Romney Military vs. Education

What is more important to the long term survival and prosperity of the United States, our military or the education of our citizens in order to compete in the world of today and tomorrow? Both are necessities and we must put both in perspective of each other so we will properly allocate scarce resources in the most efficient manner possible.

Most would say the military takes priority because it is a mandate in the constitution that the federal government "provide for the common defense" while the governments role in education is justified under the "general welfare" section of the founding document and is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution. However, most would also say education must be a top priority.

An article in the New York Times on June 11, 2012 summarizes Mr. Romney's position on the federal governments role in education as

"...taking his party back to its ideological roots by emphasizing a lesser role for Washington, replacing top-down mandates with a belief in market mechanisms. It is a change driven in part by Tea Party disdain of the federal government. In the Republican presidential nominating fight, candidates competed in calling to shut the Education Department.

Mr. Romney, who never went that far, also seems hemmed in politically by the fact that President Obama promotes many solutions that were once Republican talking points, including charter schools and teacher evaluations tied to test scores."

We look at the need to have a strong military as a national "must" while looking at the need for high quality education as a local, or even a family, "must". Intellectually we look at both as necessities for future success in this competitive world. The rest of the world is catching up with us and we do not have an unalienable right to be the most powerful and prosperous nation on the planet. We must work for it.

In an unbridled free market society, he who has the gold makes the rules. In our country free markets should not exist in a "wild west" manner where resources that would help the nation attain its goals are underutilized because of someones lesser social-economic status. This approach would put us at a competitive disadvantage to the rest of the world. If the 2012 version of Einstein is living in poverty and in a broken home, it is in this countries national interest to make sure she is provided with an education allowing the nation to take advantage of this resource. She is a live "national treasure".

Therefore, we need federal government involvement in financing education. If the federal government partially provides the funds for education, it must be involved in overseeing how the funds are utilized including the monitoring of results. We have yet to find the proper way to do this; however, we should not stop trying. The consequences are too important.