Thomas Friedman Suggests Educator Tax Cuts

In Sunday's NY Times, columnist Thomas Friedman discusses the need for America to use part of the economic stimulus to change the current education system. Unlike California, where the latest plan is to cut five days out of the school year to save money, Friedman argues that money should be invested in education, so that more Americans will be prepared to create the innovations that will lead to a re-birth of American leadership. He also suggests that we should try to keep some of the foreign born students here in America, rather than educating them and then sending them home with their creative ideas.

"Over the next couple of years, two very big countries, America and China, will give birth to something very important. They’re each going to give birth to close to $1 trillion worth of economic stimulus — in the form of tax cuts, infrastructure, highways, mass transit and new energy systems. But a lot is riding on these two babies. If China and America each give birth to a pig — a big, energy-devouring, climate-spoiling stimulus hog — our kids are done for. It will be the burden of their lifetimes. If they each give birth to a gazelle — a lean, energy-efficient and innovation-friendly stimulus — it will be the opportunity of their lifetimes.

So here’s hoping that our new administration and Congress will be guided in shaping the stimulus by reading John Maynard Keynes in one hand — to get as much money injected as quickly as possible — and by reading “Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future” with the other.

“Gathering Storm” was the outstanding 2005 report produced by our National Academies on how to keep America competitive by vastly improving math and science education, investing in long-term research, recruiting top students from abroad and making U.S. laws the most conducive in the world for innovation.

You see, even before the current financial crisis, we were already in a deep competitive hole — a long period in which too many people were making money from money, or money from flipping houses or hamburgers, and too few people were making money by making new stuff, with hard-earned science, math, biology and engineering skills.

Snip.

One of the smartest stimulus moves we could make would be to eliminate federal income taxes on all public schoolteachers so more talented people would choose these careers. I’d also double the salaries of all highly qualified math and science teachers, staple green cards to the diplomas of foreign students who graduate from any U.S. university in math or science — instead of subsidizing their educations and then sending them home — and offer full scholarships to needy students who want to go to a public university or community college for the next four years."

Right now I'm about halfway through Friedman's "Hot, Flat and Crowded." Frankly, I think the man has some darn good ideas....

Car company bailout?

There's been a lot of talk the last few days about the danger to the US economy if the big 3 automakers continue on their downward trend and go under. A lot of people are calling for a bailout, which would cost at the minimum tens of billions of dollars. In today's NY Times, Thomas Friedman writes about the crisis, noting that automakers have turned their back on innovation in order to continue producing gas guzzlers. He suggests that the best course of action would be to follow the proposals made in the Wall Street Journal by Paul Ingrassia, a former Detroit bureau chief for that paper.

“In return for any direct government aid,” Ingrassia wrote, “the board and the management [of G.M.] should go. Shareholders should lose their paltry remaining equity. And a government-appointed receiver — someone hard-nosed and nonpolitical — should have broad power to revamp G.M. with a viable business plan and return it to a private operation as soon as possible. That will mean tearing up existing contracts with unions, dealers and suppliers, closing some operations and selling others and downsizing the company ... Giving G.M. a blank check — which the company and the United Auto Workers union badly want, and which Washington will be tempted to grant — would be an enormous mistake.”

Friedman suggests that a call be made to Steve Jobs, asking him to take over a car company for a year, which he thinks will be enough time for Jobs to come up with an I-car.

I don't think it's a good idea to let the car companies go under, but I hate the idea that the feds would spend as much as it takes to bail them out. I kind of like the idea of seeing what Jobs could do in creating an I-car. What do you think?