It’s time for us to stop lying to ourselves about this country.
America is great in many ways, but on a whole host of measures — some of which are shown in the accompanying chart — we have become the laggards of the industrialized world. Not only are we not No. 1 — “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” — we are among the worst of the worst.
In a recent survey of Advanced Economies by the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. fared astonishingly poorly.
• Tied for number one in FOOD INSECURITY, percentage of people who did not have enough food.
• Number one, by far, in prison population.
• In Student Performance in Math and Science, the U.S. ranked behind: Slovenia, Czech Republic, South Korea, Singapore, Ireland, UK, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Japan, Belgium, Finland, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands, Canada, Australia.
Yet this reality and the urgency that it ushers in is too hard for many Americans to digest. They would prefer to continue to bathe in platitudes about America’s greatness, to view our eroding empire through the gauzy vapors of past grandeur.
Republicans have even submitted a draconian budget that would make deep cuts into the tiny vein that is nonsecurity discretionary spending, cuts that would prove devastating to the poor and working class.
At the very time that many Americans — and the very country itself — are struggling to emerge from a very deep hole, the Republican proposal would simply throw the dirt in on top of us.
This cannot be. Financing for education and social services isn’t simply about handouts to the hardscrabble, it is about building an infrastructure that can produce healthy, engaged and well-educated citizens who can compete in an increasingly cutthroat global economy.
One of President Obama’s new catchphrases is “win the future,” but we can’t win the future by ceding the present and romanticizing the past.
Posted By: Richard Kigel
Monday, February 21st 2011 at 5:57PM
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