Tom Friedman, who consistently analyzes the global
economy in a way that few journalists can, wrote a pre-debate column the other
day and explained how he scores the presidential debates. In retrospect,
Friedman’s column provides clarity.
The writer explained that his system of judging debates
is “not based on zingers or extra points for
energizing the base,” but rather on which candidate provides the nation with “an
honest diagnosis of where we are and how we get out of this mess. Up to now,
neither candidate has been willing to do that.”
Here’s Friedman’s top two issues
that Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have yet to address:
“… First, I’ll be looking for that
honest diagnosis. We are where we are today, in part, because the merger of
globalization and information technology has transformed how goods and services
are bought and sold, made and designed. This merger makes old jobs obsolete
faster and spins off new jobs faster, but all the good new jobs require higher
skills. As a country, notes Lawrence Katz, the Harvard University labor
economist, we have historically ensured that our work force kept up with new
technology by steadily expanding public education -- first universal primary
education and then universal secondary education. But since the 1980s, says
Katz, when we needed to move to some form of universal post-secondary education
to keep pace with globalization and I.T., we didn’t. Instead, he points out, ‘our
high school graduation rates stopped improving and our growth in college
graduates slowed substantially -- far below what we need for rapid growth and
shared prosperity.’”
“… Second, listen for a plan that rises to the true scale
of that challenge, one that proposes job-creating infrastructure investments
tied with a program to stimulate more start-ups (which have slowed) tied with a
credible deficit-reduction plan — that would be phased in as the economy
recovers — tied with a plan to get more Americans post-secondary education.”
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