The conventional wisdom about the fall elections, especially the presidential one, is that it will be decided over the current unemployment picture. Which may be true, but if it is, we will be choosing our leaders over a large bucket of crap -- or, as I like to say, like we usually do.
It may be acceptable to choose our leaders over employment issues. Maybe. But to say that is to make a huge assumption -- that the government has much influence over unemployment in the first place. If conservatives in this country are correct in arguing that only private businesses create jobs, and that the only useful thing the government can do is get out of the way of the private sector, that means the government should should not be judged by the unemployment rate. If the government can't create jobs, then the unemployment rate has nothing to do with government competency, and we shouldn't evaluate our leaders by this standard. A real conservative should say that high unemployment is the failure of Wall Street, not the White House. Saying that government is blocking job creation is a cop out. If Wall Street creates jobs, it should be held responsible for doing so. We hold the auto industry responsible for building cars that work, so Wall Street should be responsible for making investments that create jobs. If not, they should be put out of business the same way we put restaurants that make bad food out of business.
If on the other hand we accept that a well-run government can lower unemployment, an assumption that sounds more liberal than conservative, we run into a different problem. People are unemployed for all kinds of reasons, and not all of them have to do with what the government is doing to stoke the economy. In our economy, there are job opportunities everywhere. The real problem is that the people who are unemployed lack the skills to fill the jobs that are open.
In the health care sector, where I work, there are always job openings. The same is true in many areas of engineering, in science and science education, and in computer technology. I doubt people who are fluent in multiple languages have much problem finding work either.
If you listen to the presidential candidates (and most of the local ones also), nothing they say betrays any understanding of the link between technical skills -- that is, education -- and employment. When I listen to Mitt Romney, for example, I hear someone who talks about jobs like widgets. If the administration in power goes a good job, it produces more widgets, and voila, employment goes down. The impression is that good government equals jobs and, in Romney's case, good government seems to be nothing more than low taxes and no regulation.
The medical group I work for is currently looking for several physicians. I am wondering how far Mitt Romney thinks he needs to cut taxes to make more doctors show up in Jackson, Mississippi to work with me. If he thinks he will slice regulations until someone with a low education level can work as a medical doctor, I will tell him to drop dead.
Here's a hint, Mitt: In the words of REM's Michael Stipe, You can't get there from here.
Everyone ought to know that education creates jobs. An educated workforce is more flexible, more adaptable, and harder to replace with overseas unskilled labor. You want a secure job, learn to do something nobody else can.
And yet, listening to the airwaves, you'd swear no one had any idea. To the politicians, employment is all about taxation and regulation. Businesses do all the heavy lifting of employment, the job creators being the heroes of every employment story.
Except that they aren't. Employment is about skills, and skills are about education, and businesses don't educate. Some of them train, but training isn't education, any more than sound finger technique is piano virtuosity. Education is so much broader, so wide-ranging and elemental, that businesses, with their gaze at the immediate bottom line, can never undertake education in a way that will affect long term employment. That is where the government comes in. The government oversees education in this country, and how well children learn depends to some degree on how well politicians do their job. There are many factors besides politics, but politicians who ignore education are ignoring the only opportunity for real improvement to long term unemployment. To listen to them these days, you'd swear they have no idea.
Which is why this year's election, a crucial as everyone says it is, will have little impact on the long term prospects of America. We are having the wrong conversation. Until American leaders (and the public) appreciate the value of education, and take an interest in it with the kind of national fervor usually only reserved for wars, budget battles, and raising campaign donations, things will not get any better.