Vote November 2nd

Write in Bonnie Diehl for Bernards Township Committee.

Are you looking for a leader with these characteristics? First, a patriot: a leader who is more interested in fighting for her country than her party. Second, a leader who persuades Americans that she actually has a plan not just to cut taxes or pump stimulus, but to do something much larger - to make America successful, thriving and respected again. And third, someone with the ability to lead in the face of uncertainty and not simply whine about how tough things are - a leader who believes her job is not to read the polls but to change the polls.

Pollster Stan Greenberg hears: "People think the country is in trouble and that countries like China have a strategy for success and we don't. They will follow someone who convinces them that they have a plan to make America great again. That is what they want to hear. It cuts across Republicans and Democrats."

To me, this is a plan that starts by asking: what is America's core competency and strategic advantage, and how do we nurture it? Answer: It is our ability to attract, develop and unleash creative talent. That means men and women who invent, build and sell more goods and services that make people's lives more productive, healthy, comfortable, secure and entertained than any other country.

Leadership today is about how the U.S. government attracts and educates more of that talent and then enacts the laws, regulations and budgets that empower that talent to take its products and services to scale, sell them around the world - and create good jobs here in the process. Without that, we can't afford the health care or defense we need.

To implement this plan, it would require us to actually raise some taxes - on, say, gasoline - and cut others - like payroll taxes and corporate taxes. It would require us to overhaul our immigration laws so we can better control our borders, let in more knowledge workers and retain those skilled foreigners going to college here. And it would require us to reduce some services - like Social Security - while expanding others, like education and research for a 21st-century economy.

Let's be very smart, subtle and focused plan to use our now diminishing resources in the most efficient way possible to get back to our core competency. That is the only long-term solution to our problem - to grow our way out of debt with American workers who are more empowered and educated to compete.

Thomas Friedman
September 28, 2010
New York Times