More on the 5 Pillars

Back in June, Ed wrote about the 5 Pillars mentioned in Part I section 3. As I complete the book I find this is one of the areas that I find both the most sensible AND the most hopeless. 

The first pillar has to do with education – an issue whose importance few would be able to reject. Yet even on this first pillar we are at an impasse. Charter school, public schools, teacher accountability, standardized tests, right to strike/contract negotiations, standards, the list of hot button issues goes on and on. I imagine there are plenty of these issues that our reading group would have a difficult time agreeing on, what hope do we have with reaching a consensus with a national audience. I don’t think we have any chance at all.

The second pillar, dealing with the building/maintaining of infrastructure, seems to make sense, especially when the jobs are so critically needed, but I don’t see how that will happen with our current political climate. To spend money with the deficit that we have without raising taxes is crazy and yet, who could be elected with the pledge to raise taxes? This is true despite the fact that the average American is currently taxed (federal, state and local) at a rate lower than at any time since the Eisenhower administration. (http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2011-05-05-tax-cut-record-low_n.htm)

Yet the conventional wisdom is thinking that we are overtaxed. Who ever wants to be the person in the group that speaks up and says we’re not taxed enough?

The third pillar concerns the proper balance on immigration – borders that are not too tight but not too lax either. I know this is a major issue for most of the country but I have to admit I don’t spend too much time thinking about it. Perhaps it’s because of where we live. Of the issues involved in the 5 pillars, I have to think this would be one of the easiest to fix. We would need the political will to do so, so perhaps that makes a solution as far fetched as anything else.

Pillar four is government support for research and development. Again, not being a person overly concerned with my tax bill as long as I don’t think it’s being totally pocketed by unscrupulous people, I like the idea of government seeding research, even if it mean mistakes such as Solyndra, which, I have become more comfortable with as I learned more about it. I wish that things worked out better with the company, but I haven’t been convinced of anything happening other than a crashing silicon market and the risk involved in any leading edge company.

Pillar five is again a political litmus test. From where I see things, I’m all for more regulation on private economic activity. Perhaps this is because I have no private economic activity. I can’t help thinking if we had had more accountability on those who were responsible for the sub-prime scandals and similar financial dealings, we might have avoided this economic downturn or at least made it much shorter. I know that there are those on the other side that say the quickest way to get us out of the situation we are in now is to cut, not strengthen, regulations.

As I said, many of these issues and what to do about them seem simple at first blush but each is tied to a core fundamental belief in the role of government in a nation’s prosperity. I don’t know is a book like this changes anyone’s belief. I think it allows you to find enough to support any belief you want to hold on to.