America we need to talk

In the TV show Breaking Bad, all the main characters lived up fully to the show’s title. They were bad, very bad. The show’s chief protagonist, Walter White, was a high school chemistry teacher turned crystal meth manufacturer and murderer. His wife was an adulterer, tax cheat, and ultimately, an enabler of his drug empire. His partner was a drug addict, petty thief, and, ultimately, a murderer too. Walter’s one-time drug lord boss was a mass murderer, hooking multitudes on deadly drugs, wiping out rival gangs, and killing far more people by giving them diabetes and hypertension through his fast-food fried chicken chain, “Los Pollos Hermanos.” Perhaps the worst of the bunch was Walter’s lawyer, who draped himself in the Constitution (quite literally), while actively abetting deadly mayhem and mass criminality.

As with The Sopranos and The Wire, what made Breaking Bad so compelling was that even the characters who committed the most heinous acts had some relatable human qualities, such as loyalty, bravery, love of family, or a (twisted) code of justice. But I think a central point of all three shows was that each act of misconduct, each moral lapse, fueled a series of subsequent, escalating evils, which ended in tragedy both for the victims and the perpetrators. Walter’s actions led to the crippling of his brother-in-law by would-be assassins. Tony Soprano murdered his beloved nephew. The Wire’s Avon Barksdale had to take out his partner and best friend. The characters were rotten to the core because the societies they inhabited were, with every cell of their surrounding ecosystems, infused with immorality, causing a downward spiral that dragged down everyone—even previously innocent bystanders—in a long, fiery, painful decent into Hades. Whoa. No wonder those shows were on cable.

While I don’t think America is today quite as dystopian as any of those portraits, we’re not that far off. Each misdeed in Congress encourages a misdeed on Wall Street, and then another on Main Street. Before you know it, a sports hero says, “Oh what the hell, since everyone is cheating, I’ll take banned substances or deflate footballs too.” A doctor defrauds an insurance company. A pampered rich kid cheats on an exam. Each lie, each fraud, each deception—and even each act that may be legal but that involves someone putting their own self-interest before everyone else’s good—lowers our national bar of acceptable behavior.

Too many of our leaders have corrupted our American politics into a perpetual blame game. Rather than seriously and honestly dealing with the central problems of the nation—a still-lagging economy, an educational system losing out in competition with the world, an increasing national debt, sky-high poverty, crazy numbers of gun deaths, and declining opportunity—they simply seek to win the daily cable TV sound bite wars to gain any millimeter^a of temporary partisan advantage. Politicians reverse their positions at the drop of a hat, and then denounce their opponents for holding views they themselves held just seconds before. They spend more time in TV studios than on street corners or factory floors. And they spend the most time of all at fancy fundraisers hobnobbing with the rich, or in cramped cubicles with a phone, cajoling the wealthiest to donate to their ever-bulging campaign war chests. The only job many seriously care about saving seems to be their own. And they then let their corporate buddies flush America’s economy down the toilet for their own massive profit.^b

It is vital to note that countless Americans already live their lives performing backbreaking work and exhibiting rock-solid personal and civic virtue. The few times I ride the New York City subway at 5:00 a.m., the car is full of people dressed for working-class jobs (many women in nurse and home health attendant uniforms and many men in construction worker or security guard clothes)—busting their asses to support their families. I have no doubt that, across the US, hundreds of millions of others are making supreme sacrifices daily to be productive Americans and important contributors to our complex society. That’s why I am especially outraged that the people at the top so frequently let them down.

This abrogation of duty by our political, business, and cultural leaders creates a nation of “trickle-down irresponsibility.” While most parents who are forced to receive temporary public assistance struggle mightily to get back on their feet by finding a good job, too many give up because they believe those at the top aren’t playing fair. And they would be right. Angry at the lack of opportunity, young men far too often falsely excuse senseless violence by blaming society’s injustices. Other men sometimes also use a similar justification after they’ve created children but then walk away. Our reality show culture glorifies sex, violence, vanity, and selfishness over hard work, community, service, and responsibility.

Let’s replace our current “Responsibility-for-None” society with a “Responsibility-for-All” society. Every American must serve our society and our society must serve every American.

