Change” has become the word for the hour in American politics. This is truly a time when major changes are needed in our government. We do not want to overlook the greatness of our federal government and all that it has accomplished. Furthermore, our federal government is the head of the greatest country in the world, possibly in world history. Even so, because of the huge amount of laws, regulations, and then counter regulations, it is now like a head that has grown far out of proportion to the rest of the body, and the body can no longer carry its weight.
Just as the head of a human body is only a small percentage of the whole body, and only consumes a small amount of its energy, administration should rarely consume more than 15 percent of the mass of any body, and often can be much less. However, we now have government agencies in which their administration consumes 90 percent of the resources given to them. The growth of their administration, caused by layer upon layer of regulation and overregulation, has been like a cancer that only consumes without regard for the rest of the body. This cancer will eventually kill the rest of the body, and this will happen to us soon if radical surgery is not done.
As we discussed in our last Bulletin, “Putting the Ax to the Root of the Tree,” if basic, sound leadership and management principles were being implemented in government it could quickly be reduced to half its size, while accomplishing twice as much. In a little more time, it could be several times as effective as it is now, at a fraction of its present cost. That may sound too fantastic, but that is because we have become conditioned to accept inefficient government.
THE BIGGEST ECONOMIC STIMULUS EVER
By just removing the overregulation from our federal government, it could become many times as effective as it is now, while being a fraction of its size. Think about how our economy would be stimulated if the huge resources now being wasted by the government were put back into the economy. That alone could propel substantial growth for many years.
However, there would be an even more powerful benefit of bringing sound management principles to government. Overregulation is now sapping the entire economy of its strength. Just relieving this burden would multiply American economic strength and productivity, while immediately solving some major problems such as the healthcare crisis, social security, our dependence on foreign oil, as well as greatly reduce our carbon footprint. What is the downside? There is a big one for what has become a huge group within our nation—about three quarters of the lawyers would have to get a real job!
how much more could the costs be cut, by removing the need for doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals who spend massive amounts of time trying to comply with meaningless regulations and paperwork? Add tort reform to reduce the threat of continuous and outrageous lawsuits, and the insurance premiums could be drastically cut. Liability insurance is now costing from onethird to one-half of everything from treatments to medicines. The combination of these two things could cut the cost of healthcare in half, and the quality of the care would increase dramatically by relieving the healthcare workers of the now unbearable burdens.
Liability insurance is as much as one-third of the cost of some big ticket items and is a large part of the cost of everything we buy. Tort reform would reduce the cost of almost everything we buy by a substantial margin, making American goods far more affordable here and abroad. With less taxes being required by a smaller government, the strength of our whole economy would be multiplied, having a basis for substantial and sustained growth to ensure that our economy would be the strongest in the world for the next half century or longer.
What we are talking about is much more than just cutting the pork out of government spending—it is true government reform. There is no reason why the government cannot be run as efficiently as any business. Just as a company has to answer to stockholders, the government should be answering to the people about how efficiently it is handling our resources.
OTHER BENEFITS
You may be thinking that if we reduced the government to half its size or less, where would all of these workers go? First, to implement this reduction would take some time, and the reduction could probably be accomplished to a large extent with retirements from government service. However, even if we could do this immediately, we have over twelve million illegal aliens finding work here so there are obviously many jobs available. It is also good timing to do this because the economy in Mexico is starting to get some real traction, and Mexico is expected to soon be a net importer of jobs.
Also, by being able to reduce the tax burden on American businesses (now one of the highest tax rates in the world), many plants and factories that were moved overseas would start to come home. It is also likely that many foreign, especially high tech companies, would start moving some of their research and plants here. Except for the high tax burden on companies here, this is the best and safest place in the world to do business.
Even so, we would need to import a serious number of guest workers, but it would provide the opportunity to implement an efficient and legal system for doing this, which would also provide healthcare coverage for them as well as have them pay their fair share of taxes, and so on. Since we would not be in need of more taxes if our government was the proper size, a percentage of the taxes collected by these legal guest workers could go toward helping to stimulate economic growth in their home nations, therefore enabling them and us to be a major blessing to their home countries.
Of course, to make these kinds of changes would take the most extraordinary kind of leadership, but it could and should be done as a moral cause. Waste, especially wasting people’s time, not to mention their resources, is a tragic moral failure. It is stealing from the people.
