuring large organizations and making them be all they can and should be. 

Vice President Vance should lead this effort in concert with what Elon Musk and his team are doing on the spending issues. Vance should first set up a senior task force consisting of the deputies of all the departments, agencies, and commissions. They will be the change-agents and become the junkyard dogs of Washington.

Define the end state for this campaign. For example, the Vice President might say, “Over the next few months our task force will look inside every organizational element of the Executive Branch.  We will assess their mission (is it relevant today), their structure (too many or too few people), layering (is it OK or dysfunctional), can the organization integrate (communicate) vertically and horizontally efficiently and effectively on a day-to-day basis? Is the organization as a whole agile (able to deal with change as a matter of course) and is there overall value-added for the government and especially for the American taxpayer?”

The process begins in every named organization by putting together a very detailed organization chart. That’s the essential visual element for the task force and it provides an immediate sense of size, complexity, and layering.  Why the organization chart?  Because it allows the task force to begin the analysis and restructure at the bottom of the organization. Without the org chart the process will just not work effectively.

Using the Department of Agriculture as an example, there are 65 different organizational elements that come under the headings of departments, agencies, councils, institutes, programs, foundations, services, authorities, offices of, boards and facilities.  Inside them are departments, directorates, branches, sections, cells, and individual elements.  Every one of those becomes a “box” in the organization chart.  Each organizational box must list the name of the element, number of employees, and the grade of the leader, GS 10, 12, whatever.

Within the Department of Agriculture, for example, the Deputy Secretary, part of the VP’s senior task force, will form his/her own internal departmental task force. The Department Task Force’s first action will be to send out an internal memo to the leaders of every “box” to submit, in one week, “a no-more-than-two-page, font 12” report to the Deputy Secretary.  The report format should include, as a minimum these six elements:

First, a one or two-sentence mission statement that describes what it is that element collectively does; for example, responsible for writing, executing, and enforcing Department Regulation 135, Beef Export Program, and reporting results quarterly to ………

Keep in mind that there are undoubtedly tens of thousands of worthless reports written every year by an entrenched bureaucratic mass that lives on forever sucking up tax dollars, stifling initiative, and being a roadblock to progress.

Second, the report should describe the grade structure of all the employees in the box.

The Department task Force will look at the grade structure for each of the boxes in the organization chart.  Is it commensurate with the degree of complexity of the mission? Could two or more similar “boxes” be combined with fewer total people?

Third, describe a typical work week to include the number of meetings and amount of travel.  

This can reveal a lot about an organizational element and its leader.  Many meetings are just to fill up time, or are a daily social coffee clutch, or make the person in charge feel like he/she is actually “leading”.  Many are a colossal waste of time. If employees have time to attend too many meetings, they probably are not very busy to begin with. Is the travel critical to success, nice to have, or perhaps just to fill up the workweek? Travel is very expensive and too many times it is the recipients’ worst nightmare, “I’m from the federal government and I’m here to help.”

Fourth, what laws, rules and/or regulations guide that organization’s work? 

This is a critical element in the review.  Has this organization been acting out a scenario that is unnecessary or at least should better reside at the state or local level?

Fifth, a list, in single sentences, of major accomplishments in the past twelve months.

The task force will then determine if the accomplishments are in line with the mission or are just doing busy work?

Sixth and finally, a short statement of value-added. For example, without us the Department would not/could not do the following………

The Department Task Force will begin a detailed review of every input report. Their job is to ask, do we need Regulation 135 (Beef Export Program) any longer?  If so, could this be done with fewer people?  Could the same number of employees also be responsible for regulation 246 (Pork Export Program)? Do we need the report quarterly? And most importantly, what is the value-added of that organizational element to the overall Department’s mission? Was it formed long ago to solve a problem that no longer exists?  Is it in fact harmful?  Does anyone up the chain actually need the quarterly report or is it just a nice-to-know information?

By bringing together the three critical elements (the guiding law/regulation/rule, the number of people involved and the value added), the Department team then comes to the conclusion that there are not sufficient reasons to justify keeping that “box”.

Two things just happened. One, part of the Executive Branche’s annual budget just got cut out.  Multiply that equation by perhaps thousands of similar actions and the President’s budget will be reduced by billions of dollars.  Secondly, when the box goes away, so does the regulation/rule that caused it to exist. This reduces the regulation nation in a logical way.

Additionally, this type review and action will fly under the radar and not create Democrat or radical-left media hysteria about MAGA-reductions.

WHAT CAN GO WRONG?

Some of the Vice President’s senior task force may not be completely on board.  Agriculture Department Deputy Secretary to Vice President Vance, “I’ve taken a look at the 100,000 end-strength in the Department of Agriculture and believe it is about right.”  That person must be immediately replaced; they are part of the problem.  

Some of the reports from the “boxes” to the Department task force will not be two pages in length.  The box leader will want to make an impression and he/she will send in a 15-page tome.  The senior task force leader must immediately scribble a note on the front page, “What is it you don’t understand about 2-page limit.  Back on my desk by close of business.”

The point being, the Vice President and every leader on the senior task force must send a hard message about change; get with the program or be immediately replaced. 

This process, will consume much of VP Vance’s time for a few months. He should routinely go to all the Departments and be satisfied they completely understand that their review of the input from the bottom-up is all about policy, practices, process, grade structure commensurate with overall responsibility, span of control, layering, and value-added. Are they tough enough, too tough, thorough enough, on the right track, or being overly protective of the status quo?  

 By frequently visiting the subordinate task forces, VP Vance will also be able to pick up strong points and failures and pass them along to other Departments as best/worst practices. 

The leaders of the Executive Departments along with the VP’s senior task force members will conduct a monthly in-progress-review for President Trump where they will lay out their findings to date and get marching-orders for continued work.

WHY DO ALL THIS WORK?

 One the most common attempts at downsizing, in my experience used numerous times over the past decades, have been to declare a hiring freeze and/ or order an across-the-board, for example, ten percent personnel cut, neither of which make any sense nor achieve any lasting positive results. 

Second, what I have described above has never been done before.  We have just allowed the Executive Branch to grow without ever undertaking a necessary pruning process

CONCLUSIONS

Once the task force has worked its way up from the bottom, looking at every element, their individual mission, and value added, then and only then will they be capable of looking back and seeing how many subordinate elements are off track, irrelevant, unnecessary or even counterproductive.  They will then be capable of restructuring, re-aligning, re-tasking, reorganizing the subordinate elements to create an organization that is more focused, aligned, responsive, innovative, agile, and rid of pockets of resistance.

Having reached the top of the organization chart it is possible the Vice President’s senior task force could conclude that an entire department’s continued existence should be questioned.  A prime example is the Department of Education.  We know that education in America is a national disgrace and not getting better in spite of (or because of) the 4,400 employees and a 2024 budget of $79 billion; an $11 billion increase over 2023.

The task forces must be especially mindful of the phrase, “we provide oversight.”That is a red flashing light that an organization does not, in and of itself, produce anything of value. They simply exist to grade papers, expand their purview, inhibit progress and expend tax dollars. 

During the process, it is important to not lose sight of the two-fold objectives.  First, the objective is NOT to reach some specific lower end-strength number of federal employees.  The objective is to rid the government of “boxes” in the organization charts that have no valueadded, they just exist because they have always been there.  The end state is an organization that is leaner, more focused, more efficient, more effective, and agile. The second objective is to end up with an organization that has a much smaller and more realistic annual budget.

When completed, many positions, perhaps thousands of them, will be eliminated. It will then take a couple years of shuffling the deck by the Office of Personnel Management to get folks reassigned or retired, but it is within the art of the possible and worth the effort. 

There is also a states’ rights issues in all of this.  As the federal government grows, a natural outcome is that they over-reach into areas that are better and more effectively handled at the local and state levels.  Federal over-reach tends to result in a one-size-fits-all approach to problem-solving and creates a stifling regulation-nation.

BOTTOM LINE:

Getting spending and hence debt under control will resonate with Americans and fit perfectly with the Trump movement for necessary governmental change.

We need to accomplish a number of really big things in order to move towards a balanced budget and away from continuously approving another debt-limit increase.

This dual VP Vance/Elon Musk DOGE undertaking is one of the keys to success and is clearly within the art of the possible. Without it, DOGE will be incomplete.

President Reagan got it right when he reminded us that:

“Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.”

“Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

“Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.”

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of two books, Vision to Execution and Fix the Systems, Transform America as well as the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com.

BACKGROUND:

Compulsory national service for all 18-year-old Americans is a program that has never existed in our nation.  It has the potential to transform America in a very positive way.

THE DRAFT:

Drafting U.S. men in times of national emergencies has been a tool since the colonies drafted them to fill the ranks of their militias to fight in the Revolutionary War.  The latest draft was in effect from pre-World War II until discontinued in 1973.

THE SELECTIVE SERVICE SYSTEM:

The Selective Service System is run by an agency in the Executive Branch of the federal government. Selective Service is responsible for registration and running a draft in times of national emergency.  Currently, men aged 18-25 who are U.S. citizens or are immigrants living in the U.S. are required to register with the Selective Service System within 30 days of turning 18.  Immigrants must register within 30 days of arriving in the U.S. Those who fail to register will not be eligible for federal student aid, federal job training, or a federal job and may be prosecuted and face a fine of up to $250,000 and/or jail time of up to five years.

NATIONAL COMMISSION ON SERVICE:

Since the dissolution of the draft in 1973 there have been sporadic conversations about a compulsory national service program for all young adults.  As part of the FY 2017 Defense Authorization Act, President Trump and the Congress established a National Commission on Military, National and Public Service.  Their specific mission was to accomplish two things:  Conduct a review of the military selective service process and consider methods to increase participation in military, national and public service in order to address national security and other public service needs of the nation.

After two and a half years of public engagement, the Commission issued its final report in March 2020, containing its findings and recommendations which include:

One, requiring women to register with the Selective Service System at age 18. 

Two, increasing military outreach, particularly to those areas with a low-propensity to join the armed forces.

Three, expanding educational opportunities during military service and developing strategies to recruit and retain in high-demand occupations.

Four, expanding civic educational programs in schools.

Five, significantly increasing non-military service opportunities in order to create, “an expectation of service” by 2031.

The Commission’s report, entitled Inspire to Serve, explains a vision that, “…. every individual will be exposed to voluntary service opportunities throughout their lifetime, beginning with young people….”.  They also repeatedly commented on the need to create an American culture of service by 2031.  What was most important about the report was what they did not say.  Two things:

One, they completely failed to recognize the elephant in the room, that is, do we need compulsory national service for everyone 18-years old? 

Two, while they frequently emphasized the importance of creating a national culture of service, they provided zero insights into how that was going to become possible. 

The final Commission’s hearings were held by the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 11, 2021, where their recommendations appeared to be well received by Senators of both parties. But, not surprising, there was zero action on this important issue during the Biden/Harris administration.

On 5 November, 2024, 77 million American voters proclaimed loud and clear, “we want change; lots of change.” In the first days of his administration, President Trump demonstrated that every aspect of American life is under consideration for change. He and VP Vance are the change agents. 

There is a scene in Shakespear’s Julius Ceasar that points the way forward on the subject of a Universal Service program for America.

There is a commonly-used quote that is applicable. “There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”  

Shakespear goes on to explain eloquently in more detail what he meant: “On such a full sea are we now afloat and we must take the current when it serves or lose our ventures. Power is a force that ebbs and flows in time and one must go with the flow. Waiting only allows the power to pass its crest and begin to ebb. If the opportunity is missed, you will find yourself stranded in miserable shallows.” Is that not exactly where our nation is today?

There is so much wisdom in Shakespeare’s words; Mr. President, over to you for action.

ABOUT A CONCEPT OF OPERATIONS:

A concept of operations is a good place to begin a long-range strategic planning process.  Its purpose is to tell the story by first defining the problem to be solved, providing a vision of the end-state, that is, what we believe can be accomplished, and finally, filling in some of the blanks by describing the who, what, when, where, why and how of the program.  When completed the concept of operations can become a public affairs tool, a sales pitch and in this case, it can become legislation.  

DEFINING THE PROBLEMS:

 Begin with these two questions: Are there any identifiable problems that need to be solved among our young Americans? Yes.

Are there existing programs that specifically address these problems? No and not completely.  A wise person once said, “If you cannot define the problem, there is no solution.”

There are six identifiable youth-related issues that will continue to plague this nation far into the future unless bold steps are taken to fix them.

One, GANGS: 

The FBI reports, “there are some 33,000 violent street gangs, motorcycle gangs, and prison gangs with about 1.4 million members criminally active in the U.S. today. Many are sophisticated and well organized; all use violence to control neighborhoods and boost their illegal money-making activities, which include robbery, drug and gun trafficking, prostitution, human trafficking, and fraud.”  Youth gangs are the training ground for a life of crime. 

The average number of members per gang is reportedly 42.  About half of all homicides in the U.S. are gang-related.  The Justice Department reports that, “The average age of gang members arrested in the U.S. is 17 or 18.”  This information, in and of itself, is sufficient justification for a mandatory youth program in America.  We need to take these young adults off the streets and introduce them to a different way of life.

Two, DROP-OUTS AND ILLITERACY:

 According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2022, 2.1 million U.S. students dropped out of school; that is on average over 11,000 students every school day. Statistically, 90% of them will end up on welfare at some point and 68% of all males in prison do not have a high school diploma.

The National Assessment for Educational Progress, NAEP, is the largest continuing and nationally representative assessment of what U.S. students know and can do in various subjects. Based on its decades of measuring and reporting it is referred to as “the Nation’s Report Card.”  NAEP is the gold standard for measuring what U.S. students know and can do in math, reading, writing, science, U.S. history, and civics. While they continuously publish reams of data, NAEP’s bottom line says it all, “An education system in which more than half of students entering 9^th grade either drop out or graduate incapable of further education or satisfactorily performing in the private sector or the military is unsatisfactory.” That aptly defines where our, about 4.4 million, 18-years old Americans are with respect to academic excellence or the lack thereof.

