“J.F.K. took us to the moon. Let B.H.O. take America back to school,” says New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. His column “Tax Cuts for Teachers” is a bit of a sausage–a melange of gee-whiz ideas on how to stimulate the economy by getting “as much money injected as quickly as possible” into the economy while favoring investments in knowledge over infrastructure. ”Our stimulus needs to be both big and smart, both financially and educationally stimulating,” Friedman argues. In a single giddy paragraph, he encourages Obama to reach into the trough with both hands, throwing dollars at education.
One of the smartest stimulus moves we could make would be to eliminate federal income taxes on all public schoolteachers so more talented people would choose these careers. I’d also double the salaries of all highly qualified math and science teachers, staple green cards to the diplomas of foreign students who graduate from any U.S. university in math or science — instead of subsidizing their educations and then sending them home — and offer full scholarships to needy students who want to go to a public university or community college for the next four years.
A bridge is just a bridge, Friedman notes. Once it’s up, it stops stimulating. While investing in education could get us “the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. They create good jobs for years.”