CHANGE THE CAR, NOT JUST THE OIL
Cutting the size of the government and getting it off of the back of the people has been the conservative platform, but this has not happened when conservatives are in office. Why? They have tried to solve the problem of ineffective and inefficient government by cutting taxes, which will force a cut in spending. However, the government has not cut spending, but continued to raise it, resulting in multi-trillion dollar deficits. To do the job, it will take more than just cutting spending—it will take wise, resourceful, unyielding, proactive leadership, and sound, practical management. Much more should be said about this, but because this is a bulletin, and not a book, we must move on.
Let us also keep in mind that there are many good people in government who hate the system they are trapped in worse than anyone. Even many who may have calcified by being in such a system for so long would come back to life at just the hope of being delivered from the yoke of overregulation. Some of these bureaucrats should be considered heroes for accomplishing as much as they do in such an environment. If they were set free from the yokes they now have to serve under,
In considering healthcare, how much more effective would the healthcare industry be, and their productivity would soar. We do need government and some regulation, but if they are as they should be, they will set people and business free, not tie them in knots.
Everyone claims to want efficiency and to cut out the waste in government, but it is much easier to talk about change and promote a vision of it than it is to actually change things. Even though we may want it, there is a strong resistance to change in almost every human being, even those who love to call for change. In fact, the people who call the loudest for change can be the most resistant to it when it comes. This is why the Pharisees, who were the most faithful in hoping for and expecting the coming Messiah, resisted Him the most when He actually came. Because He did not come in the way that they were expecting, and He was going to change things they did not want changed, they resisted Him. This is what any leader who seeks to implement real and needed changes can expect, but must resolve to overcome.
There can be an even greater resistance to change in institutions, which are often built upon layer after layer of rules, traditions, and mindsets that will vehemently resist change. Therefore, it is important that we understand the conditions and the type of leadership that can bring about true change. It will not be easy to do this job, but we no longer have a choice. We either take the pill now or start amputating limbs very soon.
In American politics, substantial change has almost always come as the result of conflict or crisis. This is not necessary, but it is not likely to come any other way without truly extraordinary leadership. Leadership is much more than just seeing what needs to be done, or even being able to come up with a plan for getting it done. That is the fun part. Leadership that can bring substantial change to a government or culture must have extraordinary courage, fortitude, focus, and resolve to persevere in order to actually implement true change.
CATCHING THE THIEF
What we are addressing here is much more than reengineering government—it is establishing a new culture in government. It is making waste immoral, because it is, whether it is wasted time or wasted resources. This is biblical, as we read in Proverbs 18:9, “He also who is slack in his work is brother to him who destroys.” Inefficiency is stealing from the people. Our government is stealing more from us than all of the thieves in the nation combined.
Inefficiency, caused by overregulation, and the legalistic mentality that has bound the entire nation, is destroying many times more in our economy every year than terrorists could ever hope to accomplish. This inefficiency is actually a greater threat than terrorism because it is bleeding the country far more than all of the terrorists’ attacks and the war in Iraq combined. We will not likely survive another decade in our present condition. Without powerful, decisive leadership, we will fall into a recession that, if needed corrections are not made, will ultimately lead to a depression, which will threaten the very fabric of all that we are as a nation.
TRUTH OR SOUND BITES
Too often those who may be the most articulate in projecting a vision are sadly lacking in the characteristics that are required to actually get the job done. American television has conditioned us to be responsive to hype and hyperbole, and less able to judge the true constitution of a person. Talking and doing are entirely different matters. In a democracy, such superficial evaluation will continue to produce superficial leadership.
There are different kinds of leadership. The qualities that can make a great peacetime leader, or even one who will be a good leader through economic crisis, may make a poor wartime leader and vice versa. One good thing about the long, grueling American campaigns for President is the depth of scrutiny that it provides for those who would aspire to such an important office. However, the qualities that can make one a good selfpromoting campaigner do not necessarily equate in proving one’s ability to be a President with its extraordinary demands. Therefore, the process by which we choose our leaders needs evaluation and reform as well. The kinds of leaders we really need at this time are not likely to be drawn into the present process.
