What’s Wrong With the Schools?
By Donella Meadows
–March 6, 1997–
Maybe it’s just that I was a kid, but I remember my public school in a middle-class Midwest town as the center of community life. Everyone seemed to show up for band concerts and basketball games and PTA meetings. Teachers were decently paid and honored in the community. Taxpayers, much poorer than the average today, took [...]
Beware of Social Security Fixes
By Donella Meadows
–January 16, 1997–
This country will be out of oil in 30 years. By 2030 we will pump dry much of the groundwater of the Southwest. We don’t hear a peep from our leaders about these problems. But they’re in a panic over the possibility that 30 years from now Social Security will go broke.
When the swollen baby-boom generation [...]
Kinder and Gentler to the Environment?
By Donella Meadows
–January 9, 1997–
Retaining ethically challenged Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House makes little difference to the environment. Much more important were the congressional committee chairmanships handed out last month. Despite Republican assurances to the contrary, those appointments indicate an ongoing disdain for the natural resources of our nation and the people who care about them.
American voters of [...]
Hands Around the Capitol
By Donella Meadows
–January 2, 1997–
The Democrats took campaign money from an Indonesian trader and the Republicans from an Australian publisher. Tobacco companies made the biggest contributions to both parties. The 1996 election cost more than twice as much as the one in 1992 and treated us to the most misleading campaign ads yet.
We are finally getting it. The politicians don’t [...]
Flat Tax, Vat Tax, Splat Tax
By Donella Meadows
–February 1, 1996–
There are four questions to ask about any new tax proposal. Will it be simple? Will it be fair? Will it raise enough money for the government? Will it be good for the economy?
The flat tax promoted by presidential candidate Steve Forbes fails on all four counts. But so does our present tax system. Forbes’s contribution [...]