Three, YOUTH OBESITY:

Obesity is a common, serious and costly disease. In the early 1960s, roughly 13% of Americans were considered obese by Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines. Recent figures suggest that a current national obesity rate is closer to 43%.

In addition, nearly 10% of all Americans were morbidly obese during the 2017-2018 survey,

compared to less than 1% in 1960-1962. Childhood obesity rates tripled from 5% in the early 1970s to more than 19% by March 2020.

In a Universal Service program, mandatory participation in daily exercise and counseling on healthy habits can help to establish a healthier future America. 

Four, CULTURE:

Culture is a powerful and pervasive force in every organization; it is an organization’s personality. It can be described as caring, hateful, fast, energetic, visionary, risk-taking, vengeful, etc. etc.  Right now, America, when viewed as an organization, is drowning in a culture of hate and blame which destroys any sense of unity and cooperation.  A year of character development can change young adults and henceforth, transform America.

Five, RACE:

There is no way to explicitly measure the state of race relations in the United States, but they are at least not what they should be.  What we do know is that babies are not born bigoted, disrespecting or hateful.  While growing up they learn it at home, in school, on the playground and on the streets. A Universal Service program’s character development along with integrated team work every day will enhance the understanding and cooperation among all races represented.  The U.S. military has successfully practiced this solution for decades.

Six, WELFARE:

 It is a fact that the more education one completes, the less likely they are to be on welfare. The government Office of Human Services Policy, has reported that in 2019, 99.1 million Americans were participating in at least one of the more popular programs such as medicaid, food stamps, subsidized lunches, public housing, unemployment and/or some sort of direct cash assistance. Universal Service for America will provide young men and women the opportunity to be better prepared to hold good jobs and stay off welfare.

Given that background, the question before us is, should we have Universal Service for America?

In consideration of these six problem areas (gangs, drop-outs, obesity, culture, race and welfare), the better question is, are these problems in the process of being solved with or by other national programs?  I believe the answer is an unequivocable NO.  Universal Service for America, or as it may become known as, the U.S.A. Program, can be a transformational undertaking and is therefore worth the effort to make it happen. It can become a rite of passage for all Americans. 

EXISTING NATIONAL SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS:

There are national service organizations in existence, such as AmeriCorps, Youth Build, Senior Corps and the Peace Corps. What they have in common is that they are relatively small in size and they are 100% voluntary.  One of the most enduring government youth programs has been Job Corps, a free residential education and job training program for young adults, aged 16-24, run by the Department of Labor.  Let me provide some revelations about Job Corps in order to make a couple important points.

From July 2016 to June 2017, Job Corps reported 3,673 safety and security incidents among the 79,000 enrollees (drugs, assault, alcohol, security breach, serious injury) according to the General Accounting Office analysis.  Other headlines over the years include, “Job Corps is one of the most wasteful, least effective programs in the federal government.” “Congress spends billions on ineffective job-training programs.” “Job Corps, a recipe for waste, fraud and failure.” “The Federal Job Corps training program is a flop.” “The government has taken on a role for which it was never intended, pouring billions of taxpayer dollars into a broken web of job training.”

The point to be made here is that the federal government has a very long history of attempting to build organizations and run them effectively and efficiently.  Their success rate is about zero.  If we are to move forward with legislation for Universal Service for America, it must NOT be organized, over-regulated and operated by government officials and bureaucrats.

HOW SHOULD UNIVERSAL SERVICE for AMERICA, BE ORGANIZED AND FUNDED? 

To avoid the pit-falls of the decades-old Job Corps program, Universal Service for America should be organized as a non-profit 501-C3 national non-governmental organization, NGO.  An NGO is a non-profit, citizen-based undertaking that functions independently of the government.  NGOs are organized on local, national and international levels to serve specific social or political purposes.  Despite their independence from the government, many NGOs receive funding from local, state, and federal governments. 

There are about 1.5 million NGOs operating in the U.S. Widely known examples are Doctors Without Borders and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).  The federal government should fund salaries, housing, meals, transportation and medical services for Universal Service for America.

OPERATIONAL UNDERPINNINGS:

For Universal Service for America to be successful it must be based on and encompass, as a minimum, the following nineteen resolutions:

1. At age 17 all U.S. citizens and non-naturalized immigrants must register for Universal Service for America with the existing Selective Service System. Congress should amend the Selective Service System Act with two changes:

Amend the enrollment age from 18 to 17.  This will provide Universal Service for America staff with a valid database of potential participants a year in advance of their reporting for duty at age 18.

Currently the law says that, “Failure to register with the Selective Service is a felony punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or 5 years imprisonment.”

The law should be amended to read:  All American citizens must register with the Selective Service within 30 days after their 17^th birthday. Immigrants residing in the United States who are 17 through 25 years of age must registerwithin 30 days of arrival in the U.S. Those who have not done so by their 18^th birthday are subject to imprisonment for five years.  If, after one year in prison, they register with the Selective Service and report to the next available Universal Service for America program, the remainder of the 5-year sentence will be forgiven. 

2. Attendance is mandatory for all high school graduates who are 18 years old plus all 18-year-old non-graduates.  Exceptions include: women who are pregnant or have a child; individuals who are physically or mentally impaired; and those who join the military immediately after high school graduation. Individuals who are head-of-households may apply for an exemption. 

3. Universal Service for America will be 12-months in duration beginning June of each year. This needs some discussion:

Unlike AmeriCorps, YouthBuild and Job Corps that may have just a few thousand up to 75,000 enrollees, Universal Service for America will have about four million enrollees on a continuous basis. That is almost twice the size of the entire U.S. military, active duty, Guard and Reserve combined. 

Compulsory service for all 18-year-old Americans and immigrants will be an enormous undertaking.  For a 2-year program, following the first-year enrollment of 4 million people, all succeeding years would have about 8 million continuously in residence.  For example, a small city, population 50,000, would have about 1,600 participants in residence at all times.  Conclusion: 2-year program may be too large to run efficiently and effectively.

If it is a 12-month program, that begs the question: What impact will it have on all of our colleges and universities which will, the first year of the program, be without an entire incoming freshman class? There are three possible solutions to this problem:

The first is exempt compulsory service for all high school graduates who will be enrolled as full-time college students by the fall semester after high school graduation.  There are enormous downsides to this alternative: It defeats the overall intent and purpose of the program, which is to create a culture of service for all Americans; many students have no business going to college, but may use college enrollment simply as a way to dodge the compulsory service; and it would create an unhealthy division in America for all times, meaning those who did and those who didn’t “serve”.  It will defeat the advantages resulting from “rite of passage”

A second alternative is to require all college students to attend at least two, and perhaps three or four summer sessions of Universal Service for America; the first immediately following high school graduation.  There are potential downsides for this alternative:  Every June there will be (in round numbers) about 4 million new candidates for Universal Service for America; about 2.5 million will be college bound in September and 1.5 million will begin their full year of service. 

If the college students are to complete their service commitment by attending only summer sessions, after the first year of the service program there will be an additional surge of 2.5 million (those having just finished one year of college), 6.5 million total for the second summer; then a summer surge to 8 million the third June and to 10.5 million for the 4^th June and 10.5 million every summer thereafter.

The logistics associated with those summer surge numbers would be staggering to begin with and creating these summer surges will likely negatively impact the overall quality of the program. 

The third alternative is for the federal government to create a one-time bailout fund for colleges and universities to offset the no-freshman-class situation that will occur the first, and only, year of Universal Service for America.

(Continuing with the program’s operational underpinnings:)

4. After 6 months in the program, anyone who is qualified to do so may enlist in the U.S. military.

5. All attendees will be provided with a photo identification card with personal description information, a Universal Service for America ID number and expiration date.  The ID will enable free local public transportation while in the program. In conjunction with the Selective Service, each states’ DMV facilities will produce and issue the ID cards.

6. Everyone will be stationed at a location removed from their home of record and will not be stationed with others from their home community.  

7. Men and women participants will not cohabitate.

8. The majority will be stationed in urban areas.

9. Every full-time attendee will be authorized vacation days over religious holidays and during July or August.

10. Lodging, meals, uniforms, transportation and medical care will be provided.  Each attendee will receive a stipend of $500 per month.

11. Uniforms will consist of dark blue pants/shorts, white shirts and a red hat.  Uniforms will include a name tag, a Universal Service for America logo, which will include the American flag.

 12.Everyone will participate in physical training five days per week.

13. Everyone will abide by the Universal Service for America Code of Conduct.

14. No one in the program is exempt from any local, state or federal laws. Universal Service for America will not provide legal counsel to attendees when apprehended for violations of the law.

15. Transgender individuals will abide by local, state and federal rules in force for where they reside during their term of service.

16. Mandatory unannounced drug testing will be the norm.

17. All will participate in leader training by being team leaders or higher as they move through the program.

18. This should be a no-frills experience for each participant consisting of long work days, community service on the weekends, and basic accommodations. 

19.There will be two Universal Service for America websites: One to keep the general public apprised of every aspect of the program; and the second will be an internal site available to leaders and staff.  Innovation has been the lifeblood of this nation since its inception; best-practices will be templated and shared. Additionally, the internal site can be used to clarify program policies and procedures.

PARTICIPATION NUMBERS:

For a 12-month, all-18-year-old program:  Using 2020 data, it is possible to forecast the approximate number of participants if Universal Service for America could begin operations within the next few years; 3.7 million 18-year-old high school graduates, plus 300,000 18-year-old non-graduates and some, yet to be determined, number of 18-year-old non-citizens living in the U.S.

A TYPICAL DAY:

 The intent of the schedule is to address the problems associated with gangs, dropouts, illiteracy, obesity, culture, race relations and welfare. And most importantly, to build a culture of service to society.  The days will be tailored to individual needs with the objective of transforming lives and thereby giving them a greater chance at a successful life.

MORNING SCHEDULE:

Physical training

Gather in a classroom setting, in groups of about 25, with a volunteer instructor, and discuss elements of the Character Development curriculum which I will get to in a few minutes. This period every day is priority one.

For the remainder of the morning, based on arrangements with local schools, those who have not graduated from high school, could, attend virtual classes and gain credits towards receiving a high school diploma.

Through arrangements with local Community Colleges, those participants interested in some type of technical training could take morning classes. 

Those seriously deficient in reading, writing and math skills could attend remedial morning classes.

Have an “open” period each morning for guest speakers, leadership training, lessons on U.S. history and civics; whatever subjects enhance the overall program.

AFTERNOON SCHEDULE:

Generally, this will be the time for community service.  There are so many ways to help out and become visible to the public in positive ways, for example:

Clean parks and playgrounds, volunteer at a museum, assist at a walk-a-thon or community run, deliver food to the homebound, work at a food bank, take care of animals at a shelter, tutor students who have fallen behind in their studies, walk kids home from school, donate blood, help kids with their homework, offer free music lessons, coach a youth sports team, teach adults internet skills, teach CPR, assist immigrants with conversational English, chaperone a field trip, help out at a community center, volunteer as a lifeguard, be a crossing guard, do social media for a local nonprofit, help set up a community event, organize a clothing drive, adopt a highway and clean it, participate in musical performances at nursing homes, deliver groceries to the elderly, write letters for a senior citizen, lead an exercise program, sponsor an animal at the zoo, work for a charity like Habitat for Humanity, volunteer at a fire station, teach self-defense, paint over graffiti, work with special-needs kids; there is no end to this list.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: 

Values are key drivers in our lives.  Our values motivate us, determine what we strive to become in both life and in the work place, determine how well we will fit into an organization.  Values are drivers in our decision making and set out moral compass.  Character Development is value development; here are the building blocks:

Five days per week, following breakfast, participants will assemble, recite the Pledge of Allegiance and then participate in a character development class. 

The Character Curriculum will be, ACCOUNTABILITY, CITIZENSHIP, COMMITMENT, COMPASSION, COURAGE OF CONVICTIONS, COURTESY, CONFIDENCE, HEALTHY HABITS, HONESTY, HONOR, HUMILITY, INTEGRITY, JUDGMENT, LEADERSHIP, MORALITY, PERSEVERANCE, PUNCTUALITY, RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, SELF-RESPECT, SELFLESS SERVICE, SPORTSMANSHIP AND TRUST.

Just imagine the impact this can have with four million young adults having a substantive discussion about one of the subjects in the Character Curriculum five days a week and then adjourning to live/be/do/demonstrate those values on a daily basis.  It is a powerful initiative and will displace our current culture of hate and blame.

GOVERNMENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES FOR USA: 

For this Non-Governmental Organization, the federal government will be responsible for financing the bulk of operational costs, including salaries, housing, food, transportation and medical services.

The states will use their Division of Motor Vehicles facilities to produce and issue Universal Service for America ID cards for each 17-year-old as they register with the Selective Service.  

Local officials will provide free-of-charge public transportation.  They will also become points of contact for program officials to coordinate the use of participants to fulfill community service tasks.

LEADERS IN THE FIELD:

There is and always will be a perfect source of men and women to become qualified leaders and staff for the program. Annually the Defense Department retires thousands of men and women who have just finished 20-30 years of service, are looking for a second career and all have four things in common.  One, they are proven leaders.  two, they have years of experience teaching and training.  Three, they understand standards and have spent two or three decades living up to them.  Four, and perhaps most importantly, they have served in a totally integrated inter-racial environment with an overarching value base of accountability, respect and trust.  What more could one ask for in a person to lead and mentor these young adults?

OPERATIONAL LOCATIONS: 

It will not be practical to run the program with individual participants scattered across sparsely populated rural areas.  This will, by necessity, be a program where they are housed and operate in urban areas with population densities of at least 50,000.  The total U.S. population living in areas with at least 50,000 density is about 250 million.  Doing the math, there are about 5,000 urban segments, each with a population of about 50,000.  To accommodate all 4 million participants June through the following May would require housing nearly 800 participants per 50,000-population segment. A city of 200,000 would need to house 3,200 (800 x 4) etc. across the U.S. urban landscape. 

