Friar Bijou wrote:
gbaji wrote:
You seem to be missing that the GOP position isn't just about cutting people off welfare, but about trying to build jobs and opportunities so that people don't have to be on it in the first place.
A GOP platform of subsidizing post-high school education and making American-owned manufacturing companies return those manufacturing jobs to the US, and therefore US citizens, might be a good start.
It's about methodology though, not intended result. The GOP has no problem with post-high school education
when that education actually applies to productive employment demands of the economy. Surely you can see a disconnect in a platform which subsidizes 4 year university education, whilst simultaneously focusing on manufacturing jobs, which largely do not require or benefit from the degrees granted by those institutions. Interestingly enough, it's usually the Right that proposes things like more focus on trade schools and apprenticeship programs. The Left, on the other hand, is attached at the hip to the money side of the education industry, and seems to care more about funneling money into that industry than in actually educating people in the knowledge and skills they'll need to be successful.
Similarly, the Right believes in a free market, not a forced market. So "making manufacturing companies return those jobs" is somewhat in opposition to the idea of that free market. We prefer things like "encouraging" to "making". I'll also point out that the Left does a great job implementing economic policies which drive those jobs away from the US. Making it more expensive to operate manufacturing jobs in the US, then attacking the other guy for there not being enough manufacturing jobs, and then proposing that we force companies to create those cost ineffective jobs in the US anyway, sounds like a horrific way to actually create jobs and economic prosperity, and a great way to impose arbitrary and authoritarian power over the citizens.
There's no perfect solution here, but let's not pretend that the GOP proposals are all wrong, much less that the Dems are all perfect and shiny. We're at least reasonably consistent with our positions, while the Left seems to consistently create the very problems they use to justify more government intervention. They're only consistent with regards to increasing the amount of government power in play.
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If those aren't "viable options" for the GOP to support, please tell me what exactly they are doing (or promoting) to "build jobs and opportunities" in the USA.
How about simply *not* creating regulations that drive those jobs away? How about, if we decide that such regulations are necessary for our clean air, water, etc, that we accept that "manufacturing jobs" are not going to be the future of employment in the US, and focus instead on educations which match the actual jobs that are left. So how about actually focusing on educations in science, engineering, computers, etc? We're fine with classical educations, even liberal arts educations if folks want them, but if the reason for subsidizing education is to help people be able to get good paying jobs, perhaps we should be finding ways to limit those subsidies to just those degrees/certs/training that actually results in gainful employment in our economy rather than the one made up of unicorns and wishful thinking that the Left seems to want to promote.
Let's tie education more directly to the actual job market. Yeah. Evil capitalism and whatnot, but how about allow the industries and businesses to actually set (influence at least) the curriculum standards? Heaven forbid that corporations actually tell universities "this is what we need you to be teaching people", and have that affect the curriculum? Or heaven forbid we actually step away from the "4 year university or bust" approach to education and stop deriding things like trade schools?
You do *not* need a 4 year degree (or any degree) to be successful in our workforce. You need training and skills that are applicable to the industries you might wish to work in. You want suggestions, there you go. I've said many times over the years on this forum that it drives me nuts every time I hear someone insist that there are no good paying jobs in the US, or you have to know people, or have the right connections, or whatnot, when I literally see foreign nationals being hired from all over the world, and brought to the US at ridiculous expense to work jobs here because there physically aren't enough people in the US with the correct skills. We have a massive disconnect between what our education system is teaching, and what our job market is demanding.
Let's start there? Is there anyone who actually has a problem with this? Because it's usually folks with their heads stuck up the rears of the education industry that oppose this, and I'll give you just one guess as to which "side" of our political spectrum those folks are on.
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EDIT: Besides "lower taxes" of course.
This would be in addition to lower taxes.
Seriously though, you could probably get businesses to fund the damn education. Of course, that would require damaging the whole taxes -> student loans -> university -> political support money pump action going on right now, and there are some who don't want that. But it's so cost effective to be able to hire folks from the US that we could probably get this sort of trade school stuff up and running and cut the actual tax cost for higher education in half whilst doing it. If only we could get past the whole "OMG! They want to cut spending for schools!" rhetoric (which really means "they want to cut the amount of tax dollars we can funnel to our university buddies).
Spending more money on something doesn't actually mean you're getting more. It's amazing how often the Left seems to fail to get this.