Note: This article has been updated multiple times, because I made a total hash out of posting it early. This is now the finalized version. Apologies to all both my readers.

Recently, the SEIU ran a highly touted (by them, anyway) nationwide contest, soliciting great new ideas to work towards. They even set up a website for it.

Since Sliced Bread seeks ideas that are original and creative, have the best chance of practical success and would most effectively:

• Grow the economy
• Create good-paying jobs that allow people to raise a family, afford health insurance, pay for their children’s college education, get additional training and save for retirement
• Encourage existing companies to expand and entrepreneurs to start new ones.

Finally, keep in mind who should benefit from the ideas — whom this contest is about.

Since Sliced Bread is also changing the way Washington works. It’s an unprecedented effort to give ordinary Americans — people who are rarely asked for ideas on how to fix the economy — the chance to offer theirs. We’re serious about wanting to change the way policy ideas emerge.

Since Sliced Bread is so serious about finding and rewarding good ideas that a panel of respected thinkers and community leaders will choose 21 finalists and public voting will determine the top three ideas.

Update: all of them are now up, with comments.

The SEIU solicited the ideas late last year, spent a month parsing 22,000 of t them down to the 21 “best” to be voted on during Round One, and posted them on the 9th of this month. The response was overwhelming — overwhelmingly negative, that is. Over three hundred comments proceeded to rip, shred, tear, and even fold, spindle, and mutilate the selections. The SEIU was stunned, and Andy Stern, SEIU bigwig wrote:

I confess — I’m a bit surprised at the hostility meeting the 21 ideas announced yesterday morning. Let’s take a minute to appreciate the work of the 21 people who are finalists – they are amazing ideas that deserve discussion and consideration. Please take time to cast your vote – and encourage other people to vote, too.

In a contest like this, you have to make some hard choices. Every single idea was reviewed at least twice – even the thousands of ideas submitted in the final hours of the contest. Not everyone can be a winner in a contest like this. There are so many good ideas, we’d like to figure out how to recognize and encourage more of them. I’ve asked the folks at SinceSlicedBread.com to put together an online chat to get your feedback about how to recognize some of the innovative ideas that did not make it to the final round. Stay tuned for details….

And the response to that hasn’t exactly been positive either. Comments below the fold:

This entry is not responsive to the source of people’s legitimate displeasure: the ideas selected do not match the contest’s selection criteria.

Muni WiFi!?

Explain how that was a finalist…

I was also disappointed to see the 21 finalist results, not to take away from the ideas chosen. It seems that contest criteria apparently changed, without notice, to focus on ideas to benefit working men and women and less on creating good paying jobs, encouraging existing companies to expand and entrepreneurs to start new ones.

Once you do have cheap wireless, how are the poor people going to connect? On it’s own, this idea is worthless unless you also provide free computers with wireless capabilities to everyone. What do you think that someone who is hungry going to do with a $200 computer/laptop?

This is just 1 idea that is so far from ‘amazing’ that it is just not funny. I will not waste my time on the others that you believe are the best from the 22,000. Also, you did not address the issue of later duplicate entries being in the final 21 over earlier entries.

So there you have it. They beleive in the ideas they picked. Purhaps their view on innovation is different than the common people. What they asked for in regards to the contest was not what they picked.

We are not hostile, we are hurt that SlicedBread said that this was a contest based on innovative ideas which is clearly not the case.

So what are the 21 ideas?