UNIVERSAL SERVICE FOR AMERICA HEADQUARTERS’ OPERATIONAL CONCEPT: 

Centralized planning with emphasis on maximum decentralized execution is a must.  The federal government is infamous for getting it backwards. When they attempt to run an operation, invariably they will, through thousands of pages of regulations, create a top-heavy bureaucratic mass attempting to micromanage all aspects of an operation.  And, in most cases they fail.  Without decentralized decision making and execution, innovation and operational flexibility will be unachievable.

Centralized planning by the CEO, the planning staff and Board of Directors will prescribe policy and articulate achievable standards.

LAUNCH THIS OPERATION WITH A PHASED PLAN

In long-range strategic planning, phasing the operation is an imperative.  Simply put, at the front end you don’t know what you don’t know. As you move forward in time, key data will come to light and can then be properly assimilated into the total equation. 

Phase 1, If this was a military operation this step would be called Shaping the Battlespace. For this program to succeed we need a strong, robust, multi-faceted Public Relations Campaign to generally enlighten everyone and to convince the general population that this is worth the effort, worth the investment in tax-payer money and will make our nation better and stronger than it can otherwise become. We must recognize that mandatory participation is potentially a tough sell.

The intent is to get a lot of traction with the White House, Congress, Governors, local officials, the general public and media. Also in phase 1, find a pro bono CEO for this program.  The first order of business will be to pull together a pro bono Board of Directors, composed of movers-and-shakers to find financing for a national Public Relations Campaign.

Phase 2, the CEO and his/her Board of Directors should push for Universal Service for America Non-Governmental Organization, NGO, funding to be included in the President’s budget and that it is looked on favorable by the Congress during the budget process.  

Phase 3, the first-year funding will be modest in that it may be prudent to begin the programs with a pilot program.

It would be very difficult to begin this operation with a full complement of young adult participants (about 4 million) on day one and a fully-staffed and trained national organization to run it.  Therefore, the first-year funding should accommodate a pilot program with about 1,000 volunteer participants in each state.

Also, in Phase 3 the CEO will give the states a heads-up that, if passed by Congress, the law will require the states’ DMV facilities to be prepared to coordinate with the Selective Services System and register prospective attendees

Phase 4, the President signs the bill which will provide pilot-program funding for Universal Service for America as a Non-Governmental Organization.

Upon passage of the Univer Service for “America Act the CEO will hire a staff to complete the phased plan.  There will be hundreds of issues to work on, for example: develop an organization chart; hire and train leaders and staff; logistics for housing and feeding attendees; initial registration to get the program started; develop a national database of those who register as a 17-year-old; develop a recruiting and training program for volunteers; liaise with state and local authorities; construct plans for Character Development; write a Code of Conduct; determine pay scales for permanent and temporary hires, etc.

The planning staff must also deal with the subject of discipline, a very delicate and important issue.  Inevitably, established rules and standards will be violated. The planners must define in detail who will have disciplinary authority and what the punishments will be for various categories of infractions.  Additionally, the headquarters staff must have a robust Inspector General Directorate to deal with complaints, potentially fraudulent activities, and any other activities that may call into question the integrity of the organization. 

Phase 5 will begin in June, bringing 18-year-old volunteers into the program in each state. 

VOLUNTEERS:

Where do the volunteers come from to teach the Character Development curriculum?  There are about 70 million Baby Boomers currently retiring at a rate of about 10,000 per day and many are looking for something interesting, meaningful, and challenging to do in retirement.  Additionally, many local organizations, (country clubs, churches, charitable organizations, etc.) will be willing to sign up for a number of volunteer positions and keep them filled on a permanent basis.

COMMUNITY INTERACTION:

The nation needs to buy in to the idea of compulsory national service. They need to meet these young people, see them volunteering and working in teams for the betterment of the community. Therefore, a key to success will be the extent to which the participants can be temporarily joined up with businessmen and women, civil servants, first responders, and every part of what is going on in the community every day.   Arrange for participants to walk the beat with a law enforcement officer, spend a night in jail, see what goes on in the backroom of a supermarket, ride along when a fire truck is called out, spend some nights in a hospital emergency room and be a part of every community group doing volunteer work.  Participants need to be visible, see the good, the bad, and the ugly America and expand their horizons by seeing and doing new and different things every day. 

A logical and valuable extension of this interaction is to institute, in every community, a mentoring program wherein leaders in all walks of life can personally, one-on-one interact with one or more of the participants over the year and by extension, into the future.  Mentoring can be a life-changing event for both. 

VISION:

All planning should begin at the end with a clear vision of the end-state. This first step is a must-do because there is truth in the old saying, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”

The vision for Universal Service for America is to set in motion, through positive training and mentoring of all the nation’s 18-year-old young adults, a process that will mitigate the problems associated with gangs, dropouts, illiteracy, obesity, race, culture and welfare. Over a period of years Universal Service for America will transform this country into a better, safer and more prosperous place for everyone. 

Vision is WHERE we need to go with this vital and important program.  

MISSION:

Once in place, there needs to be an overarching clear and brief statement defining what it is the organization is to focus on and accomplish every day.  For example, the U.S. Army’s mission is to prepare to fight and win the nation’s wars; clarity and brevity. 

The Universal Service for America mission is to annually engage all 18-year-old Americans in a program that will enhance their education, build character, strengthen their self-determination and set in motion a lifelong appreciation for community service, all while internalizing and learning to live in a culture of accountability, trust and respect. 

The mission is WHAT Universal Service for America needs to engage in each day.  

THE CEO: 

The position should be filled by an American patriot who is an influential and respected voice on cultural, political, and educational issues; preferably someone who has held positions of great importance in America to include perhaps an Executive Branch department head for a previous president. He/she should be a familiar voice for traditional American values.

CONCLUSIONS: 

It is within the art of the possible for Universal Service for America to become a valuable national recruiting resource. The military can now be more focused on a single group of 18-year-old Americans.  Local businesses may find a beneficial fit with some of the participants and offer them positions at the end of their national service obligation.  Technical businesses may look at the training the participants are engaged in at the community colleges to find prospective hires. The federal and state civilian work forces are constantly in need of an infusion of young talent, etc. 

The percentage of the U.S. population which has benefited from compulsory service will grow every year and become transformational and drastically reduce the severity of the problems we are faced with today; gangs, dropouts, illiteracy, obesity, culture of blame and hate, race relations and welfare.

This campaign with its character development, daily emphasis on values and teamwork, participants living and working in a culture of accountability, trust and respect can ultimately change how a nation thinks and acts, from the bottom up, for generations to come. 

THE POWER OF THE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT:

Discussions with every participant each day will result in the following:

As participants learn more about a life of accountability, they will be less likely to resort to hatred and blame.

Participants who are steeped in commitment, confidence, perseverance, punctuality and responsibility do not skip classes or work schedules, do not fall behind or drop out and are more likely to pursue additional education, get a job and stay off welfare. 

Participants who are deeply rooted in trust and respect will rally against bullying and are unlikely to become racially bigoted adults.  And they will believe, “They will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”  MLK

Participants who accept being compassionate, courteous, honorable, and demonstrate the courage of their convictions, will not return home to their street gangs.

Participants who accept honesty, morality and integrity as their guiding light are more likely to become life-long upstanding citizens.

Participants who understand, live and accept a life of selfless service are unlikely to become self-serving adults.

Participants who gain an understanding that there is a lot they don’t yet know and even part of what they believe might be incorrect, will have the quality of humility. 

Participants who gain an understanding of self-respect will recognize that they are now better than they used to be and can be counted on in times of temptation because they are morally dependable. 

With this value base, graduates of Universal Service for America are more likely to exercise good judgment and become good-to-great leaders.

Universal Service for America will be expensive but there is a huge difference between an expense and an investment. 

Amtrak is a good example of a tax-payer funded government-run expense.  Over fifty years ago, President Nixon signed the Rail Passenger Service Act creating the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, later known as Amtrak, to take over intercity passenger rail obligations. Amtrak has lost money every year requiring a federal subsidy.  In 2019 it was $1.9 billion in the red. As if that is not enough, the government Covid relief packages in 2020 provided $2 billion dollars to Amtrak.  Additionally, the infrastructure bill passed by the Senate in August, 2021 contains $66 billion for intercity rail. That, Mr. and Mrs. taxpayer, is a government expense.

Universal Service for America, on the other hand, should not be categorized as a government expense; it is an investment in the future of our great nation.  Yes, it will be expensive but the pay-back is incalculable.  Go back and review the problems associated with young Americans today and then ask yourself if those problems could be even partially eliminated, would it be worth the investment?  The offset for U.S.A. program operational costs will be more Americans employed and paying taxes and fewer on welfare and in jail.

Additional take-aways from this subparagraph on expense vs. investment: 1) The government must never take over the program and attempt to run it.  If that happens the program will fail from being ineffective, inefficient and lacking in ingenuity; and 2) The Congress must never be allowed to insert its partisan influence into the program’s curriculum via the annual appropriation to the NGO. If they do, the program’s integrity will be lost. 

A PARTING THOUGHT:

As we consider this legislation there is value in looking at the Israeli program of mandatory military service for all men and women. Four things that stand out are:

One, mandatory military service has become a rite of passage for all Israeli citizens.  The U.S.A.  Program can become that for all Americans.

Two, the army serves as Israel’s melting pot. Participants from every background are blended together for better understanding, appreciation and tolerance of each other.  The U.S.A. Program can do that for the United States.

Three, women have equal status. and equal responsibilities.  The U.S.A. Program can promote and advance that in our nation.

Four, service in Israel’s defense force is viewed as a precursor to the nation’s economy which has grown faster than any other developed country in the past 25 years. The parallel is that these young people learn how to solve problems, work with diverse groups of people and build networks. The U.S.A. Program can do that in the United States and easily offset the program’s investment dollars.

What comes to mind is a photo I recently saw of five young women, probably in their late teens, casually dressed, smiling and obviously having a delightful conversation as young ladies are want to do.  It is the type of photo that might have been taken in any other nation but not this photo; these were Israeli women because each had with them an M16 military rifle. They were holding the weapons casually, safely, expertly and with obvious confidence as if it was a purse or backpack.  What came to mind was that these young adults were probably already steeped in accountability (for themselves, defense of family, teammates and country), citizenship, commitment, courage of convictions, confidence, honesty, honor, integrity, morality, perseverance, punctuality, respect, responsibility, self-respect, selfless service and trust.

Israelis consider the end result of their mandatory service to be national pride, skill and gender equality.  It can do the same in the United States.  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery; we should not be too proud to copy something that works for others. 

KEYS TO SUCCESS: 

A critical step in every long-range strategic planning effort is to STOP about now, take a deep breath and consider that when the overall Concept of Operations has been thought through and at least has touched on most of necessary questions (who-what-when-where-why-and-how?) then ask, what are the keys to success?  Or stated another way, what can cause this to fail? The keys to success for Universal Service for America are:

A Public Relations Campaign that is nation-wide and very robust.

Resist becoming fully engaged until we have had the opportunity to learn from a pilot program of at least one year.  Learn to walk before we try to run.

Character Development is the pillar that will make Universal Service for America last for a lifetime.  In the daily routine, the period devoted to Character Development must be priority number one.

Everything in the program must contribute to and point toward creating a lasting culture of accountability, respect and trust. 

The program will fail if it becomes government-run. It will fail if it becomes a political football from administration to administration and/or from one Congress to another. Character development cannot ever be viewed as a partisan issue.

BOTTOM LINE: 

If goodness, and hence greatness, is to be regained for this country, it will be accomplished one person at a time through character development and a culture shift from blame and hate to accountability, trust and respect.

Just for a moment imagine, across this great nation, millions of young adults in classrooms with their hands on their hearts, looking at the American flag, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and then sitting down with a dedicated patriot volunteer to discuss character and values. The result will be transformational for generations to come.

Why should we do this?  To paraphrase a French political philosopher, Alexis de Tocqueville, who came to America in the 1820s to study our nation; he concluded in his book, Democracy in America, that America is great because it is good; when it ceases to be good it will cease to be great.  There needs to be a time and a place wherein all Americans can contemplate goodness and thereby plan to live a more fulfilling and productive life by being all they can be. That time is now and that place will be as a participant in Universal Service for America.  Goodness doesn’t just happen; it is a work in progress. Our intent has to be focused on refreshing and perpetuating America’s goodness.

WHY NOW?

On October 30, 2008, just before his election, Obama publicly declared, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” No one at the time understood the details of his intent.  Eight years later his transformation end state was becoming clearer.  The first Trump administration was a bump in the road for the Obama transformation but the Biden/Harris debacle nearly finished the job.  Every aspect of American life; economy, energy, military readiness, deterrence, foreign affairs, lawlessness, wokeness, internal national security, education, culture, etc. etc. are in post-Biden/Harris shambles. 

On 5 November 2024 the American people voted for change, lots of change. Universal Service for America, if instituted and then institutionalized will, in and of itself, be a transformational undertaking that will positively impact much of the damage the far left has done to our once-great nation.   Now, right now, is the time to act.

Without action, we can find ourselves, as described so aptly by Shakespear, “stranded in miserable shallows.”

Put Vice President Vance in the lead of two national issues; 1) make Universal Service for America a reality before the end of this Trump/Vance administration and 2) transform our education system into one in which everything at the local school district level becomes a piece of an overarching, singular, operating Culture of Academic Excellence.  

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, and FIX THE SYSTEMS, TRANSFORM AMERICA as well as the author of a blog WeThePeopleSpeaking.com.

