As America Looks Ahead
by Daniel Rose
Serious
unknowns face America in the years ahead, but one thing is certain—those
societies able to enhance the human capital and social capital of their citizens
will outperform dramatically those that do not. The tangibles of mineral, industrial and financial capital
will recede in importance relative to the intangible strengths of an educated,
motivated, socialized and future-minded public, one that is ably led, with a
generally-accepted vision of “the good life” and an ethos of personal
responsibility—valuing both equality and excellence—one that encourages all to
rise to the extent their talent and effort permit.
The
undisputed American economic, military and geo-political primacy of 1945 to
2000 is now history. We still have
the world’s largest military, its reserve currency, most of its best
universities and nearly a quarter of its economic activity; but important
trends and forecasts have gone negative.
The world’s eight tallest buildings, seven longest bridges, six largest
dams, most creative space exploration programs and cities with highest
broadband connectivity and fastest Internet service are now overseas and the
best stem cell research and work on renewable energy are not taking place in
America. Sadly, other nations are coming to value higher education more than we
do. Traditional American optimism is giving way to
widespread foreboding, and our tax-conscious public seems unwilling to pay for
necessary investments in education or infrastructure. Today, nations with
larger populations, more effective leadership and more prudent allocation of
their resources present competitive challenges that must be acknowledged.
That
challenge can be met by an American public that is better educated and
vocationally trained than its competitors, one that works smarter and harder, that
has the necessary technological and social capital and whose goal is to
increase productivity and to raise living standards for all. At the moment, our fiercely partisan leadership across
the political spectrum focuses on immediate electoral issues at the expense of
the longer term; social issues, such as contraception, abortion or gay
marriage, threaten to displace serious economic discussions dealing with our
aging population, our skyrocketing medical costs or the necessary investments
in education and infrastructure we must make to secure our future. And no one has the courage to face
frankly the unsustainable unfunded pensions of our government employees.
The
biblical Joseph’s dream of “seven fat years” followed by “seven lean years” may
be upon us, and in the period of austerity we are entering, harnessing our
national brain power is more important than ever. Yet today public colleges in Florida and Texas are
eliminating departments of engineering and computer science, and 4l states have
made large cuts in their education budgets.
In
2008, 56% of the world’s engineering degrees were awarded in Asia vs. 4% in the
U.S. In 2009, 64% of U.S. doctoral
degrees in engineering went to foreigners, chiefly from Asia, who are then
forced by our immigration laws to return home. U.S.-based companies like 3M, Caterpillar and General
Electric, now global, have spent billions of dollars expanding their overseas
research labs. “Given the moribund
interest in science in the U.S., this is strategically very important,” says
3M’s Chief Executive George Buckley.
A
nation proud of Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Eli Whitney and George
Washington Carver (names unknown to most high school students today) must look
to its laurels. Today, that
requires “mind workers” who process information.
For
America to regain its forward momentum, we must understand why our national
median wages have been stagnant for decades, why our students rank poorly in
international academic ratings and why 75% of our young adults do not qualify
to serve in our military, why our national transportation infrastructure is outclassed
by international standards, why so many of our “best and brightest” college
students now choose careers on Wall Street rather than become engaged in the
productive world. (46% of
Princeton’s class of 2006 entered finance.)
Fresh
thinking is required and outdated “conventional wisdom” must be discarded. For example, we must begin to think of
under-educated or vocationally untrained young people as potential national
assets whose flowering will benefit the nation at large, not only themselves,
as they become “taxpayers” rather than “tax eaters.” We must recognize the relevance of Schumpeter’s theory of
“creative destruction,” in which “old” jobs must yield to “new” jobs with more
demanding requirements. Our
dysfunctional, gridlocked Congress must face our pressing need for a national
industrial policy and a national trade policy that will permit us to retain
high-paying jobs supplying the needs of the growing middle classes of the BRICs
(Brazil, Russia, India, China). The leaders of our industrial trade unions must
understand the constructive role they can play in restructuring our labor
policies (stultifying work rules, onerous jurisdictional disputes, etc.) to keep
our American industries internationally competitive. College leaders must give us a “bigger bang” for our
educational buck; financial leaders must prudently channel our nation’s savings
into productive uses that keep our economy growing; and political leaders must
encourage the proceeds to be applied wisely and fairly. We must balance the tension between
short term self-interest and long term national interest, between the demands
of the young and the needs of the old, and we must not forget Oliver Wendell
Holmes’ sage observation that “taxes are the price we pay for a civilized
society.” Transcending our petty
tribalisms of color, religion and ethnicity, we must aim for a meritocracy of
true accomplishment; and all our young people should be encouraged to aim high
and to prepare themselves for futures that are demanding and rewarding.