1. Retool the Earned Income Tax Credit to promote savings. And while we’re at it, lets ban advertising, credit cards, and the whole consumer-oriented society. That should do a much better job.
2. Blanket the US with wireless access. Sure, I’d love to pay a $30 a month tax on my phone bill to pay for a massive expansion of the telecommunication industry’s infrastructure. Oh, and what good is WiFi if you don’t have the computer and can’t afford the rates?
3. Standarize Health Data. Mandate that drugs and treatments have the same code among all insurance providers; all patient data be stored in standarized format, and create all new forms to standarize the above. Please. As a bureaucrat, this is my wet dream… Lets create a buttload of new forms, force everyone into learning new procedures, straitjacket the entire health industry into doing it “the government mandated way.” Just think of all the confusion and errors we could sow!
4. Impose a “resource taxâ€? on pollution, development, and fossil fuel to pay for development of renewable energy and environmental restoration. Promoting sustainable localized energy industries (solar, wind, hydro, tidal, biofuels) will provide reliable, clean homegrown energy, exportable technologies, and bring energy jobs home. Kyoto redeaux, anyone? Sure, lets cripple our economy. Wait, don’t we have “pollution” and “fossil fuel taxes” already? Look, Europe can afford $4.00 of taxes on every gallon of gas; the whole damn continent could be dropped inside the combined areas of California, Texas, Alaska and a couple of other states. A nation this size has to have cheap shipping costs. Or do you really want to pay $2.50 for a head of lettuce?
5. Public Education Reform: Summarized as a) Robin Hood. b) “Control” (read: subsidize) tuition costs at public universities. c) Increase teacher salaries. Wow, I’d never have expected to find more government controls, increased taxpayer subsidies, and increased teacher salaries on a union website. I’m shocked. Shocked, I say!
6. Massive Public Works Projects — Panama Canal, Hoover Dam, etc. “Hey, I know, lets break the budget with pork spending!” Being there, doing that.
7. Mortgage program to sell run down houses to renters! Hmmmm. So apparently they never heard of Fannie Mae. Or the fact that the owner may not care to sell the property for residential purposes, if at all. “No problemo” say the New London Five… let’s just form a company, grease a few palms, and have a friendly local government expropriate the houses. Even if they’re, er, “extreme fixer-uppers.”
8. Payroll deductions to buy a house instead of for retirement. So, we create another administrative burden for private business, then cry for government action when these people have to sell their houses to retire because they don’t have a pension.
9. Create Civil Works Corps Hm… that looks familar (glances back up the list…)
10. Tax Deduction for Education: any full time college student working to pay for school be exempt from income tax. And that their parents be allowed to take a deduction equal to the amount of their financial contribution making both the students and parents earnings go further to pay college expenses. Question: what’s the real difference between giving up tax revenue for the college of your choice, and spending tax revenue on the private school of your choice? Answer: If you spend $1 on a private school, that’s all the government revenue that is spent on the educated person–a fixed amount. But if you give up X revenue, where X is equal to the total of tuition, fees, books, etc., then you “spend” any amount the educated person demands! Moreover, this will primarily benefit the well-to-do, since they can pay a hell of a lot more for Harvard or Rice than the rest of us can pay for UTEP. This is a “for the rich” subsidy that even Republicans would never dare suggest.
11. Pride of Skilled Working Hands (a.k.a. the “who needs child labor laws anyway?” program.) Match up the educational system with employers needing skilled labor. Teach the wretched little peasants how to work with their hands! … There’s so much wrong with this idea, I don’t know where to begin. Lets just start — and end — with how the hell are you going to make people participate?
12. Farm Produce Distribution Network: “Instead of enriching big agribusinesses with our tax dollars, use farm subsidies to build a nationwide produce distribution network.” Read: “Comrades! Our new 5-year plan for govermental control of food allocation will eliminate hunger and inequity in the evil capitalist system!” Call me when the famine starts, k?
13. Ownership of Retirement Plan: pass a law which requires companies to allocate their retirement funding dollars into approved individual retirement accounts for employees who choose that option. Also require that companies funding retirement benefits for their employees cannot discriminate against new employees through vesting policies. Say I own a business and make a hiring mistake; I fire the wretch 3 days later when I find out he lied to get the job, but I’ve still got to fund his retirement? Oh, wait, my business doesn’t even HAVE a retirement plan. Oops, it does now — even businesses that don’t have pensions have to pay the administrative costs of having one. Nice fix….
14. Do Not Tie Health Care to Employement: Hmmmm. So it would have to be some kind of federally run program . . . Hey, wait a minute! AAAAHHHH! IT’S HILLARYCARE! RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!
15. ProdiMae Effecient Access to Capital: Essentially create a FreddieMac for debt equity investment in small businesses. Give small businesses the capital to succeed. Almost a good idea. But the government paperwork to qualify will so strangle it that no one will seek funding from it. Also based on a flawed premise; our advantage isn’t the capital market, our advantage is the free market.
16. A Flat Tax to Save Social Security: it’s currently 6.2% to 90k, so get rid of the limit In other words, change Social Security to an income tax. Like that’s going to have any real effect as long as the Trust Fund is an imaginary construct.
17. Tie the Minimum Wage to the Cost of Living: Well, well, it’s the old “living wage” idea, back for more. Studies continue to show that every increase in the minimum wage is greeted with a decrease in employement. Worst hit are those at the bottom of the scale: the very young, the very old, the unskilled. Why are so many jobs going overseas? Cheap labor, and predatory Chinese monetary policy. So why not make the problem worse? Pretty soon, the only way to hire people at a reasonable price will be to hire illegals aliens down on the street corner. Oh, wait . . . too late. Never mind.
18. National Service Scholarship Program: Use the Armed Services’ highly successful Reserve Officer Training Corps scholarships as a model for a larger government-wide education and workforce program. Offer two and four-year scholarship opportunities with service obligation post-graduation. You know, this one comes perilously close to making sense. Let’s attach some strings to those freebie giveaways like the Pell Grants! If the little wretches want to go to college, we’ll work them in return. Of course, I don’t know exactly how much all those graduates in Multi-Cultural Comparative Dance know about agriculture subsidies, but something should work itself out. Besides, all those poor kids just joining the Army to get the educational benefits, and being sent off to (gasp!) fight a war would never have done that if they had an alternative!
19. Personal Money Management: Include it in the regular curriculum of all schools, starting with 1st grade and continuing through high school. “By the time a child reaches the teens, he/she should know all about compound interest, various investment plans, shopping wisely and saving for the future.” Well, ok, but first we need to teach them enough math to figure out simple interest, let alone compound. (I think first grade is a bit young to discuss “rate of return” for the subordinated bond market, but I DO agree that the math curricula of our junior high schools could be better related to the real world these kids will meet. Other than it being another damn federal mandate, I actually agree with this idea. Screw Auto Shop anyway. Oh, wait, there was that Pride of Working Hands thingy….)
20. Medicare as Single Payer Pilot:Medicare Expansion Pilot Program. Give 10-20 of the nation’s largest employers (including the Federal government) the opportunity to use Medicare as their company’s health insurance for 5 years. It’s not socialized medicine if we try it out first! (Why is my “camel-nose-in-tent-detector” beeping loudly? . . .OH SHIT, IT’S HILLARYCARE AGAIN!!!! KEEP RUNNING!!!!
21. 3 Steps to Universal Health Care: a) digitize records! Technology is the answer! b) Start a National Healthcare for Children and Young Adults Do it for the kids! c) Don’t let them leave it. “Who is number one?”