Certainly not every school is failing and I’m sure most are dedicated and trying hard to do the best they can to turn out well-educated youngsters.  But the facts tell us that in general our education system is not anywhere near what it should be and can be.  In terms of “proficiency”, a very large percentage of students are currently deficient, too many kids dropout of school and way too many high school graduates are in fact functionally illiterate.

What are we doing about this?  Habitually, when concern over education achievement reaches a critical point, we, the federal and/or state governments, throw money at the problem, and/or increase the number of bureaucrats involved and/or publish more regulations. This has not, is not, will not fix the problem. President Biden’s Dept of Education budget requests were $79.2 billion, FY 2023 and $90 billion, FY 2024.

It is somewhere between difficult and impossible to solve a problem until one adequately defines the problem.  Let’s see if we can get there.

SOME GENERALIZATIONS

Worldwide, there is a correlation between a country’s education system’s quality and its economic status. Quality levels move up from “not developed” nations to “developing” to “developed.” The U.S. should be high on the list.  We are not.

Results from a 2023 Maryland state math exam reveals that 13, which is 40%, of Baltimore’s High Schools did not have a single math-proficient student. ZERO.

 As of first quarter, FY 2024, there are 115,171 schools in the United States; 95,852 public and 19,329 private schools.

TESTING ORGANIZATIONS

There are two organizations that are considered credible when it comes to rating education results. 

PISA, the Programme for International Student Assessment. The international PISA test is taken by 15-year-olds every three years. in 2019, pre Covid, the U.S. ranked 36^th out of 79 countries and regions that participated in the test.

NAEP, the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests 4^th and 8^th graders every two years and 12^th grade every four years. NAEP, often referred to as “the nation’s report card,” is a congressionally mandated large-scale assessment administered by the National Center for Education Statistics in various subject areas; mathematics, reading, and science are assessed most frequently. Results are reported based on “gender, race/ethnicity, public or nonpublic school, teacher experience, and hundreds of other factors.” NAEP has been testing in the U.S. for over 50 years.  The point being, they appear to be a credible organization and we should be capable of drawing some conclusions from their findings

The 2019 NAEP results found that U.S. achievement has not progressed over the past decade and, for low-performing students, was the same as 30 years ago.

NAEP student achievement levels are performance standards that describe what students should know and be able to do.:

• NAEP Basic: This level denotes partial mastery of prerequisite knowledge.
• NAEP Proficient: This level represents solid academic performance. Students reaching this level have demonstrated competency over challenging subject matter to include application of such knowledge to real world situations
• NAEP Advanced: This level signifies superior performance.

HOW ARE OUR SCHOOLS DOING?

High school graduation rates vary by state from 82% to 96%.  But that does not necessarily tell the whole story because it is a fact that some states have lowered the standards for graduation in order to achieve a higher number.

According to ELEVATE USA, on average, over a million students drop out of high school in the U.S. every year; that’s 5-6,000 every school day thereby creating a linkage to a life of crime and/or welfare.

“Dropout factories” refer to high schools with less than 60 percent graduating seniors when compared to the number of freshmen. Of the 26,727 public and private high schools in America, almost 2,000 graduate less than 60% of their students. Those dropout factories account for over 50% of the students who leave school every year. One in six U.S. students attend a dropout factory.  One in three minority students (32%) attend a dropout factory compared to 8% of white students.

Throughout the U.S., of those graduating high school, over 20% are unable to pass the test to enter the U.S. military because they are functionally illiterate.

In the U.S., high school dropouts commit about 75% of the crimes.

About 70% of prison inmates do not have a high school diploma.

More snapshots that illustrate the problems in government-run public schools: 

• Providence, RI:  Only 5% of eighth graders are proficient in math. 

• Newark, NJ: 21% proficiency in math.
• North Carolina: From NAEP 2022 testing, 68% of North Carolina fourth graders were not proficient in reading.
• Wisconsin: Black American eighth graders perform only slightly better than white fourth graders in reading and math. 

• Oregon Governor Kate Brown quietly signed a bill on July 14, 2020 that suspends a requirement for Oregon students to demonstrate reading, writing and math proficiency in order to receive a diploma.

And so it goes across the country.  A recent survey found that 20% of American adults cannot name even one of the three branches of government.

END OF GRADE TESTING

My sense is that there is too much emphasis on EOG and when a student does not do well on EOG tests, it is already too late to do anything about it. Normally our school systems do not have summer school programs for deficient students. Proficiency deficiencies just get passed on and, of course, compounded the next year as the teacher has to move on to more advanced subjects.  It is a formula that will guarantee failure on through middle and high school and leads us to our country’s unacceptable dropout numbers.

HOW BAD IS THE PROFICIENCY ISSUE?

PRE-COVID NAEP REPORT CARD: In 2019 NAEP tested 150,600 grade 4 students, 143,100 grade 8, and 26,700 grade 12 students and reported the findings.  Here is a summary pulled from a very large comprehensive report:

READING:  The assessment measures reading comprehension by asking students to read selected grade-appropriate materials and answer questions based on what they have read. 

                                                Grade 4           Grade 8           Grade 12

NOT proficient:                         59%                   66%                     76%

MATHEMATICS: The assessment measures both mathematics knowledge and the students’ ability to apply their knowledge in problem-solving situations.

                                                Grade 4           Grade 8           Grade 12

NOT proficient:                         65%                    66%               63%

Other subjects were even worse.  For high school seniors 88% NOT proficient in history, 77% NOT proficient in writing ability and 78% NOT proficient in science.

Also keep in mind that there is a category lower than “proficient.” Many of those who are below proficient are actually in the “basic” category or less.  

CONCLUSIONS

The above narrative and statistics are designed to do two things. One is to impress on you the length and breadth of the overall education crisis. And secondly to begin to identify and then define problems.  If we cannot articulate the problem, there is no solution.

What is the main reason students get poor grades?  Why do they fail end-of-grade tests? Why do they drop out? Why do they graduate high school functionally illiterate? The shortest, simplest answer is, at some point THEY GOT BEHIND.

Once behind they could not catch up and as they moved on to more complex material in the next grade they got even further behind.

If you look at enough of the NAEP proficiency test results one thing will jump off the page. That is, if the proficiency levels are bad in 4^th grade they are going to be worse in 8^th grade and too often also worse from 8^th to 12^th.

Once behind, grades continue to get worse, students get frustrated, harassed, ridiculed and get to the point that dropping out looks like a good solution and put school in the rear-view mirror.

UNDERSTANDING THE ABOVE, PERHAPS WE CAN DEFINE TWO PROBLEMS:

• One, it is inevitable that some students will get behind but, in most schools, there are no adequate systems in place to assist them in quickly catching up. For example, in 2022 only 32% of North Carolina’s 4^th grade students scored at or above proficient on the NAEP reading assessment, placing NC 23^rd among all states. There is no way for those thousands of kids to catch up during their upcoming 5^th grade year.

• Two, “basic training” is inadequate.  It is a valid conclusion that almost any training regimen in life will begin with what we usually refer to as “basic training”, that is, the fundamentals upon which everything thereafter will hinge. Think of it as the foundation. That is exactly what is supposed to happen in grades K-4, instill a solid foundation for academic excellence. When NAEP test results tell us that across the country 65% of 4^th graders are not proficient in math, basic training gets an “F”.

A SOLUTION, THE MAIN ATTACK

Translated, main attack means the three traditional levels of K-12 education, elementary, middle and high school should not be considered equals when it comes to priorities, funding, resourcing, etc. The main attack has to be K-4 with a properly resourced, lasting, comprehensive foundation. One part of the solution might be that all classes K-4 should be smaller with a more effective teacher/student ratio.

WHEN A STUDENT GETS BEHIND, DEFINE THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY and HOW OF ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE?

WHO?

Oversight: We do not need a federal Department of Education. We do not need state Departments of Education.

Local Boards of Education: They are short-term elected officials.  They need to be supportive but cannot be counted on to consistently articulate and lead the strategic plan for academic excellence. 

Superintendents: They must be selected based on their strong leadership abilities and dedication to long-term strategic planning for academic excellence for every school in their district. Resourcing and leading academic excellence must be their number one priority.

School Principals: they must be strong leaders at the operational level; live and breathe academic excellence every day. Their undisputed priorities are number one a safe and secure environment and number two academic excellence in every classroom every day. They must approve every teacher’s layout of lesson plans for every school semester.  Then they must be in the rear of the classrooms part of every school day to assess and if necessary, mentor teachers to perform differently and/or better.

Teachers: Teachers are the first line leaders at the point of execution every school day. Their constant rhythm must be teach/test/teach/test. From weekly testing, immediately identify any student who gets behind and when identified take immediate action.

The U.S. President: Advocate publicly for this academic excellence concept of operations.  Give it a name. Talk about it. In 2002 President Bush signed into law the “No Child Left Behind Act.” It was popular, it was a topic of conversation and most everyone was aware of it.  It also failed.  Why? In the final analysis it was just another big government program costing billion with masses of bureaucrats and regulations just like most of the programs administered by the federal Department of Education since 1979 which has led us to where we are today, knee deep in an education crisis. Call this program, No Child Gets Behind.

President Trump should try to build the same level of awareness that No Child Left Behind had but in its place advocate for No Child Gets Behind that is free, no government oversight and no government regulations.  Make No Child Gets Behind a program that totally lives within the 13,253 U.S. school districts.

The NAEP, National Assessment of Education Progress is actually a testing organization buried within the Department of Education.  The president should increase their budget to include more testing during the K-4 Main Attack phase.

Governors:  They should publicly support this decentralized academic excellence, No Child Gets Behind endeavor. Publicly celebrate the state’s best performing school district. The Governor could host an academic excellence best-practices web site to spread the best thinking to all of the state’s school districts.

Unions:  They are a bigger part of the problem than the solution.  You can count on it, they will raise hell about teachers having to spend time doing more testing. National education unions should have zero input or influence on education policy and practices. 

The Academic Excellence Team: At the point of execution, the academic excellence team, consisting of the parents, teacher and student, must be in continuous communications with respect to academic excellence and particularly with respect to a student that is getting behind in their proficiency level.

That was WHO should be involved, now:

WHAT SHOULD TAKE PLACE?

For every project or operation there is a center of gravity.  Center of gravity can be a person, place and/or circumstance that is central to success or could cause failure. Centers of gravity must be identified by the leaders before the beginning of every phase of an operation, resourced and tracked continuously.

Testing is the center of gravity for academic excellence and, as pointed out above, relying on End of Grade testing is grossly insufficient.

Make every Thursday quiz day throughout the entire school. That is, test the material that was covered over the previous few days.  Short simple questions with short simple answers; the test can be administered in only a few minutes and graded quickly.  Jimmy failed the quiz and the immediate assumption must be that he is behind.

At the dinner table every Wednesday parents should be asking Jimmy and Susan, “are you ready for the quiz tomorrow?”

Weekly quizzes will be reinforced with regular 6-week testing followed by issuing individual report cards that must be returned with a parent signature.

The school Principal must ensure that a catch-up model is in-place and operational at all times.

Jimmy is behind. First, the teacher will activate the academic excellence team; that is, get the parents involved. Inform then that Jimmy will have extensive homework for the weekend that must be signed by the parents before Jimmy returns to class the following Monday morning. If necessary, continue sending homework home every day for the following week.  Again, all returned homework must be signed by the parents. 

The second part of the Principal’s catch-up model is a team of volunteer tutors who are available for after-school mentoring of students whose parents are unable, and/or unwilling to help their child through the homework which is tailored to get the student who is behind back on track quickly.

RESOURCING THIS SOLUTION

Billions of dollars? No. More bureaucrats for oversight? No. More regulations? No.

What it will take is stronger leadership, concise standards, ingenuity, a national consensus for change and less or no education union interference.  

WHEN should all this take place?

Now. President Trump should meet with all of the Governors for a session specifically on education. Explain all of the above to them in detail.

Then he should address the nation specifically on the subject of education. Make it clear to the American public that the 13,253 school district Superintendents must lead the effort locally, must innovate, must change, must seek out and implement best practices.

President Trump should explain that the habitual failed solution of throwing billions of dollars, bureaucrats and regulations at a national crisis is not how his government is going to operate. He has faith in the American people to solve the problem at their level.

WHERE should this take place?

Obviously, in every public and private school in America.

WHY are we doing this?

Education results in America are unbecoming of our great nation and are degrading the work force.

HOW are we going to do it?

With American leadership, intuition, grit and determination, just as we have solved every other great crisis throughout our history.

BOTTOM LINE:

Some of you are saying, so Covault you believe all we have to do is begin giving quizzes on Thursday and the education crisis will be solved.

My response is threefold:

One, nothing the governments, county to federal, are doing is working.

Two, it’s not just giving quizzes.  It’s about giving quizzes in an organizational environment that is totally committed, from the student/parent/teacher team to the Superintendent, local Board of Education and to the local community, to an uncompromising all-encompassing culture of academic excellence.

Three, if you have a better idea that also does not cost anything, I’m all ears.  

A final thought. We are fortunate to have J.D. Vance as our Vice President. Intelligent, likeable, articulate, great background, great family etc. etc., he has the potential to be one of the greatest VPs in our history and be perfectly positioned to follow President Trump in 2028.  But he should not languish as VP.  He needs President Trump to delegate some of the most important issues and problems to him.  Regaining academic excellence throughout America could be one of those issues.  If President chooses to address the American citizens on the education crisis, it would be the perfect time to introduce J.D. Vance as the education czar.  It is another good reason to eliminate the Dept of Education from the Executive Branch.

Motivate, don’t regulate. Decentralized execution is the center of gravity for achieving academic excellence again.

“Education is the wellspring from which a nation ascends … or the quagmire into which it sinks.  Education is everything.”  Michael Russell

ADD “WELFARE TO WORK” TO PRESIDENT TRUMP’S TO-DO LIST

Why add fixing welfare to President Trump’s list?  Because President Clinton and Speaker Newt Gingrich put in a major fix in 1996 and Obama/Biden tore it apart.  Now we have a welfare crisis, control of Congress and it can/should get fixed.  It is another action that will save the taxpayers billions of dollars by putting people back to work.