PAY A LITTLE NOW OR A LOT MORE LATER
As stated, needed changes still almost never come without crisis or conflict, which is usually the result of poor, superficial leadership. British Prime Minister Chamberlain thought that he would appease Hitler by giving him Czechoslovakia. When the German generals marched into that little nation and saw its fortifications, they admitted that it was improbable that they could have ever taken it by force. So, if Chamberlain had drawn the line there, it would have resulted in a conflict that would likely have cost thousands of lives to stop Hitler. However, two years later Germany was so strong that the conflict to stop him ended up costing tens of millions of lives.
If we do not pay with a little pain now, we will pay with much more pain later. It is easier to put out a match than a forest fire. However, it is the present nature of our system to hide the little fires that are destined to be big ones. Because of this, we constantly have to fight the big fires at a huge and unnecessary cost. When Churchill was asked what they should call the war against the Nazis his reply was, “The Unnecessary War.” The same is true of far too many of our present conflicts and crises.
THERE IS A DITCH ON EITHER SIDE OF THE PATH OF LIFE
During a crisis there is also a much greater tendency to overreact, and overreaction can be more damaging than the problems they are intended to correct. Our government is composed of many such overreactions which are not only counter-productive to what they were supposed to accomplish, they are threatening the health and welfare of the nation. Change can be good if they are the right changes and implemented wisely. If they are not, we will end up in more trouble than we are in now.
Does all of this sound hard and complicated? It should because it is. Leadership is hard and often very complicated. The decisions that can fix an immediate problem can have unforeseen consequences over time that are devastating. Some of the economic policies being promoted by some of the present presidential candidates may bring relief to people for a short time, but the long-term consequences would be so devastating that they could very well bring the collapse of the whole economy. Such shortsightedness can no longer be endured in our government leadership.
THE IMMEDIATE CRISIS
The American economy is fundamentally strong, but it is like the strength in the legs of someone who has been carrying around an extra seventy-five pounds of weight—if the extra weight is lost that person will feel like they are walking on air. Our economy will soar for a long time to come if the unnecessary weight of overregulation is removed from it. Even so, we must correct the problems with wisdom—changing our diet so we do not get in that shape again.
The subprime credit crisis is the result of unhealthy practices that were allowed to grow like a cancer, and if not addressed now, they will threaten the whole body of our economy. At this writing, the fact that the Republican candidates have failed to substantially address this crisis makes one think they do not really see it, which is disconcerting. The Democratic candidates have at least addressed it, but their proposals for dealing with it are such an overreaction that the cure in this case would be much more deadly than the disease.
Clinton proposed placing a moratorium on foreclosures and freezing interest rates. Remember what happened when Nixon tried to freeze prices to stop inflation? It caused even greater inflation and interest rates soared to over 20 percent for a long time, causing some of the worst economic struggles the nation had faced since the Depression. Freezing foreclosures and interest rates could exacerbate the subprime crisis in many tragic ways that obviously have not been considered, or this would have never been proposed as a solution.
We are in desperate need of proactive leadership that can make radical, decisive decisions, but the actual changes that are made, how they are implemented, and the timing that they are made in are all crucial. If the right changes are implemented the wrong way or with bad timing, they can be just as devastating as the wrong changes. Let me give an illustration from flying that is applicable here.
A pilot is taught to never fly into a thunderhead because it contains the most violent weather known on earth. However, a pilot can survive flying through a thunderstorm if he does not panic or overreact to the turbulence in it. To do this, the pilot must keep the plane’s wings level and hold the course. Inside of a thunderhead, a shaft of air is falling at five thousand feet per minute next to a shaft that is rising that fast. This is what causes the turbulence. Turbulence can add as much stress to an airframe as it can take. The plane must also be slowed down to what is called the “maneuvering speed.” This speed is safely above the stall speed, but slow enough to reduce the stress levels on the airframe caused by the turbulence. While holding the course in turbulence, the wings must stay level because turning adds stress to an airframe. If the turbulence already has the pilot close to what the airframe can take, turning can quickly exceed what it can take. So even if a course change is needed, it should not be made until the plane is out of the storm.
How does this apply to the economy? We are in an economic thunderhead. There are forces moving up right next to those moving down, and we have a lot of turbulence. The stress on the economy is fast approaching about as much as it can take, and we do not want to add more to it by making drastic course changes right now. We also need to slow it down to reduce the stress until we can break out into the clear again.
