This book should be required reading for anyone who cares about America. Better Than We Found It is a voice of reason and common sense in the cacophony of indignant tirades that saturate the media. If you're looking for a balanced source of simple solutions for the problems we face today, read this book. Solutions abound, from the obvious to the outlandish. With each new chapter you might find yourself asking "Why don't we do this already?" As refreshing as he is irreverent, Park demystifies the challenges facing our nation and identifies the tools and methods - that often already exist - with which we can solve them. This book includes thoughtful and straight forward solutions for problems as diverse as government and military reform, understanding how our country is financed, improving our education system, making our tax system fair, youth mentors, immigration, making high speed rail as convenient as air travel, middle east peace, homelessness, green energy, making electric cars mainstream, enabling average people make to make money from the sun and wind, using the census to make democracy stronger, and even reducing head injuries in football and making the game more athletic by rethinking helmets. Some of the ideas like National Service, and full democracy for American citizens living in Washington, DC are as old as our country, and others such as offering tax breaks for losing weight are on the cutting edge of policy debates. Using airport security to catch actual criminals, implementing logical gun rules, getting solar panels on every rooftop, preventing genocide, labeling our news sources like we label our food, securing our food supply, and preparing communities for emergencies, and bringing personal responsibility to heath care, are all monumental problems that have logical and implementable solutions. This book provides a straight forward and enjoyable approach to improving the world around us, making it clear how each of us can play a significant role in fixing those things that are broken. Better Than We Found It brings clarity to our problems and offers thoughtful solutions to fix what ails us. And, although some of these ideas carry big price tags like doubling the budget of every public school or expanding the Peace Corps to 100,000 volunteers, a surprising number cost little or nothing. Good government doesn't have to be pricey, and some ideas, like turning the Post Office into a bank for those without one, can even bring in a little revenue to our great country while improving people's lives. Other ideas such as the need to honestly assess our history and to fix the ten worst-performing states are painfully obvious, with not so obvious solutions. Some ideas, like training soldiers and aid workers together or preventing genocide by putting someone in charge of preventing it, can save thousands or even millions of lives, we just need to do our part to make it happen. Better Than We Found It will make you realize that America's problems can and will be fixed by ordinary people who care about their country. And it does not take that much time or effort. You don't need to quit your job or sell all of your possessions to make our country better than we found it, you just need to read this book and pick an issue or two that you care about.
About the Author: Darrell Park is a life-long public policy nerd who has a passion for finding real world solutions to America's problems. After earning an undergraduate degree in History from Allegheny College and a graduate degree in Public Policy from Georgetown University, Park embarked on a nearly decade-long stint as a career civil servant in the White House complex, where he saw first-hand the historic multi-year balancing of the Federal Budget and experienced what was possible when America is motivated towards a common goal. He moved west to attend Stanford Business School, joined a start-up, and fell in love with the creativity and innovation of entrepreneurship. He is married with a young son, and divides his professional time between new start-up projects and envisioning real-world solutions to America's toughest problems.