There are masses of numbers associated with work, workers and welfare. My intent was to sort through it all and paint a numbers picture of the work, worker, welfare situation in America today.  Numbers are the story and it is not a pretty picture.

LABOR PARTICIPATION RATE

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the labor force participation rate is an estimate of an economy’s active workforce. The formula is the number of people ages 16 and older who are employed or actively seeking employment, divided by the total civilian working-age population.

Background; when Obama/Biden took over in January 2009 the labor participation rate was 65.7%. That was the beginning of an 8-year steady decline until they departed the White House January 2017 with a participation rate of 62.8%’ about a 3% decline. Is 3% a big deal?  Yes, it’s significant because in 2017 there were 165.2 million workers involved. Each percentage point represents 1.652 million workers time 3 percent equals an Obam/Biden loss of about 5 million workers. That was an element of Obama’s declared formula to “fundamentally transform America.”

President Trump got the participation rate up from the Obama/Biden low of 62.8% to 63.3% in his first two years in office. By 2019 pre-covid, that was an increase of over 800,000 workers.

During 2024 the U.S. labor force participation rate has ranged between a low of 62.5% (January) and a high of 62.6%. (October). And Biden kept telling us how successful Bidenomics has been and that he has added 15 million jobs.  No, it didn’t happen, not even close. An increase of one tenth of one percent represents about 165,000, jobs, not 15 million.

PRESIDENT CLINTON AND SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH, 1996

In 1996 President Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. The legislation substantially reconstructed the nation’s welfare system by giving state governments more autonomy over welfare services while also reducing the federal government’s role. Yes, President Trump, it can be done.

The Welfare-to-Work Act, as it became known, provided for the following:

• The act ended welfare as an entitlement program.
• Required recipients to begin working after two years of receiving benefits.
• Placed a lifetime limit of five years on benefits paid by federal funds.
• Sought to encourage two-parent families and to discourage out-of-wedlock births.
• Enhanced enforcement of child support.
• Stricter conditions for food stamps eligibility, reductions in immigrant welfare assistance, and recipient work requirements.
• And required state professional and occupational licenses to be withheld from undocumented immigrants.

As he signed the bill on August 22, 1996, President Clinton stated that the act “gives us a chance we haven’t had before to break the cycle of dependency that has existed for millions and millions of our fellow citizens, exiling them from the world of work. It gives structure, meaning and dignity to most of our lives”.

The Welfare to Work Act created a foundational principle of “personal responsibility”; it changed the culture of U.S. welfare. Now, 28 years later, we can/should do it again.

TANF, TEMPORARY ASSISTANCE FOR NEEDY FAMILIES

The Welfare to Work Act ended six decades of federal government control of the programs. In the process of dismantling the old model, President Clinton created something, different and critical to success; the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, TANF, which changed the financing and benefit structure of cash welfare assistance. Instead of welfare being funded in an open-ended manner, welfare became funded by federal block grants to states, along with a requirement that states had to match some of the federal dollars.

TANF:

• Added work requirements for aid, shrinking the number of adults who could qualify for benefits.
• It created caps for how long and how much aid a person could receive.
• It instituted harsher punishments for recipients who did not comply with the requirements.

Following on, President Bush called on the Senate to take action to continue the historic progress of welfare reform and ensure that more Americans are able to achieve independence through work.

Did TANF work?  In its annual report to Congress on the level of welfare dependency in the country, the Department of Health and Human Services found that 4.7 million fewer Americans were dependent on welfare three years after welfare reform was first passed in 1996. The percentage of the population dependent on welfare fell from 5.2% to 3.3% during that time. Yes, it worked and it can work again, President Trump.

WELFARE AND POVERTY, THEY ARE CONNECTED

As the rate of welfare dependency declined, the overall poverty rate in America fell. In the four years following enactment of welfare reform, 5.4 million fewer Americans were in poverty. Within those four years, the poverty rate for all individuals fell from 13.7% to 11.3%, the lowest rate since 1979.

2009: ENTER OBAMA/BIDEN WITH THEIR AMERICAN TRANSFORMATION SCHEME.

“Without authority, Obama moves workers back to welfare” were the headlines.

In a classic case of Executive Branch abuse of regularity power, Obama/Biden cut the legs off from the TANF program by informing the states that they could apply to the Secretary of the federal Department of Health and Human Services for a waiver of the work requirements contained in the law.  That Obama/Biden move could have and should have been challenged by Congress and/or the Supreme Court because the work requirement was an essential element of the law and one that the statute specifically said cannot be waived. But it was not challenged.

The Obama/Biden initiative killed a 12-year-old successful program with the following negative ramifications: 

• As previously pointed out, the U.S. labor force participation rate went down about 3% which meant that about 5 million able-bodied welfare recipients did not transition from welfare to work.
• The federal government essentially regained control of the welfare program and reverted back to the bad-old-days. Vote buying.
• Obama/Biden significantly added to the size of the Welfare/Poverty Identity Group voting block that, understandably, can be relied on to vote for the democrats.
• The Congressional Research Service reported that the number of able-bodied adults on food stamps doubled after Obama suspended work requirements.
• By 2016, a record 47 million Americans receive food stamps, about 13 million more than when Obama/Biden took office.
• Increased welfare does not solve the poverty issue. The Census Bureau put the number of Americans in poverty at 45.3 million as of 2013. That’s about 5.5 million more people in poverty than there were in 2008 before Obama/Biden took office.
• When the labor force participation falls, tax revenue falls and government revenue is reduced as welfare costs go up; the perfect formula for deficit spending and long-rang debt increases.
• Government spending on welfare increased 32% during the Obama/Biden first term.

WHAT DID BIDEN LEARN DURING HIS 8-YEAR TUTELAGE UNDER OBAMA?

Biden’s first budget submission in 2021 expanded welfare without work incentives setting the stage to trap a new generation of Americans into a cycle of dependency and thus poverty.   In fiscal year 2022, the federal government spent$1.19 trillion   on more than 80 different welfare programs. That represents almost 20% of total federal spending and a quarter of tax revenues in 2022. The Congressional Budget Office has projected $12.7 trillion in spending on these programs over the FY 2024-2033 budget window.

What did Biden learn from Obama? He learned how to advance the movement towards a welfare state. I am not suggesting that Obama/Biden want the U.S. to become a socialist society.  But if one looks carefully at the widely-accepted formula for transforming to a socialist nation, consider the following:

What are Obama’s building blocks to “systematically transform America? They came from Saul Alinsky, 1909-1972, a Chicago-based organizer, community activist and political theorist. Considered the father of community organizers, he became Obama’s philosophical mentor; Obama quotes him often in his book.

It is enlightening to align Alinsky’s “eight steps from democracy to a socialist society” with what has happened to America under Obama/Biden leadership.

• Step one, healthcare: “Control Healthcare and you control the People.” Democrats campaigned in 2020 for “Medicare for all.”  
• Step two, poverty: “Increase the poverty level as high as possible, Poor People are easier to control and will not fight back if the government is providing everything for them to live.”

Here are some 2022 quick facts about poverty provided by Poverty USA. The poverty threshold for an individual is a household income of approximately $13,000 per year, and it’s roughly $26,000 per year for a family of four. 37 million Americans are living in poverty, which makes the poverty rate 11.4%. There are over 11 million children in poverty.

• Three, debt: “Increase the National Debt to an unsustainable level.” Obama/Biden created more national debt in 8 years than all previous administrations in U.S. history combined.
• Four, gun control: “Remove the ability to defend themselves from the Government.  That way you are able to create a Police State with total local control.”  Gun control is a habitual Democrat priority subject. 
• Five, welfare: “Take control of every aspect of their lives, food, livestock, housing, and income.” Government spending on welfare increased 32% during the Obama/Biden first term.
• Six, education: “Take control of what People read and listen to; take control of what Children learn in school.” That is currently happening across the nation in grades K-12 and in colleges and universities and hopefully fixing education is already on President Trump’s to-do list.
• Seven, religion: “Remove faith in God from the government and schools.” Almost there.
• Eight, class warfare: “Divide the people into the wealthy against the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to tax the wealthy with full support of
  the voting poor.” This was the Democrat campaign plan in 2024, “Tax the rich”.

If you believe the Alinsky eight steps to socialism has some validity, and if you also believe the lid is already on the coffin, all that remains is to nail it down. President Trump, we need to act now to reverse these trends.

CONCLUSION:

The government is complicit in supporting those who can work but choose not to. Complicit how? By supporting a welfare system that can cause millions of Americas to literally sign up for and be captured in a (President Clinton’s words), “cycle of dependency.”

BOTTOM LINE WITH NUMBERS:

• The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in2024 there are about 209 million working-age men in America,
• About 89% of them, (186 million) have a job or are actively looking for a job.
• That tells us there are about 23 million men who do not have a job and are not looking for one.
• it is not an issue of not being able to find a job, 23 million have simply opted out altogether and are living on the government dole.
• Meanwhile, a federal count from November 2023 tells us that more than 770,000 manufacturing jobs were open and manufacturing workers are, on average, earning more than $30 an hour.
• The U.S. welfare system consists of 80+ federal programs providing cash, food, housing, medical care, social services, training, and targeted education aid to poor and low-income Americans. Too much.  Too invasive. And for too many, obviously too tempting. 

Americans are the most benevolent people on earth.  We will always take care of those who cannot take care of themselves.  But 80+ government welfare programs run by an enormous out of control bureaucracy can actually cause more harm than good. That is evidenced by comparing the Welfare-to-Work results from 1996 to 2008 against the Obama/Biden transformation formula.   

America was built on a culture of hard work and generally we do not look favorably on those who can work but choose instead to sit on their ass and wait for their monthly welfare checks from we-the-working-people.

The statistical gains for Americans during the 1996-2008 Temporary Assistance for Needy Families are not just proof of concept, they are proof of policy.  The how to make Welfare to Work a reality again is there for the taking. Just make it happen President Trump.

Warning to readers, this is long.  I’m into sales and my intent is to convince you that it is possible to solve three of America’s current crises, culture, education and race relations without spending any taxpayer dollars.  If you are interested, please read on. 

As a New York Times bestselling author, David Brooks observes, “There is one skill that lies at the heart of any healthy person, family, school, community organization or society: the ability to see someone else deeply and make them feel seen—to accurately know another person, to let them feel valued, heard and understood.” Brooks’ latest book, How to Know a Person is a who/what/when/where/why and how in-depth look at us, we-the-people.

Let’s begin with a list of sad statistics pulled from a short chapter entitled, An Epidemic of Blindness.  He concluded, “We live in an environment in which political animosities, technological dehumanization and social breakdown undermine connection, strain friendships, erase intimacy and foster distrust. Here are some statistics that led him to that conclusion:

• Between 1999 and 2019 suicide rates increased 33%.
• Between 2009 and 2019 the percentage of teens who reported persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness rose from 26% to 37%.  By 2021 it had shot up to 44%.
• The percentage of Americans who said they have no close friends, quadrupled between 1990 and 2020.
• 54% of Americans reported that no one knows them well.
• 36% of Americans reported that they feel lonely almost all of the time including 61% of young adults and 51% of young mothers.
• The General Social Survey asked Americans to rate their happiness levels. Between 1990 and 2018 the share of Americans who put themselves in the lowest happiness category increased by more than 50%.
• Sadness, lack of recognition and loneliness turn into bitterness, which can lead on to meanness which has caused a marked increase in hate crimes.
• This social breakdown manifests itself as a crisis of distrust. Two generations ago, roughly 60% of Americans said that most people can be trusted; by 2014, only 30.3% did.
• Ultimately, the sadness and dehumanization pervading society has led to violence, both emotional and physical. Sadness, dehumanization and Loneliness too often, in reflection, tend to define school shooters which was almost unheard of before 1999.
• Brooks goes on to introduce the phrase “moral formation” which is about three simple practical things. 

First, it is about helping people learn how to restrain their selfishness and incline their heart to care more about others.

Second, it’s about helping people find a purpose, so their life has stability, direction, and meaning. 

Third, moral formation is about teaching the basic social and emotional skills so one can be kind and considerate to the people around them. 

Those three items are especially applicable to this article because those words are a part of what I am going to outline as a long-range strategic concept of operations to fix, “the epidemic of blindness” existing throughout our country today.

Brooks’ research suggests that earlier in our history, education did focus on moral formation. Educators thought it was their primary job to turn out people of character.  But, in mid-20^th century the focus on moral formation began to fall away.  By the 1960s deliberate moral education was in full-scale retreat.

In a sense, American culture became demoralized by the 1990s usage of morality-related words had plummeted; “bravery” down 66%, “gratitude” down 49%, “humbleness” down 52%.  In a 2018 poll only 7% said helping other people gave them meaning in life. 

Recent generations of Americans have not been taught the skills they need in order to see, understand, and respect other people.

Thank you, David Brooks, for those insights. Now to the question, how are we going to turn all this around? There are going to be three issues in play in this concept of operations, culture, education and race relations. Why?  Because the solution to any one of the three critical issues, coincidently can be the solution to the other two. Three for the price of one.  And by the way, if done properly, the price to the taxpayers will be $0.00.

Since 5 November, change is in the air.  There are growing expectations across the country that President Trump has a mandate to fix some of our most serious problems and culture, education and race relations are certainly three of the most critical. Let’s get on with the fix.

First define the three problems, culture/education/race relations.

CULTURE IS A POWERFUL, PERVASIVE FORCE

There is a culture associated with every organization no matter how large or small. A two-person team as well as the largest of organizations will over time develop a culture that can be defined. Culture is an organization’s personality; caring, hateful, fast, energetic, visionary, risk-taking, vengeful, selfless, selfish, accommodating, respectful, unethical and on and an. I believe the pervasive culture in the United States of America can be generally classified as A Culture of Hate and Blame. That is not where we want to be or should be and certainly not a way to move forward.