Most
importantly, a dynamic, skilled and productive middle class is clearly the key
to national well-being, and we must do all we can to reproduce, sustain and expand ours. Today our middle classes are threatened
by two important factors: a)
increasing automation, which is performing ever more complex human functions,
and b) globalization, which encourages the work traditionally performed by the
developed world’s middle classes to be undertaken more cheaply elsewhere.
For
the first time, Americans are starting to look over our shoulders to see how other
nations meet these challenges.
In rethinking the training and apprenticeship policies of our industrial
work force, we can learn from Germany.
In rethinking our narcotics policies on addiction, incarceration and
rehabilitation, we can learn from Sweden.
In rethinking the selection, training and retention of our public school
teachers, we can learn from Finland.
In rethinking our early childhood practices, we can learn from French
crèches and ecoles maternelles. In rethinking our national pension practices, we can
learn from Australia and Chile. In
rethinking our approach to transportation infrastructure, we can learn from the
developing nations of Asia. In turn,
if we can ever create a health delivery system that is cost-effective,
efficient and whose financing is actuarially sound, we can show the rest of the
world how to do it.
Singapore
in the East and the Nordic countries of the West, though demographically small
and relatively homogeneous, are increasingly setting the standards by which the
“success” or “failure” of a society is measured today, when knowledge and
skills are the new global currency; and Americans are taking heed. International competition in results
will encourage critical examination of means, and America will profit from being
forced to view with fresh eyes practices, concepts and policies that we have
previously taken for granted.
When
Americans learn, for example, that 15 year olds in Finland have the world’s
highest standards in reading, math and science, they should also recognize that
teaching in Finland (at all levels) is a high prestige profession, and that it
is as hard for Finns to win a place in a teacher training course as it is to
get into law school or medical school.
No Finn can teach high school math, chemistry or physics without having
majored in those subjects.
Starting teachers in Finland receive pay roughly equal to those of
starting doctors or lawyers, and their careers are respected and rewarding. (And 98% of Finnish children attend
excellent—and free—pre-school programs.)
In
New York City, by contrast, too many of our public school teachers come from
the lowest quartile of their classes in the least prestigious municipal colleges;
they are hired with dismally low standards and are granted tenure with just
three or four years in the classroom.
New York’s teachers’ unions fight fiercely against reasonable teacher
evaluations; for poorly performing teachers, the union demands arbitration and
appeal procedures that can keep even alcoholics, suspected felons, sexual
predators and violent offenders in the classroom (or at the least on the
payroll) for years. Few low-performing
teachers are actually fired; the best teachers are often not rewarded nor
retained. (Outstanding, dedicated
teachers struggle under great handicaps.)
Correlation is not
the same as causation; but does ineffective teaching relate to the 84% rate of
New York City public high school graduates requiring remedial courses in math,
reading and writing when they enter CUNY community colleges?
“American
exceptionalism” has been real—reflected in John Winthrop’s vision of a “city on
a hill,” in Tocqueville’s portrayal of our unique communal spirit of mutual
assistance, in our unparalleled philanthropic traditions, in our culture of
risk-taking and innovation, in magnificent national gestures like the Marshall
Plan, in our world-leading universities and research institutes that produce
our continuing dominance of Nobel prizes; and it can continue if we will
it. Until recently, we led the
world in social mobility, in the quality of our free public education, in the
optimism and self-confidence of our public and our trust in our institutions;
and these can be regained.
To
do so, we must re-orient current public discourse which, sadly influenced by
ideologically-driven foundations and their think tanks, sees “government” as an
impediment, “taxes” as an unjustified imposition, unlimited political
“contributions” justifiable as free speech, unregulated free markets as the
ideal economic vehicle and great socio-economic disparity as the necessary
Darwinian side-effect of a dynamic society. In all these areas, reasoned discussion rather than
acrimonious polemic should prevail, and thoughtful political compromise should
be seen as reflecting prudence rather than cowardliness.
In
reviewing American standings in contrast to the rest of the developed world,
three areas in particular cry out for fresh thinking: 1) personal development (schooling and vocational training,
along with psychological preparation for a full life); 2) prison incarceration
(who goes to jail and what transpires there); and 3) immigration (who enters
the country and with what ramifications).