This new commonwealth should be different both in mindset and in practical action than the failing status quo. America, you should usher in a far higher set of ethical standards for everyone, but also craft concrete public policies that move beyond the dysfunctional left/right debate by promoting a new brand of 21st century patriotism in which everyone from corporate executives to welfare recipients works for the greater good of the commonweal. This era should enable progressives to retake values co-opted by the Republicans, including faith, freedom, work, security, ambition, family, and personal responsibility. This is not about retooling campaign rhetoric to include more middle-of-the road language; it is about a fundamentally new way of governing—building on, and significantly improving upon, many efforts begun in the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama eras—in order to harness mainstream values to achieve progressive goals.

Now is the time to build a new generation of greatness, in which all of us take personal responsibility for each other for jointly tackling the nation’s most pressing challenges.

If you are a parent, it’s our society’s responsibility to provide your children with the world’s best schools, but it is your responsibility to get them to school on time, ensure they do their homework, read with them at home if you are able, and consistently encourage them to make education a priority. If a college-age student is willing to perform a year or two of national service—tutoring in schools, delivering food to shut-in seniors, fighting fires in national parks, or responding to natural disasters—then the federal government should pay the entirety of their post-secondary education.

It’s our nation’s responsibility to make food more affordable, convenient, and physically available, and to ensure that parks are safe and recreation centers are accessible so all Americans can exercise. But it is parents’ responsibility to ensure that their children eat healthier food and spend less time in front of the TV and more time moving their bodies. While it is our government’s responsibility to make healthcare a right and a reality for all Americans, it’s everyone’s responsibility to smoke less, drink in moderation, avoid hard drugs, eat better, and exercise.

In our generation, America must end domestic hunger and homelessness once and for all. The government must ensure a safety net of secure and adequate housing, nutritious food, and work support, and must build an economy with sufficient living-wage jobs. Effective, well-regulated, nonprofit groups should fill in the gaps. But people who can find private sector work should do so, and public service positions should be created for those who can’t. We need a modern day Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and Works Progress Administration (WPA)—because, since the time of President Franklin Roosevelt, we’ve known that the best social program is a living-wage job. As FDR said, “Continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. It is inimical to the dictates of sound policy. It is in violation of the traditions of America. Work must be found for able-bodied but destitute workers.”¹

To compete in the 21st-century economy, we must make job and skills training, as well as life-long education, more available and more affordable to more workers. But Americans must take the personal responsibility to gain the skills they need to compete in the global economy.

Men who father children must take responsibility for them. Gang members who deal drugs and kill innocent children in their crossfire must stop destroying their communities and falling back on the excuse that “the system is stacked against them.” As I’ve documented throughout this book, racism and poverty are pernicious, ingrained, and widespread. Plus the youngest people involved in the drug trade and gang warfare are often not mature enough to completely internalize the full implications of their deeds. All that being said, selling poison to kids and bringing mayhem to your own blocks where you and other families live isn’t the answer. Even the most oppressed, downtrodden people must—simply must—take personal responsibility to better, not worsen, the world around them.

Of course, those at the top bear a special responsibility. Since government continues to invest precious resources in the infrastructure that businesses use, and continues to subsidize higher education institutions that prepare workers to thrive in those same businesses, then companies have an even greater responsibility to their workers and to society as a whole. They must do their best to reduce pollution and create safe products. They must support the right of their workers to engage in collective bargaining, and must pay them a living wage and provide good benefits, even if that means offering slightly lower compensation packages to their executives.

At a time of war and global terrorism threats, the wealthy must remember that paying their fair share of taxes is the least they can do to meet their patriotic duty. My father taught me that if you fail to pay your taxes, you aren’t ripping off some amorphous “government,” you are stealing from neighbors. Having offshore accounts or moving your entire company overseas to lower your tax burden—or, as Trump did, bragging that it’s “smart” to pay no taxes—may be legal, but that’s certainly not patriotic. Forcing working families to bear the entire burden of paying for the military, highways, national parks, drinking water systems, homeland security, etc. (all of which benefit you and your family)—while you get a free ride—is reprehensible.

Wall Street must be free to invest as they see fit and support businesses that innovate, but the investment community must also play by the rules and build wealth and value for the society-at-large, not just for themselves. A rising Dow must be accompanied by increasing jobs and rising wages. Wall Street should be about building up America, not being bailed out by America. I also challenge the wealthy—especially those who are against even meager government assistance to struggling low-income families—to reject any corporate welfare for themselves.

