Time to Start Thinking And/Or Drinking

I had the pleasure to host a discussion yesterday at ITIF with Ed Luce of the Financial Times who is also author of a great new book “Time to Start Thinking: America in the Age of Decline.”

There is much in the book worth reading, including how he documents the U.S. losing its competitive edge. But I want to focus on one thing Ed discussed: the lack of real action in Washington to effectively respond to the competitiveness challenge.

The standard response is to blame Washington. But Ed, in my view, rightly talked about the responsibility that needs to be borne by Americans themselves. They don’t want to pay the higher taxes needed to fund investments in science, training and infrastructure and to pay for significant cuts in the effective corporate tax rate. And they certainly don’t want to have their entitlements cut, especially to have to hear that they will need to retire later than they would like.

We are becoming like the Greeks! As Ed so eloquently wrote, “it’s time to start thinking.”