Other problems deserve attention, of course; but these three are the
“low hanging fruit” which, if
dealt
with effectively, will have profound effects on the future of American society.
A) Personal Development
Most Americans feel they have the opportunity to
achieve their potential; those who do not deserve more attention, for their
benefit and for ours.
All the complex factors that make us who we are, are
what Americans simplistically think of as “education,” with the child widely
seen as a passive recipient of what a teacher drops into an outstretched
hand. Crucially important parental
cultural influences from birth through age three are widely ignored. Our educational establishment’s
hypersensitivity to charges of “blaming the victim” (e.g. William Ryan vs.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan) encourages us to ignore or minimize such home
influences, along with the later ones of peer pressure, community values and role
model examples of family members and neighbors.
One notable exception, Nobel Laureate James Heckman,
writes, “If I am born to educated, supportive parents, my chances of doing well
are totally different than if I were born to a single parent or abusive
parents.” Extend that differential
to the child of a semi-literate, traumatized and emotionally withdrawn 14 year
old single mother vs. the child of two well-educated parents who from birth
talk, sing and read to their child.
Imagine both children entering the same school in the same class. If the children react differently to the school experience,
it is common today to blame the school, although studies show one-third of the
later “achievement gap” is present at the start of the first grade. (All studies show that children raised
in a home with two biological parents do better in school and in life.)
As children age, some parents express high
expectations, praise achievement, devote parental time and resources to the
child, speak to the child frequently in grammatically correct and expressive
language, dine with the child in a congenial family setting, serve as positive role
models themselves. Others either
do not or cannot. Since these
factors defy easy measurement, social scientists tend to downplay or discount
them.
As the child continues to grow, community values come
into play. For example, drug dealers
with fancy clothes and expensive cars may be seen as those to emulate, or they
are not. Teenage unmarried mothers
and high school drop-outs are seen as embarrassments to their families, or they
are not. Religious leaders and important
community figures praise sustained, self-disciplined effort toward long term
goals, or they do not. And lo and
behold! A child emerges from
adolescence ready for a productive, fulfilling life, or does not.
What next, college? The Department of Education reports that more than 500,000
American students who want to go to college have no access to Algebra II
classes; more than two million would-be college students have no access to Calculus
classes. And as the cost of
college rises, public support for it wanes.
Our education problems are serious. Many on the Left refuse to acknowledge
that teaching should be a high-skill, high entry level profession; many on the
Right, to save taxpayers’ money, attack Pell Grants, scholarships and student
loans, not realizing that in doing so we are “eating our seed corn.” Yet “advocates for the children” are virtually
silent.
Do schools help?
Of course, especially those with great teaching—but we forget that “teaching” is what
someone does at a chalkboard, while “learning” is what takes place in the head
of the child, a process vastly more complex than we acknowledge.
We are all creatures of habit, subject to the
influence of those around us.
Inculcating life-enhancing values and habits and exposing children to
constructive role models are continuing challenges. McGuffey’s Readers, the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin,
the mythic stories of George Washington and the cherry tree or Abe Lincoln
learning to write with charcoal on a shovel helped form American values of the
past. What are our equivalents today?
Every nation has some dysfunctional segment of its
population “out of the mainstream.”
British physician Theodore Dalrymple’s important book Life at the Bottom portrays those in
England whose economic poverty is relative, not absolute, but whose mental,
cultural, and spiritual impoverishment is a charge against their society. Their nihilism, self-destructive
patterns of behavior and social pathologies reflect a mindset in which they see
themselves as helpless victims of circumstance, with no feeling of personal
responsibility. Living in an eternal
present with no sense of the future, they not only deride schooling for
themselves, but attack those who seek it.
Babies for some of Dalrymple’s dysfunctional teenage girls are like pets
for amusement or vehicles for their sense of self-importance or an economic
“meal ticket.” Many other teenage
single mothers, Dalrymple recounts, want to be good parents but don’t know how; they don’t understand
the difference between “taking care” of a child and “raising” a child.
Dalrymple despairs of Britain’s ability or will to
solve these problems. In the 21st
century, America must resolve to face our similar social and cultural problems,
to deal resolutely with them and to solve them. Appropriate education is a crucial first step—pragmatic
experience shows that education is not a consumable that “costs,” but a matchless
investment that “pays,” not a zero-sum game of taking from Peter to benefit
Paul but a positive-sum game in which everyone wins from a better educated
public.