EDUCATION IS IN A PATHETIC STATE AND GETTING WORSE

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in FY 2023, 614,000 students dropped out of high school, 3,411 per school day, and statistically become a life-time drain and strain on society. Others are allowed to slip through the system and graduate from high school but are actually functionally illiterate.

For decades the National Assessment of Education Progress, has been routinely testing hundreds of thousands of students in grades 4, 8 and 12. The results are called The Nation’s Report Card. Reading and math proficiency percentages provide a short-hand look at where we were in 2019, pre-Covid, scoring stats. This is about proficiency or the lack thereof. Proficiency is, “demonstration of some competency over challenging subject matter.”

Math: 4^th grade 67% NOT proficient, 8^th grade 71% NOT proficient, 12^th grade 63% NOT proficient.

Reading: 4^th grade 68% NOT proficient, 8^th grade 66% NOT proficient, 12^th grade 69% NOT proficient.

Statistics are available for all other subjects and scoring is generally worse than math and reading. President Trump is correct, education needs reform. But…..

Top-down programs do not work: The federal government has a horrible record in trying to run anything, especially education.  Since the Federal Government established the Department of Education in 1979, we have seen one failed program after another as each succeeding administration tries to “fix” education from the top down with hundreds of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of bureaucrats and regulations.

Our proficiency levels and world rankings in education tell us we are stuck in a place we do not want to be.

RACE RELATIONS CAN AND MUST BE IMPROVED

There is no definitive measure of where we are with respect to race relations, but events continue to tell us it is not anywhere near good enough.

Ground truth, babies of all races are not born bigoted, disrespecting or hateful.  While growing up they learn it. They learn it at home, in school, on the playground and on the street.  We simply have to change what children learn.

NO QUICK FIX

To fix all three of these issues, we need to become comfortable thinking in terms of generations to institutionalize this concept of operations and get where we all have the opportunity to be all we can be every day. 

Today, we adults, for he most part, are a lost cause. The solution will only come if we change what our youngsters learn, how they think, what they believe in and how they behave.

The good news is this concept of operations does not need federal or state masses of bureaucrats with their reems of regulations and the equally good news is, it is free. 

CAMPAIGN HOME ROOM, THE WAY FORWARD

First, who will be involved in some way in this campaign?

-130,000 K-12 public and private schools

-50 million K-12 students

-180 million adults with a school-age child

-4.5 million teachers

-2 million Home Room volunteers, (more on this later)

-Over 200,000 Superintendents, Principles and Education Board members

That’s over 80% of adults in America involved in some way with this campaign.

The plan is for 50 million kids to be in a Home Room class at 0800 every school day for about 20 minutes for 13 school-years with volunteer instructors. They will discuss values and character.

President-elect Trump campaigned on fixing education in America.  Here sir, is a program for you.

This concept paper is laid out as a national campaign with President Trump leading.  But if that does not happen, the concept as written can also be applicable for action by any individual state led by the Governor. In the absence of any Federal or State sponsorship, Campaign Home Room can be picked up by any county or city Board of Education and executed.  At whatever level this program is activated, it can be successful, it will make a positive difference and it will be transformative for the communities involved. 

Structure each Home Room with a cross section of the class population.  For example, visualize a school that has 75 new kindergarten students entering school in August, twenty-five kids per class.  Populate each Home Room with students from each of the three classes.  During the following 13 years, some youngsters will move away and some new ones will move in; but for the most part that Home Room group will stay together until graduation.  That is part of the power of the Home Room concept.

This Concept of Operations to fix the above discussed problems is not a guessing game.  The strength of this concept is that there are existing successful models we can lean on and learn from. 

Youngsters who are committed to youth organizations such as Scouting, First Tee, Boys and Girls Clubs avoid joining gangs or becoming bigoted because they have developed a positive value base.  They have learned accountability; they trust each other and respect authority.  But these great programs only touch a fraction of the kids.  We have to teach values to every youngster in the United States for generations to come. 

EXECUTION, THE HOME ROOM CURRICULUM

The first 20-30 minutes of every school day in every school, K-12, will be Home Room. The subject matter will be:

ACCOUNTABILITY, CITIZENSHIP, COMMITMENT, COMPASSION, COURAGE OF CONVICTIONS, COURTESY, CONFIDENCE, HEALTHY HABITS, HONESTY, HONOR, HUMILITY, INTEGRITY, JUDGMENT, LEADERSHIP, MORALITY, PERSEVERANCE, PUNCTUALITY, RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, SELF-RESPECT, SELFLESS SERVICE, SPORTSMANSHIP AND TRUST.

That is, teach and talk about values.  Call it the Character Curriculum. There will need to be three versions of the curriculum; elementary K-5, middle school 6-8 and high school 9-12.  Out of this will come an overpowering culture of ACCOUNTABILITY, RESPECT AND TRUST.

In many large schools a student may not even know all of their “classmates” but they sure will know their Home Room mates.  They will get to know them like brothers and sisters.  They will have deep feelings and respect for their Home Room mates.  Over time Home Rooms will have names, mascots, tee-shirts, a website, competition with other Home Rooms, an unshakable identity, peer pressure and peer support.  “I have your back” will become an unspoken pledge from each to all.  The Home Room will become powerful, effective and it is free.  It is a game changer.

In this day and age of peer pressure to join a gang the Home Room can, from kindergarten on, provide an alternative.  For every student, their Home Room can become their “gang” throughout their elementary and secondary education years.  Every student in the United States will have a small group they can identify with and turn to for peer support.

Bullying has always been a problem for youngsters and seemingly more so today with the availability of social media.  Home Room will bring bullying to its knees in two different ways.    First of all, every student will now know that their Home Room gang has their back.  The students will look after each other and protect one another.  Secondly, one of the most powerful subjects in the Home Room Character Curriculum is respect.

By their very nature, bullies do not respect others or authority.   With respect imprinted on the soul of every youngster and emphasized day after day, year after year throughout their student careers, it is doubtful that bullying will even be a mentionable problem in the future. 

Truancy is an enormous problem in this country and is the super highway to dropping out of school.  With the bond built among a group of Home Room kids over the years it will not be easy to bring one’s self to skip school.  Accountability will become a powerful way of life for every student. 

Home Room does not require funding.  Personnel on the educational payroll will not lead or teach Home Room.  It will be done by volunteers and we will need a lot of them.  If the average size Home Room is 25 students, we will have about 2 million Home Room classes in session every school day. 

Just imagine the impact Campaign Home Room can have with 50 million youngsters standing with their hand over their heart reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and then participating in a substantive discussion about one of the subjects in the Character Curriculum every school day and then adjourning to their class rooms to live/be/do/demonstrate those values.  How powerful is that?

TWO MILLION VOLUNTEERS

How do we find and train 2 million volunteers?  The essence of this campaign is decentralized execution.  Each individual school Principal will be responsible for finding a handful of volunteers and that should not be a problem.  For example, there are about 70 million Baby Boomers retiring at a rate of about 10,000 per day and many are looking for something interesting, meaningful, and challenging to do in retirement. 

Tap in to local organizations and churches for help: Kiwanis, Lions Club, Chamber of Commerce, VFW, American Legion, AARP, Shriners, Country Clubs, etc.  Get them to sponsor an entire school and provide all the Home Room instructors.  Easy to do and retirees bring a wealth of knowledge and experience for the mentoring of youngsters. 

Additionally, there are almost two million retired military men and women across the country.  They all have three things in common: they are proven leaders, they are teachers and they have spent their professional lives in a fully integrated and value-based organization in which they operated daily immersed in a culture of ACCOUNTABILITY, TRUST AND RESPECT.  They have the perfect skill set to administer the Home Room Character Curriculum. 

True story. A few years ago, I was invited by the paster of a large church in my community to speak at the Wednesday church supper gathering of about 75 folks; Twenty-minute presentation about the concept of Campaign Home Room and 10 minutes of Q and A.  About a week later the paster called to thank me. He also reported that there was a lot of positive talk around the church about Home Room. He told me that if I could get Campaign Home Room started in our local school system, he already lined up about 300 volunteer instructors from the church. Yes, communities with step forward.

Teachers and administrators should be seated in the back of the room observing the Home Room instruction/discussion.  Why?  The power of the program is that the students will take the values from the Home Room to the classroom if they are prompted all day to do so. 

FIRST TEE, PROOF OF CONCEPT

We can begin Campaign Home Room with a load of information and results from actual character training by reviewing what First Tee has accomplished over the past 27 years.

1997, then-PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem was joined in New York City’s Central Park by representatives from the leading golf organizations, US Golf Association officials and President George H. W. Bush to announce the launch of First Tee.  

First Tee mission is, “to impact the lives of young people by providing educational programs that build character, instill life-enhancing values and promote healthy choices through the game of golf.”

First Tee is a national non-profit organization devoted to teaching the “Nine Core Values” (respect, honesty, integrity, sportsmanship, confidence, responsibility, perseverance, courtesy and judgment) plus Nine Healthy Habits and introduction to the game of golf.

Since 1997, First Tee has grown into a preeminent youth development organization with 150 chapters with programs delivered at 1,400 golf courses, 10,000 schools and 1,700 youth centers in all 50 states.

Golf is a sport enjoyed for a life-time by over 100 million players around the world.  One unique aspect of golf as a sport is that while there are lots of rules, there are no referees. Every player declares their own infractions.  Honesty, accountability and sportsmanship are in play all the time and great practical application for youngsters.

DOES CHARACTER TRAINING WORK?

The desire to understand how character training impacts young people prompted First Tee to sanction a study by an outside group of highly qualified researchers.  It began in 2003 with a snapshot look at the program with the following results:

Communications skills…..74% positive, 24% no change, 2% negative

Confidence.……………………76% positive, 22% no change, 2% negative

Responsibility…………………74% positive, 24% no change, 2% negative

School grades………….….….52% positive, 44% no change, 4% negative

Social skills………………………66% positive, 30% no change, 4% negative

With these impressive results First Tee then sanctioned a four-year study, 2005-2008 with the following findings:

• 73% of The First Tee participants were retained in the program from year one to year four of the research.  This retention rate is impressive given the average dropout rate per year is about 50% in other youth organizations. 
• Year one:  Character training impacts the lives of students quickly.  During year one the participants declared there was a positive life skill transfer to school work (100%), a job (35%), friends (60%), activities (30%), family (85%) and sports (70%). 
• Year two:  First Tee participants were compared to youth in after-school activities without a life skills curriculum. The First Tee youth scored higher than the comparison group on use of general life skills including goal-setting, taking initiative and managing their emotions, as well as on most measures of transferring life skills and demonstrating positive character traits. These differences between First Tee youth and the comparison group were statistically significant.

• Year three:  73% reported high confidence in their ability to do well academically.

• Year four:  In each of the four years of the study, 100% of First Tee participants identified school as a setting in which the character training transferred positively.

The best feedback I can report to you is what has been relayed to me in conversations with teachers while working with First Tee CEO and the national staff as well as with a local chapter.  While every teacher was initially skeptical about using 20 minutes of valuable school time each day, every teacher reported that to their surprise and delight within just a few weeks their students changed; became more attentive, more polite, more cooperative and more accountable.  Music to my ears.

This nation does not need a pilot program to test character training, we just need to execute.

TEMPLATE BEST PRACTICES:  

This concept of operations provides the basics for Home Room operations.  But we all know that after implementation there will be a plethora of new good ideas.  Home Rooms will have names, T-shirts, perhaps a website and competition with other Home Rooms.  Community service should become a traditional Home Room activity for high school students. Some schools will reward outstanding high school seniors by having them partner with the Home Room volunteers to teach and discuss the Character Curriculum.  Some schools will use the best and brightest high school students to tutor struggling students whose parents are unable or incapable of tutoring their children.  The list goes on and on and is only limited by imagination. 

At some point, perhaps in the sixth grade, a Home Room student will suggest to her mates that they challenge the other Home Rooms to a grade-point-average competition.  At that point that school just reached the Promised Land. 

Innovation has been the lifeblood of this nation since its inception.  Whatever Home Room function is found to work in one community should be templated and shared.  Each Governor should have a Campaign Home Room website set up to publish innovative ideas and best practices.

MAXIMUM CENTRALIZED PLANNING, MAXIMUM DECENTRALIZED EXECUTION: 

Since the establishment of the federal Department of Education in 1979 there has been program after program forced down to the states and counties by the federal government.  Additionally, every presidential candidate since then has campaigned on a pledge to improve education.  It has not and will not happen as long as the process is so politicized and frequently changed.  Policy driven, top-down solutions overseen by masses of bureaucrats has not worked in the past and will not work going forward.

For Campaign Home Room, centralized planning is by the President and Governors and those they have chosen to assist with implementing phase 1 of the campaign.  Maximum decentralized execution is from the County/City Board of Education Chairperson on down through the Superintendent to the school Principals.  There is no requirement for thick pamphlets dictating rules, regulations and reporting requirements; this concept of operations is the basic plan. 

Maximum centralized planning with maximum centralized regulation is a loser, especially for education.  Maximum centralized planning, maximum decentralized execution is a proven model because it pushes the decision-making down closest to the point of execution. 

With decentralized execution of Campaign Home Room, the local county/city populace will soon come to understand that the accountable officers, the Superintendent and the School Principals, are right there in their community and are not some nameless, faceless bureaucrat in Washington DC. 

The Superintendent and the local school Principal can be approached, talked to and debated.  What happens next is that the Superintendents who are weak leaders and the principals who can’t plan will be replaced by leaders who can and will deliver high school graduates in greater numbers and those who do graduate will have the cognitive skills necessary to be productive citizens.

DEFINING CAMPAIGN FAILURE 

The four potential enemies of this campaign are politics, the not-invented-here crowd, bureaucratic oversight and impatience.

