Although this is Valentine’s Day, my mind is on the State of
the Union Address. I wanted to offer my own state of the union assessment. I
doubt others will pay attention to it but I need to get this off my chest.
The condition of our nation is so-so. I can say this
confidently because of the following elements present in our daily lives:
- Enormous potential exists in the capability of the American People
- Labor supply is readily available to employ and ever willing!
- Educational preparation of our labor pool is the envy of the world
- The economy is growing again and on a better footing than before the recession
- With bubbles burst the American economy can now focus on what really needs to be done
- The Iraq War is over; it is now the responsibility of the Iraqi people
- The Afghanistan War is drawing down; the Afghani must take ownership of their own nation, affairs and war
- The American People appear to understand the realities of their society, its challenges and are ready to make things happen
On the negative side are these challenges:
- Political opponents focused on their own power needs rather than on the needs of the nation
- Education system which pays too much attention to the product of parental dysfunction and not enough on student intellectual development
- Our nation relies on the benefits of an educated public but then dumbs down their expectations
- An enormous stockpile of discovery and invention exists in dust-covered university archives ignored by national leaders
I’m just finishing The
Art of Power by Jon Meacham, a biography of Thomas Jefferson. It is a
fascinating read. It details the trials Jefferson
and our early republic went through in proving the constitution worked. Then as
now questions were present on how the three branches of government would work.
They questioned whether our democracy could stand alone or should reattach
itself to the monarchy of Great
Britain . The American Revolution was
replayed continuously in the political minds of the nation at that time.
Political games were played then as now in a never ending skirmish of influence
and intrigue.
If Americans feel that our political landscape of 2013 is
oddly out of place with our history, they would be wrong. Only in times of
stark terrors of wartime has our nation had a central consensus; even then
there were frenzied arguments on strategy and tactics.
As much as I hate to admit this, America has always been contentious
about its sense of future and how to get there. Someone always sounds the alarm
that what we are about to do is wrong-headed and will lead to certain disaster!
Well the disasters really haven’t occurred. History has happened.
Events occur. Why and how they came about is long studied but rarely in
agreement. Ours is a nation of free thinking and research. We think on our
problems, our options for action and share the task with diverse thinkers and
groups. Then we act and study the results. Then we argue for a few generations
to determine if what we did was right or wrong, and who was responsible!
And somehow we live each day as though it is a given and we
go on with our routines. The disaster still has not happened.
Opposing sides of political leadership maintains balance in
our social contract – the Constitution. As challenges emerge and grow in
importance political leadership circles need to coalesce from time to time and
make decisions in common to handle the most important challenges. They have
done that in the past and will in the future.
Today evidently the people have felt that emerging
challenges are still too distant to require a coalescence of leadership. I
guess the deficit really is not all that important or else the House of
Representatives would not have authorized budgets and expenditures so out of
balance with revenues. They also would not have approved tax reductions at a
time of two wars and growing military expenditures.
No, the deficit can be managed handily with economic
stimulus, growth of the economy, creation of new jobs which develop more tax
revenues and cut unemployment costs. Growing tax collections will also fatten
the trust funds for both Social Security and Medicare. And the annual deficits
will disappear and surpluses will begin to eat away at the accumulated national
debt. Over time this will come into a healthy balance.
The skirmishes for political positioning are empty but
necessary. After all boys will be boys and politicians will be politicians.
They will do what comes naturally.
Only problem is they are so nasty they upset our sense of
civility. Can’t they play a little nicer while the pendulum of progress moves
in its proscribed arc?
The state of the union is normal.
February 14, 2013
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