There will always be differentials of achievement
because of varying levels of ability, imagination, energy, ambition and effort. In the society we seek, however, one in
which everyone can read, write and count, and all are exposed to as much formal
education and vocational training as they can absorb, productive and fulfilling
careers can and should be available to all.
Nobel laureate Edmund Phelps’ important book, Rewarding Work, discusses employment as
a chief source of an individual’s personal and intellectual development, a potential
source of pride (Thorsten Veblen’s instinct of workmanship) and of self-esteem
(Ralph Waldo Emerson’s self-reliance).
Providing jobs (for earning one’s way) vs. providing benefits (in a culture
of dependency) is a major challenge, especially for the “working poor” who
deserve encouragement and help.
“Producers” have a different mindset than “dependents.” If we provide employment opportunities
for those ready, able and willing to work, we can recall that our Founding
Fathers felt responsible not for our “happiness” but for our “pursuit of
happiness.”
B) Prison Incarceration
America has 5% of the world’s population and nearly
one quarter of its prison inmates.
Germany, by contrast, has 93 people in prison per 100,000 of population,
while America has eight times that rate, or 750 in jail per 100,000. Yet no one feels safer in Chicago or
Boston than in Berlin or
Frankfurt. Furthermore, over half
those in New York State prisons are recidivists—back again after we have had a
chance to “enter their lives.” The
American criminal justice system clearly needs rethinking about those we arrest
and about what happens to those imprisoned. The Collapse of
American Criminal Justice, by Harvard Law School Professor William Stuntz,
provides a good overview of our problem.
To begin with, we must understand that the same
well-intentioned mindset that dealt with alcoholism by instituting Prohibition
(1920-1933)—with its criminal aftermath—conjured up our badly thought out and
ineptly implemented War On Drugs—with its unintended but destructive
consequences. In one of life’s
great ironies, certified liberals like Joe Biden, Rahm Emanuel and Eric Holder
have endorsed incarceration practices that have devastated our inner cities—more
than half of all black men without a high school diploma go to prison at some
time in their lives.
Second, the quintessentially American application of
technology to crime prevention (primarily the inspired work of New York’s Jack
Maples’ and Bill Bratton’s CompStat, implementing James Q. Wilson’s “broken
windows” theory) has increased police efficiency significantly but with
unforeseen social ramifications.
Put these two factors together and the following facts
evolve: A) arrests for marijuana
possession in New York went from fewer than 5,000 in 1993 to over 50,000 in
1999; arrests for gambling and prostitution remained unchanged. B) Marijuana use, studies show, is significantly higher
among whites than among blacks, and much higher for whites than Latinos. C) Blacks, who comprise 28% of New
York’s population, account for 52% of the city’s
misdemeanor marijuana arrests, with non-black Latinos
accounting for 31% of arrests.
Whites, with 35% of the population, had fewer than 10% of marijuana
arrests in the years 2004 to 2008.
One conclusion obvious to a growing number of
observers is to call for the legalization—but high taxation—of marijuana, a
substance all studies show to be no more harmful than tobacco or alcohol. (Sixteen states have legalized
marijuana for medical use, and over a dozen more have such legislation
pending.) Nationally and
internationally (Mexico being a prime example), the War On Drugs as presently
conducted has been a failure, and it must be reconsidered from all standpoints.
Another conclusion, since data does show that marijuana
arrests do indeed relate well to catching violent criminals, is to encourage
serious, constructive dialogue on “stop and frisk” and similar controversial
matters between the police and the inner city community, which is more
afflicted by violent crime than other areas, with staggering “black on black”
homicide rates. Insensitivity by
some over-zealous (and sometimes racist) police and hypersensitivity by some in
the inner city are an explosive combination.
Some paranoid intellectuals (e.g. Michelle Alexander
in The New Jim Crow) see the whole
criminal justice system merely as a vehicle to oppress blacks; they make little
effort to understand the problems of the police or to seek constructive
solutions, such as more effective “community policing.” Public safety, on the one hand, and
proper respect for the public, on the other, are each important “rights.” That is why the ancient Greeks defined
tragedy as “the conflict between two rights.” Those who decry the use of metal detectors in schools, for
example, must reflect on the impact of lethal hand guns and switch blade knives
in those schools.