As I have been a pilot most of my life, the biggest thunderhead I have ever seen was only about ten miles wide. If a plane penetrated a thunderhead and tried to turn around to get out of it, it would end up being in the storm longer than it would take to just go straight. Also, as explained, the turning can multiply the stress on the airframe with catastrophic consequences. Panic is what kills most pilots as they frantically try to turn to get out of the storms when they should just slow down and hold their course. Panic by leadership has caused a lot of damaging stress to our economy, such as Nixon’s price freezing did.
As the true seriousness of the subprime meltdown has gripped the nation, the markets, the government, and the Fed have all been prone to panic. The Fed’s reaction, by its record rate cut and the economic stimulus plan just passed by Congress, almost certainly did more damage than good. The most basic strength of the economy is built on confidence, and these moves were rightly interpreted as panic. That is why the markets and consumer confidence went down instead of up at the news of them.
Recessions are a slow down, and slowing down is one of the things that is actually needed to make it through this storm. Recessions are not fun, but they can be healthy for an economy if they are managed right, which means to take advantage of them to fix some problems. Two of the biggest problems addressed in recessions are that people start appreciating their jobs again, and people return to a mentality that encourages them to save and live within their means.
Some would say that we need to encourage people to spend more to stimulate the economy, but that is a very shortsighted solution and actually creates bigger problems that will have to be faced at some point. To prolong facing what caused this crisis will enable serious problems to grow even more serious. Encouraging people to spend beyond their means is what created the subprime credit crisis. To the degree that our economy is built on that mentality, it is dangerously unhealthy. If we are in a storm, a recession, why not make the most of it and get things back to a more healthy foundation?
What really caused the subprime crisis was greed on the part of the lenders and borrowers. People wanted bigger or more expensive houses than they could really afford. Most probably figured that if the lenders said they qualified for the loans, they could afford it. At the same time lenders, who only make money by lending, fueled this by loaning more to people than they should have. The lenders gave artificially low rates up front, which may have helped people to qualify who were “on the bubble,” but when they raised the rates, the bubble burst, and people living on the edge went over the edge. Such dangerous lending practices will help stimulate the economy in the short-term, but at some point there will be a collapse, such as we are now experiencing.
Actions motivated by greed will ultimately result in pain, and we will not escape this one without some pain. Pain in your body is a warning that something is wrong, so just getting rid of the pain should not be our goal, rather fixing what is causing the pain. If we just take pain medicine without fixing the problem, we could be allowing the problem to grow. That is what the proposed solutions to the subprime crisis by Senator Clinton would do. It would alleviate some pain for some for a short time, doing nothing to stop the growing crisis, but would delay confronting it until the problem is even bigger. This is not just a bad idea, but a really, really bad one. This could be much more than just the straw that breaks the camel’s back; it is like putting a telephone pole on the camel!
Senator Obama then came up with a proposal that was dumbfounding because it made so little sense. He proposed a program where the government would give billions of dollars to people who had bought houses beyond their means! Can you imagine that? The government would go to everyone who bought a house that was too expensive and basically say, “I’m sorry someone made you do that, so we’re going to pay for this house for you.” I think this would make everyone who was responsible to live within their means sorry that they did not go out and buy a house beyond their means! The way the government manages things, we could expect for every billion the government spends bailing foolish people out of their follies, to likely cost the rest of the taxpayers many billions more.
I really do not mean to be disrespectful to Senators Clinton and Obama, but these proposals are shockingly immature, shallow, and foolish. The lenders and the borrowers are both to blame for the subprime crisis, and it is not just to make the rest of the nation pay for their irresponsibility. That sends the worst message we could ever send if we want to get responsibility back into government and the economy. That is bad, but what they are proposing would set us up for “the perfect storm” of conditions to release the most dangerous of all economic conditions—stagflation. Stagflation is a stagnate economy with inflation. These proposals are shortsighted and dangerous. Because their plans are now public knowledge, it is very likely that if Clinton or Obama gets elected, there will be such a dumping of the dollar on world markets that it could actually cause the dollar to collapse.
For the Republican candidates to fail to address this problem is not the right answer either. We are in desperate need of proactive leadership that really understands the economy and will not make foolish, counterproductive, overreacting mistakes, but will be decisive and strong. We have never had a President who seemed to really understand the depth of the economic issues. That’s right, never. Presidents have done some things that helped, but basically we have survived because of the strength of the free market. We have had some great leadership in industry and business that have been able to navigate through the mistakes.