“CAN’T. . . . KEEP . . . . RUNNING. . . . ACK! MY HEART!” thud.

Why am I not surprised that out of a list of twenty-two thousand entries, a union would think that the 21 best are those that could be culled straight out of the Communist Party of the United States of America’s manifesto? I mean, just look at them! Several are variations on the same themes (national healthcare, “work ethic” indoctrination, massive pork), and the rest are just plain unworkable. Only #19 is remotely related to common-sense.

What’s odd is that I was reading Lebedoff’s The Uncivil War: How a New Elite is Destroying Our Democracy today. In light of his discussion of the New Elite vs. the Left Behinds, and the SATocracy vs. everyone else; the above really makes sense if you view it as the New Elite foisting off more of its “we know best (and how to suck on the gravy train)” under the guise of populist programs.

• WiFi and education tax credits? Programs for the well-to-do.
• Various Health Insurance schemes? Nannystate knows best for you! (And we’ll just go to the Bahamas for our surgery, thanks).
• Public Works Programs? Line up the government contracts now, we’re gonna make a mint! Nothing like earning, uh, spending Other People’s Money!
• Youth Work Programs? We, the Elite, don’t need these, because we have good jobs and like to work. But you peasants are lazy and need to be taught how to work with your hands.
• Home Purchase Programs? Never mind that home ownership is higher now than at any other time in history! Everyone has a right to a home, even if it belongs to someone else right now! Even if it costs businesses money to administer these programs and makes them less competitive! The Elite knows best!
• Social Security is a big lie . . . so let’s make it a bigger one!

Just one impossible “we know best” suggestion after another. Each of these was better than more than 1,000 of its mates? You have to wonder how bad the stinkers were. Why do I think the motto of the selection committe was. “By George, there’s no problem caused by government intervention that can’t be fixed by yet more government intervention!”

Of course, when you get down to it, that is sort of pre-supposed by the whole concept of the contest, isn’t it?