The recent widely-publicized issue of Afrika Owes
and Central Harlem’s 137th
Street Gang is a profoundly thought-provoking example of the breakdown of real
world, effective communication between the inner city and the police. Fact A) after the arrest and conviction
of the 137th Street Gang, homicides in the
police precinct dropped from 11 to one, yes, from 11
to one in a year. Fact B) Afrika Owes,
the moll of the gang leader, was recorded on her cell phone planning to bring
guns into Rikers Island and told to “shoot to kill” if stopped. Fact C) well-known leaders in the
Harlem community rose to her defense; the Abyssinian Baptist Church posted her
$50,000 bail; and Congressman Charles Rangel spoke on her behalf, saying, “Anyone
can make a mistake.” Fact D)
nowhere in the local press was there any comment on the viciously destructive
role of the 137th Street Gang in the life of Central Harlem. The police and the courts were
universally cast as the “heavies” for doing their job in protecting the public. In public discussions it is as if one
side speaks Urdu and the other side Esperanto, with little mutual
understanding. (A more promising
sign was the recent arrest of a narcotics gang working out of a West 132nd
Street Harlem furniture store—on complaints from neighbors. The creation of the Brooklyn Black
Clergy—NYPD Task Force on Crime is another.)
“Best practices” in criminal justice internationally treat
drug use as a public health problem, with free detoxification programs for
addicts; drug sale is treated as a serious criminal problem. First offenders are segregated from
hardened criminals and are taught (if necessary) to read, write and count
before release. Vocational
training as auto mechanics, pastry chefs, refrigeration and air conditioning
repair personnel, etc. is provided.
The remarkable rate in Nordic countries in successfully rebuilding lives
and in turning dysfunctional addicts into productive citizens is impressive. The financial return to any society on investment
in “human capital” for first offenders is immense—for the former prisoner
(whose life is turned around), for the taxpayer (fewer expenditures, more
receipts) and for the public (reduced crime).
Many excellent studies have made practical,
constructive recommendations for U.S. reforms. Decriminalizing marijuana possession heads most lists,
followed by: converting drug possession crimes to misdemeanors or civil penalties
(e.g. California in 2010, Kentucky in 2011); limiting pre-trial detention to
those who pose high threats to public safety; eliminating mandatory minimum
sentences; reclassifying low level felonies to misdemeanors; and total
rethinking of parole practices.
No society wants to encourage drug addiction, but no
society wants the appalling impact of violent and corrupting drug cartels or
drugs’ devastating impact on the lives of the poorest. The presidents of Guatemala, El
Salvador, Costa Rica and other Latin American countries have pleaded with the
U.S. to rethink its drug laws, and they are right.
The U.S. rate of homicide and of gun ownership are other
scandals. Gun lobbyists have made
certain that these issues receive little objective public attention or
discussion. Guns are more easily
available in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world, including hand guns and
automatic weapons like those used in prominent recent mass murders; and this is
reflected in our homicide rates which, though recently declining, are still
“off the scale.” Ownership of hand
guns and automatic weapons is largely a “non-issue” in American life. Our Constitution protects “the right to
bear arms” just as it does “free speech.”
Libel, slander and shouting “fire” falsely in a crowded theater are
prohibited, however, and so should be brandishing a loaded submachine gun.
After the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin
Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, and the shooting of Ronald Reagan and Gabrielle
Giffords, it is hard to believe that some states (such as Alaska, Arizona,
Vermont and Wyoming) require no permit at all to harbor a hidden weapon. Thanks, National Rifle Association.
C) Immigration
A country that calls itself “a nation of immigrants”
is hard-pressed to address calmly and rationally a subject with such emotional
baggage.
On the one hand, we forget the “No Irish Need Apply”
signs, the restrictive covenants against Jews, the Chinese Exclusion Act,
etc.—all aimed at people whose children and grandchildren became full-fledged,
productive citizens. (The current
governor of Maine, a Republican leading the battle against immigration, is a
direct descendent of French Canadians whose entry into America was fiercely
opposed by his predecessors.) On
the other hand, today’s immigrants are seen by some as competitors for jobs or
as expensive public charges.