I reserve my greatest personal responsibility challenge for our political leaders. They must again put country ahead of party. They must again tell the public the hard truths, even if they are politically unpopular. They must reduce the role of money in politics. They must engage in more listening and less yelling and name-calling. They must follow the law and try to remember they are role models for the country’s citizens and for people around the world. They must again challenge all Americans to move beyond their personal comfort to work for the greater good.

“Responsibility-for-All” must also include those with criminal records and ex-offenders, America. The Center for American Progress found that between 70 million and 100 million Americans, or as many as one in three US adults, have some type of criminal record. Many have been convicted of only minor offenses and many only have arrests that never led to a conviction. Between 33 million and 36.5 million children in the United States—nearly half of American children—now have at least one parent with a criminal record. Parental arrest records significantly exacerbate existing challenges within low-income families by limiting their future income, keeping them in debt, making it harder for them to get education and training, and reducing access to affordable housing.² The federal government and states should work together to remove these barriers. Even for those who did commit serious crimes, it’s unfair and counterproductive for them—and for their innocent family members—to suffer for a lifetime if the ex-felons have paid their full debt to society. More states need to emulate the efforts of Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy’s “Second Chance Society” initiative, which is trying to reduce the number of people going into prison and make it easier for those already behind bars to get out and have a chance at a law-abiding life. His reform plan reclassified simple drug possession from a felony to a misdemeanor, eliminated mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug possession, expedited parole hearings for people convicted of nonviolent crimes, and simplified the pardon process.³ Many of those with records want to be more responsible by working hard and giving back—our society must let them.

States should also eliminate voting restrictions on former felons. If we want ex-offenders to see their fellow citizens as peers, not future victims, we must treat them as fellow citizens and allow them their full rights as Americans.

Republicans from Reagan to George W. Bush have promised “optimism” for the country, but they confused optimism with a willful attempt to ignore the nation’s most pressing problems. The aspirations they raised were largely unmet for the majority of Americans.

In contrast, the two most successful Democratic politicians of the last century—FDR and Bill Clinton—practiced the truest form of aspirational politics, by implementing concrete programs and initiatives that significantly improved the daily lives of Americans. In short, they both took on the title of “optimist” the old-fashioned way—they earned it—by giving Americans something meaningful to be optimistic about.

That’s why we need a brand new set of aspirational politics, taking as an inspiration the generations of American immigrants who have been willing to make sustained sacrifices to ensure a better life for their children. While politicians of both parties like to pander to the lowest common denominator by offering voters something for nothing (such as tax cuts at the same time as increased spending on favorite programs), the new aspirational politics would call on today’s Americans to sacrifice, but only in explicit exchange for future upward mobility for themselves and their families.

When left-wing pundits call on the Democratic Party to be “bold” again, they usually mean that they think the party should be left-wing again. What they forget is that when the party was most bold and most politically successful—under FDR—it wasn’t consistently left-wing.^c Franklin Roosevelt campaigned for deficit reduction and made work a centerpiece of virtually all his social programs. Bold, progressive actions are far easier to accomplish when they are in tune with the mainstream values of average Americans.

Conversely, when centrist or right-wing pundits call on the Democratic Party to be mainstream again, they usually mean the party should move to the right, and should take only tepid, non-controversial steps towards addressing major social problems. But they overlook the fact that average Americans want big solutions to big problems, even though they usually distrust big government solutions to their problems.

Thus, the new Democratic aspirational politics should call for fundamental, massive social progress, but base that progress upon realistic, common-sense, easy-to-explain plans that will resonate with most Americans. It will mean sometimes stealing back themes from Republicans that they previously lifted from Democrats (such as the centrality of work). That’s what I mean by “radical centrism”—a politics that promises (and most importantly delivers) massive, transformational reforms to American government and society, but does so in an incremental way, based on mainstream values. Radical centrism is meant not to just pass temporary programs or small pilot projects, but to develop a new governing paradigm for the country with enough long-term support to ensure that progress made is progress maintained.

Radical Centrism should also make use of the most up-to-date technologies. Technology can’t bridge every ideological divide, but it can help with some thorny issues like gun violence. For instance, we should be able to develop bipartisan support for efforts to develop “smart guns” that won’t fire unless intentionally fired by their owners. As the Los Angeles Times reported,

Gun-safety technologies like these wouldn’t have prevented mass violence such as the Nov. 27 attack on a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs or the San Bernardino shooting attack. The goal instead is to reduce firearms injuries caused by unauthorized or unintended users, including suicide victims, especially youths, and children who encounter loaded guns in the home, and criminal suspects who get their hands on officers’ weapons. . . .

