The Great Divide

Did you watch Tuesday night’s State of the Union address? You all know me well enough by now to know that I was excited about it for a couple of days, and was glued to the TV while it was going on. I even took a few notes.

My impression of it was that although it wasn’t one of President Obama’s more inspiring speeches (like the one he gave at the Arizona memorial recently), it set a good tone. It was short on specifics, but touched on what we need to do in order to move forward. And it mentioned that we move forward together, or not at all, which is exactly right. It was generally optimistic, asserting that Americans have what it takes to come back from the brink of disaster, if we all work together. Even if it means making some tough decisions. (Of course, to me, tax cuts for the rich isn’t a tough decision...more like a no-brainer.)

In the past couple of days, I’ve been reading a lot of analyses of the President’s speech, and late last night I read a short article in Time (an issue from a couple of weeks ago) that sort of crystallized my thoughts. One thing that struck me was the President’s call for investment in infrastructure and education. Much has been made of the word “investment,” with the righties saying that it’s just more spending. Well, sure...but there is an important difference between reckless spending and investment in our future.

It seems to me that this might very well be the fundamental difference between the right and the left, even beyond their differences when it comes to social issues. I don’t think anyone will argue that we need to spend our money wisely, but to completely stop funding for so many of the projects and issues and institutions that make us unique and wonderful (as well as keeping us healthy) seems like the height of folly to me. Whether it’s the National Park System or NPR, literacy programs or free clinics, highway projects or scientific research (yes, including fruit flies!), these are things that enrich, educate, and edify us. ALL of us, as a country.

One of the things that I liked about Barack Obama from the moment I read The Audacity of Hope was that he seemed to have vision. He seemed to be able to look at the big picture and the long view, and understand how interconnected all of these things are. To realize that we are part of a global economy now, and what happens on the other side of the world can affect us here. He is still taking that view, and I agree with it. Although everyone needs to suck it up and make some sacrifices, there are still certain things that we need to maintain and improve upon if we want to compete globally. We are rapidly losing that contest, and we ignore these things (or don’t fund them) at our own peril.

A couple of examples. In our highly mobile culture, we need to have decent highways upon which to drive, and safe bridges. Our interstate system dates to the 1950s, and these things must be maintained. It’s how your food gets to your supermarket, it’s how goods and products get to the store so that YOU, the consumer, can spend your hard-earned cash at places like hardware stores, where you buy things to improve your own home so that your quality of life is better! See how it’s all connected? Some repairs have to be made; if you’ve got a leak in your roof and just let it go, the problem is going to become much worse and cost much more to fix. A simple roof repair vs. structural repair due to water damage, possible environmental cleanup due to mold, replacement of damaged household goods, and so on. I think we need to understand that we need to fix our country’s leaky roof. An added bonus is that such projects will create jobs. (Think the WPA.) More about jobs in a moment.

One very leaky roof right now is our education problem, and people, we really do have a problem. We are falling behind many others, especially when it comes to science education. (I’ll attribute part of that to the idiotic notion that creationism is in any way science and should be taught along REAL science, but that’s a post for another day.) The decent-paying jobs of the future—indeed, the jobs of the present—are going to come in the scientific field.

During the 2008 Presidential campaign, John McCain made a campaign stop in Michigan and talked about the auto industry and those jobs. He said something to the effect of Michigan has lost a lot of manufacturing jobs, and here’s a hard truth, folks...a lot of them aren’t coming back. Although I didn’t support McCain, I gave him credit for telling it like it is. There will always be manufacturing jobs, but not to the extent that our post-WWII manufacturing boom guaranteed. There was a recent story in my local paper about all the manufacturing jobs that South Bend is losing; comments on the story blamed the local government for the job losses. I believe it is not a local phenomenon, and what is happening on a local scale is reflected across the entire country. We MUST begin to put more of a focus on education beyond high school. We need to change our mindset, encourage kids to study, and to place a value on knowledge—and especially a value on our teachers. The days when you could follow in your father’s footsteps at the Studebaker factory have gone the way of...well, the Studebaker.

The article I mentioned was titled “Where the Jobs Aren’t” (Zachary Karabell) and raised the possibility that our current rate of unemployment is not cyclical as in years past (a reaction to a crisis or recession) and is now structural. Advances in technology and increasing globalization have resulted in higher productivity, which then results in fewer workers necessary. There is no going back from that. The jobs we need to expand upon are those in research and development, jobs in which we work to solve problems like oil dependence, and health care jobs to care for our aging populace. All of these require advanced degrees.

It’s all connected. The Time article states “...the U.S. can manage high unemployment if it focuses on building a new economy with cutting-edge infrastructure and education that rivals that found anywhere else in the world.” As Rand Paul and his fellow teabaggers propose cuts in the Department of Education, the NIH, and the FDA, I despair for the future of our country. This is exactly what we need to ensure that we continue to fund, and yes...invest in.