What Do We Need?

I hear daily about the economic recession we are in and the enormous debt we have in our country. I also know that something everyone can support is a reduction in taxes. There is substantial evidence, which I won't address here, that supports the reduction in tax rates as a method for actually increasing income to retire debt. But, for current governments to reduce taxes is as difficult as for people to lose weight.

The secret to losing weight is to cut back on what we eat. When we do that, we cut back on the portions of things we eat and give up entirely a lot of those things that are nice to have but contribute to our waist. Even so, we have to ensure we eat what the body needs to stay healthy.

The same is true of governments. Governments must cut back on those expenses. Much of what is spent by governments is like that extra piece of chocolate we eat, or just one more hamburger while we are telling ourselves that we are dieting. Sure, we're dieting alright, well, actually, we are mostly dieting. The "die" and the "ing" parts. We need to wake up to realities and reduce both our intake and our inaction on reducing.

In the area of reducing, chief among the targets for reduction are taxes. We need tax cuts for workers and for businesses. As a 23-year Air Force veteran and officer, I particularly like the "Returning Heroes" tax cut incentive for hiring returning Veterans and Wounded Warriors. I think those who went in harms way for us deserve no less.

But also important for me is education; and in particular, education for our workforce. We need to have safe, healthy, and technologically-advanced schools. I would much rather put money in better education than better ostentation. We need to remove the sweets from our menu while adding the protein and calcium.

Metaphoric protein and calcium for the growth of muscle and bone in our educational system are needed beginning in Kindergarten and passing through the senior year in high school. During my 15 years teaching in work force education it seemed as if we were always begging for the up to date technology so that we could give our students training on the actual equipment they would be expected to use and maintain on the job.

Any help in that area, especially if it can move the administrative and bureaucratic begrudgery out of the way so that schools can get the technology they need, and teachers can teach what the students need to learn, is worth everybody supporting. Our schools, from kindergarten to 12th grade, need to be fully equipped to teach 21st century skills in math, science, and other technical fields. Local Boards of Education can best decide what they need to teach in order to become, and continue to be, the educational, vocational and job skills development centers that will attract business.

This support must also extend to the other engines of workforce education in our state, the community and technical colleges. We need to support the infrastructure needs of these important institutions. They, too, need the latest in technology on which to train their students for the work force.

Now to the crux of my concern. Usually we talk of the K through 12 system and the community and technical college systems as different entities. For years the bureaucrats have talked about "seamless education." Rarely have they recognized that their self serving ideas have only served to create broader seams. They create these seams by defining what students can not do. I say, we must bridge those seams by saying what students can do. It is only by finding how our children can pave their way to a bright future that we can really succeed as a county, a state, and a nation. To ignore this fact is to play Russian Roulette with our nation's future.