Politics:  If this campaign becomes a Democrat vs Republican political pawn, it will crumble and fail.  Therefore, each succeeding President and Governor, in turn, must see the long-range value of this program and keep it on track without federal or state funding. 

Not-invented-here: In every campaign, there are those persons and organizations that believe if something was not their idea then it most certainly cannot be of much value.  Defeat the not-invented-here crowd with fast action and wide-spread support for the campaign.

Bureaucratic oversight:  This is not a program that needs a mass of federal or state regulations, rules and reporting requirements.  Keep Campaign Home Room in its simplest form and execute from the County/City Board of Education level down.  

Impatience:  The campaign will certainly yield improvement in the first two or three years but it must be understood that, generally speaking, this is a generational campaign.   After one complete cycle of K-12 the results, the transforming of this nation, will be astounding. 

PRESIDENT TRUMP CAN LAUNCH CAMPAIGN HOME ROOM IN THREE PHASES:

Phase 1 is the centralized planning phase at the federal level January through spring 2025 and at the state level on through August, 2025.

The senior leader of any large organization will spend a great deal of their time building consensus for strategic campaigns.  It will be critical for President Trump to do so as early as possible.  Governors, minority leaders, educators and legislators must all get briefed and brought on board during early months for phase 1.

After the Governors meet with President Trump, they should become active by laying out the decentralized plan for leaders in every school district to take the ball and run with it.    

Phase 2 begins August, 2025 and is one year long.  During this phase the County/City Boards of Education, Superintendents and school Principals will undertake the detailed decentralized planning actions outlined in this Concept of Operations. 

Phase 3 begins decentralized execution of Campaign Home Room, August 2026, hopefully in every school in America.

ACCOUNTABLE LEADERS: 

The President will be overall lead.  His principal responsibility is to shape the environment by bringing all the Governors on board and building consensus among all the constituencies involved throughout the nation. 

The Secretary of Education, if the department remains active, will advocate nationally for the program.  

Governors will embrace the program, build consensus among Superintendents, educators, minority leaders, legislators and then quickly decentralize to the local Boards of Education.

The State Board of Education Chairperson and the State Superintendent of Schools will actively advocate for state-wide buy-in of Campaign Home Room.

The local Boards of Education, Superintendents and Principals are the accountable leaders for Phase 3, detailed decentralized planning.

STRATEGIC PLANNING: WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY AND HOW:

Who: the entire “education organization”; students, parents, teachers, administrators and volunteers; all 236 million of them.

What: dramatically improve education and race relations while transforming America’s culture.

When: begin now and look long-range into the future; a generational campaign.

Where: in all 130,000 private and public K-12 schools in America.

Why: because our culture is broken, we must learn to be “good” again and

eliminate the existing “epidemic of blindness.”

How: character education led by volunteers with every student, every school, every school day, K-12.

 CONCLUSIONS:

This campaign can change the nation, from the bottom up, for generations to come. Conversely, it cannot be successful from a top-down program. There are historical precedents in the US military and character-building organizations such as First Tee that prove the validity of the concept.  

Home Room concept will be successful.  We do not need a trial balloon; we just need to execute. 

BOTTOM LINE

The power of the Character Curriculum being discussed with every student in every Home Room every day for 13 years, K-12, results in the following:

Accountable students do not resort to blame.

Students who are steeped in commitment, confidence, perseverance, punctuality and responsibilitydo not skip school, fall behind or drop out.

Students who are deeply rooted in trust and respect will strike down bullying and are unlikely to become racially bigoted adults.  And they will believe the famous words of Martin Luther King, “……they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” 

Students who are compassionate, courteous, honorable, good citizens and demonstrate the courage of their convictions do not join street gangs.

Students who have accepted honesty, morality and integrity as their guiding light will likely be life-long upstanding citizens.

Students who understand, live and accept a life of selfless service are unlikely to become self-serving adults.

Students who have an understanding that there is a lot they don’t yet know and even part of what they believe they know might be incorrect, have the quality of humility. 

Students who understand self-respect recognize that they are now better than they used to be and can be counted on in times of temptation because they are morally strong and dependable. 

With this value base, students across the nation are more likely to exercise good judgment and become great leaders.

Home Room will make every youngster a better student and a better person. Keeping up becomes important, dropping out becomes unthinkable.

Any organization that wants to be successful will have underpinnings that includes some or all of the following”

• Take the long view.
• Decentralized decision making and execution.
• Focused accountability at the point of execution.
• Racial integration that emanates from a value base of trust and respect.
• A transformational culture of accountability, trust and respect.

FINAL THOUGHTS

EDUCATION: What has been done for the past 35 years (hundreds of billions of dollars spent on federal and state programs overseen be thousands of bureaucrats administering thousands of pages of rules, regulations and reporting requirements) has not worked.  Education in the U.S. is a national disgrace.  This can and must be changed. 

CULTURE:  On 31 August, 2015 black and white protesters marched outside the Minnesota State Fair Grounds.  Their chant, “Black lives matter, pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon.”  At other locations, “What do we want?  Dead Cops; when do we want them? Now.” This is not what America has been about for most of its history, but it is where we are today, part of the “epidemic of blindness.”

DISSENT:  This is a voluntary program at the local level and there will be some dissent. Teachers’ unions will say there isn’t enough time. Some will argue the volunteers will not be qualified. A few will believe character education is a waste of time.  They will all be proven wrong and when the value added begins to spread across the nation, parents will demand their School Board sign on to the program. 

The shortest list in this country is a list of youngsters who spent ten years as a Boy/Girl Scout or with First Tee and then dropped out of school.  They didn’t stay in school because they learned to tie a knot, pitch a tent or grip a golf club, they stayed in school and excelled because of the character training that is now part of their being and guides them every day, everywhere, doing everything. 

Just for a moment imagine as the sun passes over every school house across this country, in sequence 130 million K-12 youngsters in 2 million Home Room classes will put their hand on their heart, look at the Stars and Stripes, recite the Pledge of Allegiance and settle in for a discussion of some elements of the Character Curriculum. Campaign Home Room is within the art of the possible and “we the people”, not we the government, can make it happen and transform America forever.

“We the people”, those first three important words of the U.S. Constitution, we the people have to start over.   We have to begin with the kids; little kids. And “we the people” have to work it hard for a generation.  If goodness, and hence greatness, is to be regained for this country, it will be accomplished one youngster at a time through character education.

REALITY IN ACTION. Character education is valid; however, that does not mean all 50 states or all of the county/city boards of education are going to sign up for Campaign Home Room the first year.  Initially, some Governors will see this as a Republican issue, politicize it and decline to participate.  Initially, some Boards of Education will shy away from change out of fear or ignorance, and they will opt out.  Initially, some Principals, because they are incompetent, will make a token effort, fail and declare the concept invalid. 

But education is an issue near and dear to the hearts of most Americans and conversations among family and friends across county and state lines frequently contain questions like: “how are the kids doing in school?”  “How are the schools in your area?”  “Do the kids have good teachers?”

These conversations will often be between families whose children are beginning each school day with a dose of character education and those who are not.  Character education has an immediate, definable, positive impact on children; particularly on their school work, attitude, perseverance, attention, courtesy, accountability.

The “have” parents will begin to use the word, “transformational” when describing their kids’ educational environment. The “have not” parents will begin to ask, “why don’t our schools have character education?”  And when they do begin to ask the hard questions, they will not be addressing some nameless bureaucrat in Washington, they will look to the Principal, the Superintendent, the Education Board members or the Governor they voted for. Social media will move character education through the nation’s conscience like a raging wild fire. 

The positive changes in student behavior resulting directly from character education will manifest themselves early and profoundly.  Within a couple years after phase three of Campaign Home Room is initiated, the bottom-up pressure will mount and, God willing the whole country will get on board. “In God we trust.”

While war rages on in the Middle East and Ukraine, the American people have just approved a mandate for change in the U.S.; all kinds of change: immigration, crime, military, the economy, out of control government oversight and regulation, judicial lawfare, foreign affairs, it’s a long list.

The world is currently speculating about what President Trump will do about the two current combat zones, Ukraine and the Middle East.

While we are leaning forward as a nation, hopeful, optimistic, open to change and expecting strong leadership, why not add world peace to the to-do list?  But, you ask, is it even possible to look for world peace before the Israeli and Ukraine wars are over?  One approach would be to look beyond the two current conflicts and watch them just dissolve as part of a larger success story on peace.

The key question is, how can we institutionalize a faster, better, more organized, more aggressive, and all-inclusive plan for preemptive actions that would preclude a Gaza/Lebanon/Yemen or Ukraine from ever happening again?

A suggestion is to have President Trump, in a major speech on Foreign Affairs to the American people and world leaders, describe in some detail a concept of operations for a new world order that is free from conflict; world peace forever.

PRESIDENT TRUMP’S PROPOSED ADDRESS TO THE NATION WITHIN A WEEK AFTER ASSUMING OFFICE ON 20 JANUARY 2025.

President Trump speaking:

My fellow Americans and our friends abroad who may be listening in. Right now, my staff is busy forwarding copies of these remarks to the leaders of the other 192 countries that are member states of the United Nations and the two countries that are non-member observer states. I want them to see my proposal directly  not after the remarks have been laundered through the media.  

Seeking the means to achieve world peace is not a new subject; some background is appropriate to set the stage for a way forward. Let’s take a quick look back over the past hundred years at previous endeavors.

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS:

With technically-advanced machine guns, tanks, an aerial view of the battle space and chemical warfare, World War I was optimistically referred to as “The war to end all wars.”  January 1918, U.S. President, Woodrow Wilson, outlined an idea for an organization that would be charged with resolving conflicts before they exploded into bloodshed.  In 1919 the structure of The League of Nations was laid out in Paris and the Treaty of Versailles went into effect in January 1920 with 48 member countries. Our U.S. Congress failed to ratify membership in the League.  Between 1920 and World War II there were numerous opportunities to act, but the organization never did.  The League of Nations was abandoned during World War II.  The League was not necessarily a bad idea, but numerous times, when actions were required, European countries found it too difficult to put together an effective united front against a potential aggressor.

THE UNITED NATIONS:

In June 1941 representatives from thirteen nations (the U.S. was not included) met in London and signed the Declaration of St. James’s Palace expressing a vision for postwar world order.  The next step was the Atlantic Conference in August 1941, at which U.S. President Roosevelt and U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill laid out a more detailed form of the alliance called The Atlantic Charter. The final step was the Yalta Conference, in February 1945 when Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin agreed on the establishment of the United Nations as well as the structure of the UN’s Security Council.   

Despite having endured for 79 years, generally speaking, the UN is a weak-intentioned, expensive (2024 internal budget of $3.9 billion) bureaucratic mass that is involved in everything and accomplishes very little.  Case in point, did the UN respond to the Russian invasion of Ukraine 22 February, 2022?  Yes, on March 3rd they voted overwhelmingly for a resolution deploring Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and called for the immediate withdrawal of its forces. That was it, no actions taken.

The UN is an established international organization perfectly positioned to be a greater force for the greater good of the collective world.  But in its current condition, it is incapable of deterring or bringing to a close a conflict such as exists in Ukraine today. We need to completely rethink this issue right now.  Change is possible.

THE UN TODAY: 

The overarching mission of the UN is, I quote, to ensure international peace and security. But they are incapable of doing so and that is primarily because of how the Security Council functions.

THE SECURITY COUNCIL:

By way of explanation, the Security Council consists of five permanent members, the U.S., China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom and ten elected UN members.  The presidency of the Council rotates among the fifteen members, each serving for one month.  Is anyone surprised that Russia was president in February 2022 when they attacked Ukraine?

Under the United Nations Charter, the principal function of the Security Council is also, and I quote, to ensure international peace and security. Additionally, and this is important, the subset authority allows the Council to: 

One, investigate any dispute or situation which might lead to international friction.

Two, recommend methods of adjusting such disputes or the terms of a settlement.

Three, formulate plans for the establishment of a system to regulate armaments.

 Four, determine the existence of a threat to the peace or act of aggression and recommend what action should be taken.

Five, call on members to apply economic sanctions and other measures not involving the use of force to prevent or stop aggression. 

And six, take military action against an aggressor. Those six represent a very comprehensive list of positive actions, especially the sixth and final authority to take military action against an aggressor. Unfortunately, none of these routinely happen.  

The problem is, the Security Council rarely acts decisively because of their decision-making process. All Security Council decisions have to be approved by at least 9 of the 15 members.  The problem is that any one, it just takes one, of the five permanent members, U.S. Russia, China, France or the UK can veto a proposal. One veto by a permanent member and the issue, no matter how important, becomes a dead issue with no action. Reality is that China and Russia can and do routinely prevent the Security Council from acting out, and I quote again, to ensure international peace and security.

 The bottom line is that the UN has never been the answer to world peace and never will be. We need a new and different way forward.

WHAT IS THE ONE-WORD FORMULA THAT CAN MAKE WORLD PEACE A REALITY?

That word is deterrence. That is, fear, in the minds of a potential aggressor, of rapid and decisive retaliation by a superior force.

My intent tonight is to outline a concept of operation that can potentially involve support from most of the 195 nations of the world to join a new organization outside and separate from the United Nations. My proposal is to call the organization, United for World Peace and the military contingent would be called the International Deterrence Force, IDF. This is not to be confused with Israel’s IDF which stands for Israeli Defense Force. The IDF I will now describe to you has absolutely nothing to do with defense. It is all about deterrence based on a very large and capable offensive force. The organization would look like this:

First, establish two small headquarters, one in the European area and one in Asia.

Secondly, there will be an elected civilian Secretary General serving one six-year term.

Third, there will be an experienced 4-star military IDF Commander and an equally qualified 4-star Vice IDF Commander; one stationed in each of the two IDF headquarters.

Finally, the fully operational International Deterrence Force I will describe to you in a moment that is forward deployed in the member nations.