Of 33,636 deaths from firearms counted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2013, some 62%, or 21,175, were suicides, and about 11% of those were of people ages 5 to 24. Accidental shootings accounted for 505 deaths, including 69 victims ranging in age from less than 1 year to 14 years. “If guns were personalized, none of these would happen,” says Stephen Teret, a gun-policy expert. Suicides, he observes, tend to be “means-specific”—if a gun isn’t at hand, many suicidal youths would abandon the effort. The roughly 200,000 stolen guns reported each year would be rendered effectively worthless if they were “smart” guns.⁴

To get America back on track, everyone needs to pitch in with both their sweat and their financial resources. One of the main things that breaks down relationships is squabbles over money; especially when one side believes the other side isn’t carrying their equal share of the financial load. That’s why, to fix the relationship of Americans with the nation, it is imperative that the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes again. Patriots—and good neighbors—pay their fair share of taxes.

Keep in mind that the wealthiest Americans in the “Greatest Generation,” those who reached adulthood during the Depression and World War II, paid far, far more in taxes than the wealthiest Americans do today. When Eisenhower was president in the 1950s, the top marginal federal income tax rate for the wealthiest was 91 percent.^d Yes, when a Republican military man was in charge of the nation, the richest Americans were required to give nine out of every 10 dollars they earned to Uncle Sam—and, by and large, they complied as part of their loyal duty to the nation. As of 2015, the wealthiest only paid only about a third of their total income to the US government in all forms of taxes.⁵ The low rate of taxation on the top earners is the single greatest reason why both our deficit is so high and our national investments on social programs and infrastructure are so inadequate. In 1927, fabled Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.” We seem to have forgotten what it’s like to be civilized, America.

Even I don’t think we should go back to the full 91 percent rate; a level that high could discourage some investment and entrepreneurship. Rather, I suggest that the most prosperous among us be required to pay a meager 45 percent of their incomes in total federal taxes. Yeah, that’s the ticket. If we did that, a whopping $276 billion in extra federal revenues would be generated each year. Even taking into consideration state and local taxes, the average household in this group would still take home at least $1 million a year—I think that somehow they’d muddle through.⁶

What would the American people be able to achieve with that extra $276 billion each year?

First, we could end US hunger, entirely eliminating food insecurity for the 48 million Americans who suffered from it in 2014. (You knew that was coming, didn’t you?) Because hungry children can’t learn, hungry workers can’t work, and hungry seniors can’t stay independent. Domestic hunger robs our economy of $167.5 billion annually.⁷ I have calculated that we could end hunger here by spending an extra $31.3 billion each year to increase the food purchasing power of low-income people through a combination of employment support and extra SNAP (food stamps) benefits.⁸ If you subtract that $31.3 billion from the $276 billion in extra taxes we’ve collected, we’d still have about $245 billion left over, quite a tidy sum. What should we do with the rest?

As I propose a bit later in this chapter, we should create a new “Service Patriots America” plan to engage two million Americans a year in work for their country through military or civilian service, and reward them with significant benefits to boost their upward mobility. This program would cost about an extra $55 billion per year (although, down the road, it would save us far more than we spend).

Even with those two expenditures we’ll still have $190 billion left. I’d allocate a third of that to social and education programs to bolster the middle class and boost people in poverty (paying for other proposals in this book), and a third of that on a national infrastructure jobs program—targeted to repairing our existing infrastructure, making the nation more energy independent, and bringing the fastest broadband Internet service to isolated rural towns and urban neighborhoods. I’d put the remaining third—about $63 billion—toward deficit-reduction and paying down the national debt, smart things to do both economically and politically.

As Bill Clinton did, progressives and radical centrists need to take back the concept of fiscal responsibility from the conservatives, who have proven time and time again that they don’t really mean it. It’s easy for progressives to advocate for cutting wasteful military spending, but we should also be disciplined and brave enough to call for specific cuts in other types of government costs that are less vital. Democrats must make it clear that they are only in favor of efficient government programs that provide crucial services, and they are not statists that support any and all government efforts just for the sake of supporting government. To give just one specific example, now that Sesame Street has moved from PBS to HBO,^e and the public has so many additional easy-to-access entertainment and educational television options, perhaps progressives should finally agree that the time has come to eliminate most of the $445 million in federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (although I’d keep the financing for public radio intact because it is often the only serious news coverage that still in exists in many areas of the country); $445 million is a tiny chunk of the federal budget, so eliminating most of that wouldn’t do much to reduce the deficit, but doing so would send an important signal that progressives are willing to make hard choices.

