'Xie, xie, USA'

Three important ideas for the future of America were brought together in the Photo News of Nov. 18: First, declining investment in public schools, tuition being the principal cost, as it should be. Second, the rise of China, replacing the U.S. on the world stage in the 21st century. And finally, a visit by the President of Kyrgyzstan, one of the 20 nations (along with Georgia, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia — you get the idea: not a First World nation among them) which have embraced the flat tax. America became a world leader with public schooling and progressive taxation. We try to educate everyone, a daunting task in an anti-intellectual nation where half the people cannot distinguish between what is likely to be true and what is not and so cannot evaluate the scientific evidence of evolution or global warming, a nation without the elemental social support of national health insurance as in Finland or balanced-budget Australia. China can hardly believe her luck that we are, of our own free will, downsizing our government, cutting investments in education and research, and surrendering to China the lead in green technologies even as China increases spending on both education and research. China is happy to see a Third World flat tax replace the progressive taxation which built this country, won two World Wars and the Cold War, built the interstate highway system, and put a man on the Moon. We inherited debt from our parents, but we also inherited a great country. Now in the process of wrecking that country, we will leave our children a second-rate nation with no vision for the future. They will sit on the sidelines as China silently chants “Xie, xie, USA” and puts the first man on Mars. K.J. Walters Monroe