Leadership II
In my last post, I suggested some criteria for choosing a qualified candidate for the position of chief executive officer of the United States. Someone who had the horsepower to conceive and execute astute strategic plans. Now, I will suggest some areas requiring such plans.
Global warming is either a hoax, a minor inconvenience or a near term catastrophe, depending on who is doing the talking. This should not be a partisan issue. We should be dealing here with facts, not political philosophy. Saying science has spoken and all skeptics are heretics will not get the job done. That posture simply alienates skeptics and leads them to believe that science is being used as a club to enable imposition of a progressive nirvana. Since the consequences of inaction are potentially serious, a serious leader would attempt to achieve some broad consensus on the subject. He/she would acknowledge that the matter is not settled, that scientists are human beings who might be seeking data that fits the hypothesis. There is certainly ample evidence that such things have gone on.
Transparent studies could be undertaken that listen respectfully to the views of skeptics and address their concerns. The climate agenda should be divorced from the green agenda and the progressive agenda. We should be working to develop terrorist hardened, fail safe nuclear power plants. We should be working to harvest hydroelectric power in a minimally invasive fashion. We should be experimenting with carbon sequestration. We should be exploring geoengineering. Doing all that could build a broad consensus and some real progress toward an economy that generates lower carbon emissions.
We are facing an entitlement crisis. We have made Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and public sector retirement promises that we can’t keep under current policy. A good CEO would acknowledge the problem and propose a mix of benefit restraint, increased retirement age and taxation to solve the problem. The narrative would be protection of the programs and valuing the promises we made.
We need immigrants! Our work force will soon begin to shrink as the demography goes grey. We need to import folks with money, STEM skills and entrepreneurial energy to grow the economy. Without robust growth, there is no way we can meet the demographic challenge. The narrative should be more legal (and targeted) immigration and less illegal immigration.
The caravans from Central America have nothing to do with immigration policy. Those desperate souls are fleeing horrendous violence generated by drug gangs. An effective CEO would point out that we are the buyers of the drugs and we must help quell the violence generated by delivery of the product to our users.
Finally, a good CEO would be a true leader of the free world. Democratic ideals are under attack by autocrats around the world — China, Russia, Egypt, Turkey, Iran and the Philippines among others. They are selling the notion that autocracy is the only effective form of governance. They are attacking and hacking our institutions. America needs to again be the beacon of hope for those longing to be free. We need to unite with other democracies to fight for our values and selectively restrain the worse excesses of tyrants. We need to selectively offer support to those willing to fight for freedom, wherever they may be. We can’t cure all the world’s problems, but we can keep our finger in the dyke of civilization by addressing the worst of them. A good leader would make an astute selection of problems to be addressed, build domestic support and create alliances of the willing to take effective action.
As you go to the polling place in the upcoming primary elections, ask yourself how the candidates propose to deal with these issues.