The embodiment of my calls for a “Responsibility-for-All” society and radical centrism is my Service Patriots America plan for the federal government to engage two million Americans per year in work for their country through greatly expanded service opportunities in the military, the Peace Corps, and AmeriCorps (a sort of domestic Peace Corps started by President Bill Clinton, where Americans perform domestic community service and receive a small stipend and educational award in return).^f The plan would cost-effectively accomplish concrete tasks vital to the national interest, while rewarding those who successfully serve with upward mobility. The program could help rebuild the great American middle class, as did the original GI Bill.

In 2015, about 180,000 Americans joined active duty military service, 3,400 served in the Peace Corps, and 80,000 enlisted in AmeriCorps, equaling about 263,000 new Americans per year serving their country.^g By setting a goal of two million people annually, the Service Patriots America plan would spur an eightfold increase in full-time service.

While other plans to increase service would promote a wide spectrum of diffuse service opportunities (making it harder to explain to the public and even harder to quantify successes), Service Patriots America would tackle a few pressing national problems and demonstrate significant, cost-effective progress in addressing them.

Service Patriots America would promote a more equitable civic compact in which all successful participants—including those from low- and middle-income backgrounds—significantly boost their own economic well-being by obtaining a tax-free voucher to pay for college, home ownership, or a business startup. In contrast, the current Ameri–Corps post-service educational awards are too small to be meaningful and can usually be used only for education.

Meanwhile, federal, state, and local government budgets—as well as nonprofit organizational budgets nationwide—continue to be starved of revenue and staffing, forcing continuing cutbacks in vital services. At the same time, there are a number of pressing national problems for which Service Patriots America members are ideally suited to fill in the gaps and can come to the rescue.

Roughly four million Americans turn 18 each year; this plan anticipates that around two million would participate for at least a year in Service Patriots America. To achieve that goal, using existing, but expanded, government structures:

To effectively engage 30,000 Americans in the Peace Corps, the volunteer activities would be more sharply focused on advancing the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, with a special emphasis on advancing seven basic goals:

To effectively ramp up AmeriCorps to a 1.8 million-person level, roughly two-thirds of AmeriCorps funds would be allocated to state commissions appointed by governors (as they are today), and the remainder would continue to be allocated directly by the federal government.

All AmeriCorps grants and programs now in effect would also be increased tenfold, bringing the AmeriCorps program as it is currently instituted to about 800,000 members.

The additional one million AmeriCorps/Service Patriots America members would serve in six new corps focusing on big ticket items:

People who successfully conclude military service would continue to receive current GI Bill benefits, which often exceed $60,000 per year. Both AmeriCorps and Peace Corps graduates would receive a $20,000 post-service award for each year of service, which they could use to pay for college, graduate school, previously-held student loans, job training, a down payment on a first home, or start-up costs for a new business. Post-secondary institutions, federal housing lending agencies, and the Small Business Administration would be asked to provide added assistance to graduates. Post-secondary institutions that accept the post-service awards would be required to agree to cost containment policies (including reigning in the salaries of their top administrators) so they simply don’t jack up their tuition because more federal funds are available.

Former military bases and other abandoned government facilities would be used to house AmeriCorps members who serve in programs (such as those on public lands) in which the program participants may need to be housed on site.

To further ease the costs of service for low- and middle-income Americans who relocate to other parts of the country to serve, a special system could be set up to enable Americans to invite participants to stay for free or at greatly reduced cost in empty rooms provided by homeowners or apartment owners in the communities where they serve—an idea already being piloted by Airbnb.^h

The federal government would also produce an official transcript for every graduate of Service Patriots America, detailing performance on specific skills and traits sought by future educational institutions and employers—a reference letter of sorts.

All of the above would be measured in three very basic ways: whether any American who wants to serve can do so productively; whether higher education, housing, and businesses are more attainable and affordable for all Americans who are willing to serve; and whether service projects are making a concrete impact in advancing vital goals, such as enabling more seniors to stay independent and reducing high school drop-out rates.

I estimate that the combined costs of the entire proposal would be about $55 billion annually.⁹ That is indeed a sizable amount of money, but it equals only 3 percent of the net worth of the 400 wealthiest Americans ($2.29 trillion), and, as I explained above, could be easily paid for with just a portion of an absurdly small tax increase on the top 1 percent.

