But while our culture of imagination is still vibrant, the other critical factor that still differentiates countries today ”” and is not a commodity ”” is good governance, which can harness creativity. And that we may be losing. I am talking about the ability of a society’s leaders to think long term, address their problems with the optimal legislation and attract capable people into government. What I increasingly fear today is that America is only able to produce “suboptimal” responses to its biggest problems ”” education, debt, financial regulation, health care, energy and environment….
The standard answer [to the the governance problem] is that we need better leaders. The real answer is that we need better citizens. We need citizens who will convey to their leaders that they are ready to sacrifice, even pay, yes, higher taxes, and will not punish politicians who ask them to do the hard things. Otherwise, folks, we’re in trouble. A great power that can only produce suboptimal responses to its biggest challenges will, in time, fade from being a great power ”” no matter how much imagination it generates.
Grandma said that, too.
“We need citizens who will convey to their leaders that they are ready to sacrifice, even pay, yes, higher taxes…”
Yep, that’ll get us out of the recession – the ghost of Walter Mondale remains ever present in the liberal elite media clique. Uggh!
I will reiterate that I think T 1:9 is ill served by such extensive coverage of Tom Friedman’s writings.
RE: “We need citizens who will convey to their leaders that they are ready to sacrifice, even pay, yes, higher taxes, and will not punish politicians who ask them to do the hard things.”
Yes indeed — that’s it. The leaders do not have enough money to spend — they must have more.
[blockquote]We need citizens who will convey to their leaders that they are ready to sacrifice, even pay, yes, higher taxes, and will not punish politicians who ask them to do the hard things.[/blockquote]
I would be willing to pay higher taxes, and not to punish politicians who ask us to do hard things – if the higher taxes were part of a philosophy of true fiscal conservatism, were not meant permanently to enlarge the federal (or state or local) budgets (which means that, after paying down the debt, the taxes would decrease), and were coupled with the sort of bold, hard thinking that politicians don’t really like to do; viz., that which decreases the power of their level of government, devolving it to lower levels of government and to the people themselves.
But I’m not holding my breath. The democratic republicanism that informed the framing of our Constitution and that de Tocqueville praised in American government and society is very nearly dead in this country. As I tell my children (under my tutelage for World History this year), I more and more know how Cicero felt toward the end of his life.
How high a percentage of my gross income do i need to pay in taxes to be a good citizen? Because my wife and i have a household income well under six figures, and when you add up federal income taxes, FICA & est. Soc Sec, state income and sales taxes, local income taxes and property taxes, we’re at 35% and heading up next year.
Do i have to say i’m cool with 50% (let’s not even talk about my tithe at this point) before Tom Friedman thinks i’m a good citizen?
So, one cannot be a good citizen unless one supports the perpetual expansion of the power and fiscal appetite of the federal government?
I think I’ll pass on that particular honor.
Right now Senators are little more than super-representatives of the electorate of a state; whence another Henry Clay? Mr. Smith’s trip to Washington (and Sen. Burris’s) aside, , repeal the 17th Amendment and let states chose their Senators as they may.
Amen. Direct election of senators was a terrible mistake.
Add my “Amen” to #6 as well. Our existence as a [i]federal[/i] republic, as opposed to the centralized unitary state that we’re rapidly becoming, started with the federally-enforced direct election of senators.
Mr. Friedman is wrong. Our mess won’t be fixed until “We The People” are willing to flush so many incumbents in a sufficient number of successive elections that the lesson is imprinted on Capital Hill, Pennsylvania Avenue and K Street that the whorehouse that is Congress is closed and the Lobbyist ‘johns’ will just have to gratify themselves under their own raincoats.
Friedman is right to say that citizens need to step up. He’s wrong that this means acquiescence to higher taxes. Give me a break, Friedman. What a non-sequitur. Citizens, step up! Demand better governance, but DO NOT buy Friedman’s balognious assumptions about highter taxes!
Friedman’s major premise is correct – the leadership qualities of Members of Congress appear to be generally deficient and the capacity to think twenty to fifty years forward and act for the welfare and security of the Nation as a whole is virtually non-existent. That is the main point of the article. To lose that point in the subsidiary example of tax and fiscal policy is a mistake. Whether tax increases are good policy and, if so, what those taxes should look like, is another topic. But Friedman correctly notes that there is a species of politician today at local, state and national levels, that cannot intelligently and candidly address fiscal issues responsibly because of fear of the discussion of taxes. This itself contributes to fiscal irresponsibility and devious evasions of tax horse-sense through fees, borrowing, and all sorts of fiscal camouflage. Both major parties are guilty of this.
Well put, Scout.