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Education Will Get You a Job! But We're Cutting Education
We're often reminded that education is the key to adapting to globalization and changing technologies. Reports from Georgetown University, the New York Times, and the Brookings Institution cite the growing importance of higher education. Foreign companies are becoming less dependent on U.S. workers for advanced skills.
(Photo: iStockphoto/TFT)
Adding to the pressure is the need, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, to "educate 350,000 more K-12 students and 1.7 million more public college and university students in the upcoming school year."
How do our political leaders respond to all this? They cut education funding. And they give tax breaks to the largest corporations.
Based on data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the National Center for Education Statistics, total state education cuts for fiscal 2012 will be $12.7 billion. At the same time the Citizens for Tax Justice reports that 265 of our nation's largest companies avoided about $14 billion in state taxes each year from 2008 to 2010.
At the federal level, annual education cuts of 8% are anticipated beginning in 2013, even as corporate income tax as a share of GDP continues to drop, from 2.6% in 1979 to 1.3% in 2010. Our largest 100 companies paid only 12.2% in federal taxes over the past three years.
How do the corporations get away with this? Is it the threat of lost jobs? Jobs certainly aren't being created. While corporate profits made up 14 percent of total national income in 2010 -- the highest percentage ever recorded! -- corporations are sitting on $2 trillion in cash, and 80% of college graduates are moving back home with their parents.
Is it the fear that companies will move to another country? A U.S. Treasury report of global competitiveness (Table 5.3) revealed that the ratio of U.S. corporate taxes to GDP was well below the OECD average. Better to get a P.O. Box in the Cayman Islands and stay in the U.S.
American corporations have long benefited from our nation's system of higher education. Now education is being cut because the corporations aren't paying their taxes. And, as if to add to the insult, they're looking to other countries for the skills they need.
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11 Comments so far
Show AllYes, of course, Buchheit's concept is that the u.s. needs "better" educational systems to out compete other countries and regain its elevated status in the global capitalist techno community. Poppycock.
"Buchheit's concept is that the u.s. needs "better" educational systems to out compete other countries and regain its elevated status in the global capitalist techno community".
Huh? I must have missed that paragraph. My take on his article was that education funding is being cut because corporations aren't paying their share in taxes. This idea seems pretty straight forward... and worth repeating over and over.
Absolutely. Work visas go to people from other countries who were educated at far lower cost and will work for far less than US workers and who are trapped in a "good behavior" arrangement. I have seen this at work in IT. "Samir", as in Office Space, is poorly treated and badly rewarded even if he is the best programmer.
Over the years I have seen IT management lose interest in everything that does not cut costs and thus give them opportunities for self-congratulatory bonuses. The do not care about the quality of the work, the upkeep of the infrastructure. Half the time they do not even understand the work at all. Therefore, they have little appreciation for education and skill. They invent sexy, clueless, "strategic projects" that are doomed to failure after losing great amounts of money to contractors. But they do not care, because, as they say, "image is everything", and of course they put themselves in charge and give themselves big raises while cutting jobs and denying raises to those who remain and do real work, pick up the slack after the layoffs. OK, my bitter rant is over.
For so many people, education is seen as the ticket out of poverty and unskilled work. It still is to a small extent. But it has become for the most part a Grand Illusion, an invitation to unrewarded indebtedness. OWS youngsters see that and experience that.
"Poppycock." -- Buck
Exactly!
Here's another vote in favor of Buck.
What we don't have is companies unable to find educated Americans capable of doing the jobs they offer.
What we don't have is companies not coming into the country because they won't be able to educated workers.
What we do have is many highly educated individuals working at jobs that do no make use of their education, training and abilities.
Hey Kay, what does your Occupy group think about the u.s. regaining its financial supremacy?
The U.S. educational system has been nothing more than an indoctrination system.
Education won't get you a job. Been there, tried that. There are no jobs.
And as education cuts are made to Americans, work visas are given to foreigners to work in the US because, as one argument goes, the US workforce lacks skills to perform those jobs. This was discussed in one of the Republican "debates" and the focus of the conversation was keep the work visas flowing but no mention of why we don't have the skilled labor force that they argued existed. This is not a new issue. And by the way, I'm not against foreigners working here, but if the reason is because we don't have the skilled workforce, then I object, because we are doing things like cutting education the makes the workforce less skilled.
USAn's after being educated, in a society that doesn't have jobs available, are then called lazy and ridiculed by the MSM capitalist propaganda organs that USAn's just want to collect unemployment and food stamps. Those that are unable to find jobs are made the scapegoat for a failed Capitalist system. The MSM propaganda organs of the capitalists, churchianity ingrates and businesses, all trumpet the scapegoating and as true capitalist, religionist's, businesses deny all responsibility for a failed economic/financial system criminal conspiracy of the Wall St., Wash., DC Axis of Evil.