Election 2020

We live in trying times. A virus pandemic is upon us that is projected to kill over 60,000 people. This will surpass the 57,933 casualties from the Vietnam War. It does not come close to the 405,000 Americans who gave their lives in WWII, or the 620,000 who died in the Civil War. However, this is a new kind of war that requires a new kind of battle strategy. In the past our federalist system worked well when emergencies allowed us to centralize command and control through exceptions like the  Gulf of Ton-kin Resolution and the Patriot Act. It will take more than invoking the Defense Production Act to fight the outbreak that is currently plaguing our nation. This act was not meant to fight epidemics. It was created to give the president command and control to marshal military supplies in the Korean War. To fight a war against an unseen enemy like a virus we will need new kinds of resources, a coordinated strategy and structural change. An old Chamber of Commerce friend of mine...

I can still remember when I received my first paycheck. My first question was, "Who is this FICA and why are they taking all my money"? I learned quickly that take home was not the same as gross income, and math became important to me. Of course I learned that FICA stands for our Social Security system, and then after questioning it resigned myself to the fact that I was forcibly saving for retirement. Later while I was  working for the US Chamber of Commerce, I realized that the trust fund that I was paying into was in jeopardy because the government was borrowing from it to offset the deficit. The federal deficit is the difference between what the government spends and takes in each year. From the Washington Post "The U.S. Treasury released eye-popping numbers this week that show the federal budget deficit is on course to cross $1 trillion in fiscal 2020, yet nobody seems to care." I know that I risk people's eyes glazing over when I discuss math...