Another point of comparison for the $55 billion service plan cost is to the federal prescription drug entitlement program, enacted by then-President George W. Bush and Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay, which costs more than $50 billion per year, and provides a huge boost to pharmaceutical companies, as well as some relief to the seniors who receive lower-cost medications (although the GOP refused to take serious action to reduce the price of pharmaceuticals). It is simply not correct to say that DC is incapable of enacting big new programs anymore; it can do so if there is substantial political will. The Service Patriots America plan, communicated correctly, could be extremely popular.

Following World War II, the nation experienced a tremendous long-term economic boom, which created the most prosperous middle class the world had ever known. Most Americans now assume that such growth was solely a result of the independent productivity of the private sector. But government efforts, most notably the original GI Bill, played a critical role in this growth. The GI Bill enabled returning soldiers to obtain government help to pay for college, enabling millions of Americans, including my father, to become the first in their families to attend college. The cost of the original GI Bill dwarfed the cost of this proposed plan for Service Patriots America, but it paid remarkable dividends to the American people. It’s hard to imagine today, but leaders of some of the most elite universities opposed the education provision of the bill, assuming that people who couldn’t afford to pay for college probably weren’t smart enough to succeed there. Then-president of the University of Chicago, Robert Maynard Hutchins, said of the GI Bill, “Colleges and universities will find themselves converted into hobo jungles,” and James B. Conant, then-president of Harvard, found the bill “distressing” because it failed “to distinguish between those who can profit most by advanced education and those who cannot.” Many of these same leaders later retracted their criticisms, admitting that the students who attended their institutions with GI Bill benefits were the most serious and hardworking they ever had. In the peak year of 1947, veterans accounted for 49 percent of college admissions. By the time the original GI Bill ended on July 25, 1956, 7.8 million of 16 million World War II veterans—nearly half—had participated in an education or training program paid for by the federal government.

Before the GI Bill, America’s universities were exclusionary bastions for the nation’s upper-crust elites. After the law, the nation’s campuses were opened, at least briefly, to people from diverse economic backgrounds.

The GI Bill also helped returning veterans put a down payment on a first home or start a small business. From 1944 to 1952, the government backed nearly 2.4 million home loans for World War II veterans. Service Patriots America, like the original GI Bill, can also become a serious engine of economic growth and upward mobility for the masses, and, over time, pay forward to our country much more than its costs. While in theory I agree with Senator Bernie Sanders’s position that all college should be free, in practice it’s unlikely the American people would provide all that money for what many would deride as “free rides.” But if we create a system to enable Americans to earn their education costs through service, that plan would be broadly embraced by the American people.

Moreover, expanded national service would bring together diverse Americans to work side by side as equals, with forged bonds of “sweat equity.” This could eventually help replace the divisive identity politics that are cleaving our society with a more communitarian harmony.

We must restore the basic American belief that we are all in it together, that we are all pulling our weight, paying our fair share, and putting all our lives on the line for our country.

In this “Responsibility-for-All” society, we all must do better. It is a small price to pay for a better America for ourselves and our children.

^a Dear Americans reading this: that’s a reference to a thing called the Metric System. Look it up. Note to people in other countries: never mind—you obviously already know.

^b Again, I stress that not all political leaders are equally bad, but the system, as a whole, is horrid.

^c Hard-core American communists and socialists hated FDR, because the success of his bourgeois reforms undercut their calls for revolution.

^d Our last socialist president.

^e Now that Big Bird moved to HBO, we should patiently await his cameo on either Veep or Game of Thrones.

^f I helped the Clinton administration launch the AmeriCorps program in 1993, the proudest accomplishment of my life, other than scoring a 440 out of a possible 450 on a Keansburg, New Jersey Skee-Ball game in 1991.

^g These figures are for the first year of service. While about 1.4 million people are in active duty military service, about 180,000 new recruits join each year. While 6,800 people currently serve in the Peace Corps, since the normal term of service in the Peace Corps is a little over two years, about 3,400 people join the Peace Corps each year. While some AmeriCorps members serve for more than one year, the vast majority serves only one year (or less), so, for the sake of simplicity, this book assumes that all 80,000 people in the current AmeriCorps program serve for one year.

^h Given that political campaigns often get wealthy supporters to give campaign workers free places to stay—often for months at a time—this suggestion is not as outlandish as it seems.