In a whole lot of words in his
Washington Post article, Gene Sperling, head of the National Economic Council
under President Bill Clinton, basically advocates turning back the tax cuts and calls
for fattening up the scial welfare systems that have failed time and time again.
It is precisely because we lack a road map that it is so crucial to strengthen
public investments in research and education, which have traditionally laid the foundation
for discovering and exploiting previously unimaginable jobs and industries. The United
States is entering a 20-year period in which there will be no net growth in our native-born
workforce. At the same time, there are five times as many graduates of engineering
programs in China and India together as there are in the United States. And those
nations are doubling their support for research as a percentage of gross domestic
product (GDP).Our call to meet this challenge doesn’t have to be couched in the jargon of policy.
It should echo earlier calls for Sputnik-level initiatives to expand basic research,
improve problem-solving skills in our classrooms, and massively increasing the incentives,
grants and pay we need to inspire a new generation of scientists. It should recognize
that if our workforce isn’t growing, we need to inspire and better employ those on
the margins of our economy, while helping the poorest children to get to society’s
starting line.Funding such efforts, while restoring fiscal discipline, would require a bipartisan
fiscal deal that would both repeal tax cuts for the most fortunate and slow entitlement
growth. Neither the undoing of trade agreements nor further cutting of the capital
gains tax rate will ensure that we remain a nation able to fulfill its unwritten economic
compact, and where all boats, not just the yachts, rise with the tide.
If you would like perfect examples where Mr. Sperling’s ideas are at work,
just take a look at France and Germany.
Hey, don’t take my word for anything. I am just a die hard capitalist that beleives
in the American spirit of independence. The one that perfers less government and more
independence to determine his/her own way in the world.