The office of the President is so powerful that just a little action from that position can have drastic, far-reaching consequences. That is why the markets like the gridlock caused by having a President from one party and a Congress controlled
by the other party—this reduces the ability of the President to take drastic action. However, we are at a place where some very drastic action is needed, but it is so drastic that it must be done right and in the right timing. A doctor may love his patients and want to only do the best for them, but if he is a bad doctor, he can kill his patients. This may be unintentional, but the patient is still dead.
AN ECONOMIC HURRICANE KATRINA
We do have the winds increasing and the waves rising for what is the equivalent of an economic Hurricane Katrina. If the typical Democratic solutions to such problems are implemented, it will be the equivalent of the levee breaking. If the typical Republican solutions are used, it will be like the equivalent of the FEMA meltdown. We need new, fresh, wise but proactive leadership. Things are bad now, but they can get much worse, fast. This is a crisis that could quickly overwhelm the government’s ability to deal with it. So what can we do?
First, do not put too much of your trust in the government to help in the crisis that is looming. Those who have put too much of their trust in the government to take care of them are in danger of being tragic victims again. Therefore, basic to being ready for the times is to have our trust in the Lord, to be personally responsible and personally resourceful.
To many Christians, trusting in the Lord and being personally responsible seem mutually exclusive. They are not. The Holy Spirit is called “the Helper” (see John 14:26), not “the Doer.” Even when God intervened in the most powerful ways in history and Scripture, He required some participation on man’s part. The wisdom that we need is beyond human wisdom, and the strength that we need is beyond human strength. Even so, faith is not passive, but active. He will require us to do our part.
THE CRISIS OF LAWLESSNESS
Crisis reveals, and absolute crisis reveals absolutely. To understand some of the true conditions of our country, we became vitally involved in the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and we did learn many important things. One of the biggest was how entitlement programs will be the root cause of the lawlessness that both Jesus and the apostles prophesied would come upon the earth at the end of this age.
With the Hurricane Katrina disaster, it was very easy to tell who lived on entitlement programs or welfare, and who worked for a living. Those who were the most obnoxious and demanding were inevitably the ones who lived on welfare. This was not a matter of race, but simply whether they worked for a living or not. The ones who were the most patient and the most inclined to help others, even after they themselves had often just lost everything they had, sometimes even family members, were inevitably those who worked for a living. Why did those who worked for a living tend to have such a radically different perspective and demeanor from those who did not? The answer to this question is one of the most important that we must understand or the consequences will threaten us all.
When God created mankind, He created us first to be His companion, and second to cultivate the garden—to work. Therefore, no human being will ever know peace or fulfillment without these basic needs being met—loving God and accomplishing something meaningful. We have spent many years addressing how we must love God, so we will move now to how crucial it is to have meaningful employment. It is so important that even psychologists have determined that any person who is deprived of meaningful labor will go insane. If they do not go insane, they will die. This may be why people often pass away quickly after retiring from a job—even a job they didn’t like.
Even a bad job is better than no job. This is also a root of the insanity that rose up in New Orleans after Katrina, which even caused people to start shooting at their rescuers. We have been tragically set up for this kind of lawlessness to be released in the world by making people think they could trust the government to fix every problem and meet all of their needs. Welfare is one of the worst forms of bondage and oppression. It is a time bomb that is ticking, and events are about to start setting it off. Hurricane Katrina was a warning that we need to learn from or the consequences will be more terrible than we can imagine.
There are some people who really need charity to survive. As Christians, we should consider it a great honor to help them, as the Lord said that as we did for the least of His little ones, we have done it for Him (see Matthew 25:4). However, when someone does not need charity and they become addicted to it, it forms a terrible and cruel yoke of bondage that can deprive them of even their most basic dignity, as well as their sanity.
LOVE WORKS
After the Korean War, the South Korean economy was understandably devastated. Charity poured in from Christian churches and missions, as well as from other charities. However, because of the charity, the South Korean economy was not kicking into gear. Who wanted to make things to sell when they could be had for free? In a bold move, the government asked for the charity to stop, and immediately the South Korean economy came to life. It is now one of the most powerful and resourceful economies in the world. It is also noteworthy that during that time, one of the greatest revivals in history came to South Korea, and some of the largest churches in the world grew.