Emma Lazarus’ verse inscribed on the base of the
Statue of Liberty was written in 1883, when the tired, poor “huddled masses
yearning to breathe free” were welcomed as cheap labor for an expanding
economy. Frederick Jackson
Turner’s “frontier thesis” was put forth in 1893, when the West, still open to
settlement, was the home of rugged individualism, personal initiative and
personal responsibility. Today,
the American taxpayer is increasingly reluctant to pay even for increased
educational opportunities or social uplift for the deprived in the “hollows” of
our rural South or our Northern inner cities, let alone pay for services to
immigrants. The time has come for
us to ask, “Which of the seven billion people beyond our borders should we
admit to U.S. citizenship—and for whose well-being should we accept responsibility”?
Sealing our now-porous borders seems a “no-brainer.” Encouraging the entry of immigrants
we want and facing frankly the
challenge of the eleven million-plus undocumented immigrants already here are others.
For the undocumented, those who unlawfully entered the
country, pragmatism, common sense and a realization of the profound social
upheaval attendant on any other solution would seem to lead to a logical
conclusion: granting some form of amnesty, mandatory registration of aliens,
and a procedure by which undocumented persons living here productively for a certain
number of years—avoiding serious crime, paying taxes and not becoming public
charges—could become legal
citizens, with (hopefully) educated, upwardly mobile children. “Bad eggs” could be deported.
Thereafter, immigration could be limited to
individuals meeting appropriate standards of education and skills, or with vocational
abilities of value to the U.S. And,
importantly, severe penalties should then be imposed on employers of future
undocumenteds.
Undocumented immigrants reflect a large percentage of
adults in America not possessing a high school education, with little command
of English and with major handicaps to their
advancement.
It is clearly in the best interests of the American public, as well as
of the undocumented, to help them become full-fledged, productive members of
society.
The third best financial investment ever made by the
United States government was the G.I. Bill, providing for educational expenses
of our WWII veterans (the best investment was the Louisiana Purchase and the
second best the purchase of Alaska).
Case studies of the lifetime earnings and lifetime income tax payments
of identical twins, one of whom went to school on the G.I. Bill and the other
of whom did not, show a large return to the government on the funds invested.
There may be a better formula for achieving national
well-being than by enhancing the
“human capital” and “social capital” of all its citizens; but if so, it is a
closely guarded secret.
Conclusion:
America of the future will be what we make it.
We can choose to go the route of recent failed
societies—self-indulgent, ignoring future rewards for present benefits,
demanding more from the economy than it can afford, treating tax evasion as a
great game (distinguishing public from private morality), focusing on narrow
self-interest rather than on the common good, with the richest and most
powerful “gaming the system” for their own benefit.
Or, with renewed acceptance of our traditional “social
contract,” we can revert to an appropriately modified version of America’s
historic ethos—one that values hard work and savings, character and competence;
that willingly sacrifices luxuries today for a better life for our children
tomorrow; that is proud of contributing to the common good and that has trust
in the integrity of our institutions and our leaders. That ethos sees universal education as the vehicle for
general upward mobility, with “need-blind” admission as a goal. “And, yes,” Americans have
traditionally thought, “I am my brother’s keeper!”
Equality and excellence are not mutually exclusive,
and a healthy society reflects both.
Equal access to public goods—education and health, museums and
libraries, parks and playgrounds—does not require neglect of the needs of outstanding
individuals whose achievements are
national treasures. How to identify,
encourage and reward such greatness, while providing opportunity for all, is a
continuing challenge.
America today is at a major inflection point, as it
faces a changing world beyond our borders and complex new factors at home. The more wisely we set our national
goals; the more prudently we allocate our resources—human and material; the
more effectively our political system adjusts to our emerging challenges at
home and abroad, the brighter that future will be.
The difficult choices we must make require more
thoughtful, measured considerations than we are devoting to them. Our transition from creditor to debtor
nation and from budget surpluses to massive deficits will force prudence on us. For example, our public must demand
from our legislators some commonsense balance—between the unrealistic
profligacy of a California and the stingy backwardness of a Mississippi.
In an increasingly complex world, less government is
probably not feasible; but more transparent, more efficient and more publicly
responsive government certainly is, if not corrupted by the legal bribery of
improper political “contributions.”
Our hope must lie with the Internet Generation, those
young people who will one day pay the bills acquired when we cut taxes as we
increased military spending, stopped investing in infrastructure and promised
government workers pensions we cannot afford. Opinion polls say the young understand better than we do
that productive free markets must work along with government, that our
political institutions must regain public confidence, that taxation must be
rationally apportioned, that we are not only heirs of the past but stewards of
the future.
The young are our “stewards of the future,” and our
hopes are with them.
(Daniel Rose’s talks may be found on
www.danielrose.org
