If you want to look for an example of how to hobble into the future, you need look no further than your own backyard. Chances are your governor or policymakers are staring down, sizing up and taking aim at their feet—and your future.
The old saying, “no pain, no gain,” certainly applies to spending cuts. Every American has heard how we have spent beyond our means for too long and need to start reeling in. We have, and we do. But we also need to replace the near-religious fervor for “austerity” in spending with wisdom in spending.
There has been a lot of talk recently about the United States trying to “win” the future over the next few years but it is more likely that we will “lose” it in that time. Myopic politicians everywhere are content to slash spending where it is politically easy and forget about tackling the prickly, and on the whole more important, issues.
The problem is that they aren’t taking aim with pistols; they’re pulling out bazookas.
Education, in particular, has come under fire. Over the next few years, states will spend billions of dollars less on teaching more students than ever before. Having fewer teachers, fewer textbooks and fewer school days hardly seems like the best way to improve American competitiveness in the classroom.
The sheer stupidity of investing less in our children—and by extension our future—is outdone only by the glaring absence of any creative will on the part of politicians to get more bang for the taxpayer’s buck. They should not only be looking for ways to spend less, but also for ways to do more with less. That’s wise spending, and it takes more creativity and guts than a lot of our politicians have to offer.
For example, one of the items on the chopping block is the early intervention program Head Start. Started in 1965, it has had mixed reviews linked to the high variability in program quality: Some offices do stellar work, but others do not. The answer to the problem offered by politicians: Don’t fund it. What would be wiser is to take a look at what makes some offices under perform relative to others and have them compete for the funding that could make them better.
Head Start is just one of many programs that Republicans want to take an ax to. Together these programs represent only a small piece of the pie, but their effects have disproportionate impacts. If we really want to get somewhere in shoring up our public finances then we need to look at Medicare and Medicaid, and more specifically, the incentives we give doctors for doing their work. (Those incentives favor more expensive and intrusive measures rather than cheaper preventative ones.) That evaluation will require a lot of wisdom and even more bravery.
Some assert that people remember the intensity of pain more than they do its duration. Policy makers should take this point to heart because it applies in the economic realm, as well. Rather than concentrate all their efforts on maximizing pain now in return for less pain in the future, policy makers should distribute cuts and tough choices across a number of years. It’s not an excuse to do nothing, but rather a safeguard against reckless behavior.
It’s the reckless behavior that we constantly read about in the news that could cause America to limp into the future.
Paul Horak is a Trinity sophomore. His column runs every other Thursday.
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