Charity is an essential Christian devotion, but too much charity or implementing it unwisely can actually hurt people. This is now happening in many third world nations that we have sincerely wanted to help, but we are not helping them by just giving them money and resources. That is why when we started our project to dig fresh water wells in Africa, we did not just dig them, but helped the African’s dig them, and the result of this is seen in some real transformation. They have taken ownership of those wells because they dug them.
Could this be why the Holy Spirit is called “the Helper” and not “the Doer?” He does not come to take over and do everything for us, but to help us do the will of God. The Lord could have created the earth perfect, not needing man’s cultivation, but He created man with the need to accomplish and create things, because man was made in the image of the Creator. This is a basic and profound need of mankind.
The rage and lawlessness that broke out after Hurricane Katrina was because of the fear that rose up in people who were living off of entitlements. Those folks were used to being taken care of by the government and did not know how to take care of themselves. When the government was not there for them, fear gripped them because they did not know what they were going to do, and then it turned into rage at the government who had let them down.
Our people who served at our Katrina relief base were in the most terrible and dangerous of conditions, and most of the people deeply appreciated it. I do not think we even received one thank you from someone on welfare. Those who worked for a living would jump up to help when they saw something that needed to be done. Those on welfare would be offended if we asked them to help do something, even though they were very able-bodied. They just wanted to stew in their victim mentality and demanded to be served. As far as I know, not one of them rose up to start serving others. One of the quickest ways to get over grief or sorrow is to become engaged in something productive or help someone else. Self-pity and bitterness kill us! As Dudley Hall once said, “Being bitter is like taking poison and hoping someone else gets sick.”
The mismanagement during the Katrina crisis was not due to racism, but rather the kind of overall mismanagement that is the present culture of government. FEMA could have been several times more effective without the red tape they were tied up by. However, that is the state of the government right now. Anyone who is trusting in the government to meet their needs, especially in a crisis, has been set up for a terrible disappointment. When they discover how deceived they have been, they are going to go from terror to anger, fast. So, how do we fix this problem? Very slowly.
SET THE CAPTIVES FREE AND THEY WILL SET US FREE
When someone is in prison for more than a couple of years, their “decision maker” gets broken because they have had every decision made for them for so long. They cannot make even basic, simple decisions without a terrible and painful struggle. I have watched someone who just got out of prison shut down just trying to make the choice from a menu for his lunch. This is why so many who get out of prison will purposely commit crimes—they know they will be caught. They want to get back into prison where they feel secure because all decisions are made for them.
For those who “make it on the outside,” there is a struggle to regain a basic decisiveness that can literally take as many years to recover as they have been in prison. Most on welfare are in this same state. It does not matter who is to blame for this; the goal must be to help set them free.
For this same reason, we are in need of basic prison reform, which could radically reduce crime in this country by cutting off the culture of crime. This would be far cheaper than what we are now spending on prisons, insurance, and losses caused by the crime, but that is another subject. For now, let us consider the tragic prison that welfare is. We need a long-term, step-by-step, compassionate, and wise strategy for this. We also need to do this in a way that does not condemn the helpless who really need the help.
I want to leave you with a truth that will be interpreted by some as stereotyping, but it is nevertheless an important prophetic truth. The African-American community is in general the most industrious, hard-working, and resourceful people group in our nation. Some will protest by elaborating on the present conditions, but like I said, this is a “prophetic truth.” It is the basic nature of this great people to be this. When the African-American community is truly set free, they will help set the rest of us free. That is their calling and their destiny.
Why does it seem that as a community we see the opposite at this time? Because as a community they still have not been freed from the yokes of slavery. If any other race of people had been subjected to what African-Americans were and continue to be subjected to, it is not likely they would be doing nearly as well. What do you think slavery did to the “work ethic?” When this great people are truly free, they will be the most industrious, prosperous, joyful, and free, and will help set many others free. The inner cities of America will also become one of the most powerful economic engines, not only in America, but in the world.
CONCLUSION
As stated, in a bulletin there is a limit to the depth that we can address these issues, but the last Bulletin, “Putting the Ax to the Root of the Tree,” received more response than any I have written in years. As long as there is a demand to hear more, we will seek to go deeper and wider in addressing the crucial issues of our times.