The United for World Peace mission statement could be pulled directly from the UN Charter. That is to ensure international peace and security by:

One, investigating any dispute or situation which might lead to international friction.

Two, recommending methods of adjusting such disputes or the terms of a settlement.

Three, formulate plans for the establishment of a system to regulate armaments.

Four, determine the existence of a threat to the peace or act of aggression and recommend what action should be taken.

Five, call on IDF members to apply economic sanctions and other measures not involving the use of force to prevent or stop aggression. 

And, six, most importantly, be ready every day to rapidly deploy a tailored, highly trained offensive IDF elements against an aggressor.

That’s the framework I am recommending to the United for World Peace organization. At this time let me strongly emphasize that this is not a U.S. organization and the IDF will not be a U.S. force.  Everything will belong to the member nations.

Given this framework, let me give you my view of the initial internal workings. 

Importantly, this will not resemble the over 120,000 UN employee operation. In my view the United for World Peace organization will be a lot closer to 12 hundred in size than 120,000.

My Vice President, J.D. Vance, will select twelve counterpart Vice Presidents from member nations to act as a selection committee.  Member nations will, if they wish, forward the name of a candidate for Secretary General along with a detailed resume. Those will be studied by VP Vance’s Committee and three candidates will be selected to compete in an election, one vote per member nation.  The winner will become the first Secretary General and immediately begin serving a six-year term. 

A similar action will simultaneously take place to select the IDF Commander and Vice Commander for four-year terms.  

Every member nation must agree to contribute to the IDF elements from their existing force structure that can be deployed anywhere in the world within seven days.  Every nation will contribute according to its capabilities. Let me give you a sense of how that can work with some examples.

The U.S. has the greatest capability in the world for worldwide force-projection.  For example, the world watched in awe in 1990 as the U.S. deployed an overwhelming force to the Gulf War in support of a coalition of 38 nations which rapidly defeated the Iraqi forces; more specifics on that later. One U.S. contribution to the IDF could be our entire air-cargo fleet to fly directly to various countries and transport their IDF contributions directly to the targeted area.   Another critical U.S. contribution could be our fleet of about 99 aerial refueling tankers. 

Countries with few or no actual military resources (only 136 nations have a defense budget) could provide field hospitals, portable field surgical units with doctors and nurses, aircraft maintenance capabilities, truck drivers, border patrol personnel, police, etc. Nations with only small maneuver organizations could provide, for example, man-portable air defense and anti-tank teams and snipers.  There would be a very long list of non-combatant rear-area support requirements. 

Countries with established air, land and sea combat forces will provide special operations personnel, armored units, light infantry, artillery, helicopters, tactical aircraft, naval vessels, air defense, combat engineers, all the elements for a military theater of operations. Selected nations in several regions would be responsible for providing an airport that can be quickly transformed into a full-up military operation with multiple runways, an expanded tarmac, maintenance facilities, and housing for the military contingent.

Two of the member nations, preferably among those without an existing military budget, will fully support the two IDF military headquarters’ needs. 

Imagine a world-wide International Defense Force organization with little or no annual operating budget.  I hope you are getting the impression that this entire concept of operations for continuous world peace can be unique, simple, highly trained, focused, rapidly deployable to anywhere there is a need while also being very austere. By contrast the 2024 UN budget was $3.9 billion.

One uniting factor is that the United for World Peace organization will borrow NATO’s Article 5 Concept.  That is, an attack on one member is an attack against all members. Let’s pause right here to define what we mean by the word attack. That would be direct or indirect interaction with ground, air or sea systems as well as the use of non-military systems such as cyber-attacks on member nation civilian and/or military targets.

The first order of business for the IDF military commanders will be to conceptualize what a series of aggressor contingencies might look like. Additionally get current inventories of all the members’ military manpower, organizational structure, weapons systems, etc.  From all that raw data the planners will tailor, on paper, a draft lean-and-mean, full-time, rapidly deployable force that can take down the aggressor nation or organization. That tailored force, in total may come from several member nations and form up in the conflict area of operations. Always overestimate the IDF requirements.  That is, always plan to take a machine gun to a knife fight. Every deploying force should plan to win with overwhelming force and win fast.

The IDF Commander will establish and publish standards for every contributed element.  Every nation will provide a very detailed quarterly readiness report on the trained-to-standard and deployability status of their IDF contributions.

The IDF headquarters will maintain a robust intel-processing element linked to the intel gathering capabilities of all member countries. 

All contributing nations will exist in a state of one of four different IDF Readiness Conditions, IDF-REDCON.

IDF-REDCON 1:  Normal peacetime condition.  A completed plan will be in place in every member nation.  Readiness standards will be in force for every IDF element.

IDF-REDCON 2:  The Secretary-General and IDF Commander, having identified a potential threat to a member nation, will tailor a force for deployment and place them on 24-hour alert.

IDF-REDCON 3:   All personnel and equipment for the designated units will move to assembly areas. Deployment aircraft will move to their first pick-up airfield.

IDF-REDCON 4:  Deployment of all designated elements to the target area and preparing to initiate an overwhelming counteroffensive.

SOME OF MY CONCLUSIONS FROM ALL OF THIS DETAIL.

What does all of this detail come down to?  The answer is deterrence. The objective of having a highly recognizable superior force that can rapidly deploy anywhere at any time can become so overwhelming for potential aggressors to think about that the IDF will never have to deploy and world peace will become the order of every day.  That is the meaning and objective of deterrence.

My second conclusion is that this IDF concept can annually save trillions of dollars in member nations’ defense spending.  How can that happen? There are currently multiple nations that have the full range of heavy, light and special forces along with the entire array of specialty services such as engineers, signal, intelligence, air defense, artillery, helicopters, air forces, ships and on and on. Under the IDF organization a nation only has to sustain and train the particular forces they are to deliver to the deployable force. For example, one nation may train and deploy only air defense systems.

SOME POTENTIAL SCENARIOS FOR THE IDF

An attack on small-country “A” in Africa by a larger neighboring country “B” appears imminent.  The IDF Commander determines that inserting a couple of infantry battalions on the ground could possibly sufficiently deter the attack. But, using the intent to always have an overwhelming advantage, the commander will deploy a full infantry brigade along with combat supporting forces and tactical air support. Result, Country “B” packs up and goes home. Deterrence is a powerful force for world peace. 

A more serious and far-ranging scenario might look like this:  China continues to threaten Taiwan with aggressive air and naval operations.  It is determined that the demonstrations are a rehearsal for an actual attack.   The Secretary-General and IDF Commander agree to go to IDF-REDCON 3. That is, all personnel and equipment for the designated units will move to assembly areas.  Deployment aircraft will move to their first pick-up airfields. 

China’s Achilles heel is imported oil, about 11 million barrels per day.  Inform China that an overwhelming IDF naval force is in route to the South China Sea to create an impenetrable blockade of all incoming gas and oil tankers.  Additionally, missiles and aircraft capable of taking out the gas and oil pipelines from Russia will be immediately forward deployed.   The Secretary-General will request China publicly sign a pledge to acknowledge that forevermore Taiwan will be considered an independent nation free of all ties to China and provocative military actions against Taiwan are forbidden. Deterrence in action in support of world peace. 

During the fall months of 2021, Russia moved a massive army to the Ukraine border giving every indication they would attack which they eventually did on 22 February, 2022.  Had the IDF been in place and an IDF-REDCON 3 announced to the world, there is every reason to believe the Russian invasion would never have taken place.  Again, deterrence in action, keeping the peace.

The next step could be for the IDF Commander to visit North Korea to discuss ICBM and nuclear testing.  Then on to Iran to discuss Iran’s role as the world’s leading sponsor of terrorist organizations as they routinely finance, train, equip and lead terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Sunnis  

The UN is incapable of deterring any of these example scenarios.

Why would countries sign up to be an IDF member? Here is a starter list of ten answers as to why a United for World Peace organization is needed now. 

One, Middle East countries and Israel are fearful of the hegemony intentions of a nuclear-equipped Iran but powerless individually to stop it.

Two, South Korea and Japan are very nervous about North Korea’s aggressive offensive missile and nuclear programs but powerless to do anything about it.

Three, Taiwan is fearful of a China invasion. 

Four, Europe is fearful of more Russian aggression and use of nuclear weapons.

Five, former Soviet Republics are fearful that they may be next on Putin’s list.

Six, the Baltic countries and Finland are fearful of Russia.

Seven, India is in a constant state of unrest over China’s border incursions.

Eight, African border disputes are a recurring concern. 

Nine, Iran’s support for terrorist activities threatens the world.

Ten, aggressors who would use cyberattacks to inflict humanitarian and economic disaster on another nation is a growing threat. 

During the first one thousand days of the Ukrainian border conflict there have been an estimated 1 to 1.5 million combined dead, wounded, and missing Ukrainian and Russian soldiers and civilians. 

Another reason to join other nations as a member in the International Deterrence Force is that there will no longer be a reason to belong to other alliances such as NATO or to maintain ready forces in support of bilateral treaties for mutual protection. 

With world peace assurances in place, the next step could be a world without nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, or biological weapons.

The UN “peacekeeping force” budget for 2024 was $6.1 billion.  With active worldwide deterrence and an overwhelming rapidly-deployable counter-offensive force trained and ready, peace will be the standard world-wide day-to-day condition.

With a proactive International Deterrence Force in place, no nation would ever need to feel alone or stand-alone.

About now more than a few of you are still skeptical about the feasibility of putting together a coalition of nations and then being capable of moving a large combat force possibly thousands of miles into combat. I am here to tell you this proposal is certainly within the art of the possible. Here is why I am convinced and I believe you will be also when you listen to this brief after-action-report.

OPERATIONS DESERT SHIELD AND DESERT STORM

Many of you will recall that on 2,3 and 4 August 1990 Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces attacked, defeated and occupied their neighbor Kuwait with what Saddam Hussein used to brag was the Mother of all Armies.

Pay particular attention to this time-line and the size and number of operational elements that deployed from a dead start on 2 August:

3 August, U.S. President Bush announced that U.S. navy ships had deployed to the Persian Gulf.

7 August, President Bush began a military operation named Desert Shield which formed a 35-nation coalition to defend Saudi Arabia and ultimately liberate Kuwait.

7 August, 15,000 U.S. troops, 32 navy destroyers, 100 helicopters and a contingent of fighter planes arrived in Saudi Arabia.

8 August, the U.S. 18^th Airborne Corps began forward deployment to Saudi Aribia, 7,500 miles away.  

14 September UK and France announce the deployment of troops to Saudi Arabia.

15 January, 1991, the UN deadline for Iraqi forces to be withdrawn from Kuwait expired.

17 January, the coalition operation Desert Shield transitioned to Desert Storm with the following results:

Coalition: 39 countries, of which 28 contributed combat forces.

Force size: Approximately 670,000 troops from 28 countries, 425,000 of which were from the United States. I’m going to round off the numbers for ease in comprehension.

Coalition air component size: 2,500 combat aircraft, 1,800 of which were American.

Coalition airlift: 509,000 passengers and 594,000 tons of cargo carried.

Coalition sorties flown: 100,000 plus.

Aerial refueling: 15,400 sorties dispensed 110 million gallons of fuel.

Number of dumb bombs dropped: 210,000.

Number of smart bombs dropped: 9,300.

30mm depleted uranium rounds fired by A-10 manned aircraft (tank-killers): 782,000.

Duration of air campaign before the ground invasion: 39 days.

Iraqi tanks lost during the war: 3,700 out of 4,300 oh hand.

Number of U.S. Carrier Battle Groups on station: 6.

Coalition POWs taken during the war: 26.

Iraqi POWs taken during the war: 70,000 plus.

U.S. combat related deaths: 147

Iraqi military deaths: 100,000 plus.

Ground war duration: 100 hours.

Yes, a highly effective multiple-nation coalition can be organized in days.  The U.S. has done it once and we can show our IDF allies how to do it again.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

A final IDF deterrent posture will not be a threat, it will be a promise.  

There is currently a lot of discussion about the New World Order. Well, here is a new twist on The New World Order, call it World Peace.

I want to emphasize one more time, this initiative will not be a United States-led organization. It will belong to the member nations.  I do not want to hear the media reporting tomorrow that the United States is trying to become the leader of the world.

There is no intent with this initiative to do away with the United Nations.  They play an important role in humanitarian relief around the world. But we also must accept the fact that they are powerless when it comes to their mission of ensuring international peace and security.

A personal note to the leaders of the world’s other 194 nations.  My staff will be contacting your offices beginning tomorrow morning to inquire if you would like to personally discuss this initiative with me in more detail.

Time is of the essence.  The Middle East could erupt into World War Three at any moment and the Ukraine conflict could escalate into a nuclear war.

My vision is that if the first 100 of you, the leaders of the world’s nations, can come forward quickly and sign up, at least tentatively, as members of the United for World Peace organization, we could within a few weeks have the 3 members of the Command Group (Secretary General, IDF Commander and Vice Commander) on board with at least a skeleton staff.  Soon thereafter the IDF Commander could be assessing potential member military contributions, airfields, logistics, headquarters locations, etc. and drafting deployment plans.

The point being that there is potentially so much to be gained and so little risk or expense involved, that it should not be a difficult decision. Try to think about a year from now when some unstable national leader or terrorist organization decides to launch an invasion of all or some portion of your nation.  Immediately, on day one, the score card on the battlefield will be 100 against 1 and the aggressor will ultimately loose decisively and quickly.

This concept need not be a multi-year plan for activation.  We can make it happen now and insure, as time goes forward, that we gain additional United for World Pease members, improve our capability, agility and deployment times and thereby institutionalize our commitment to world peace forever. 

Thank you.

End of President Trump’s presentation on foreign affairs to the world’s leaders and the American people.

Author: MARVIN L. COVAULT, LT GEN US ARMY retired

Email: MandDcovault@yahoo.com