“No bucks – no Buck Rogers!” This is one of my favorite quotes from Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff. These five words answer the question of what propelled NASA in the 1960s. Beating the Soviets in the race into space was not the result of science or test pilot bravery; government investment of money launched our first astronauts and landed men on the moon. Bucks launched Alan Shepherd, Neil Armstrong, and all other astronauts. This is causation at its fundamental root. Bucks invested in imagination, science, and industry, caused Buck Rogers.
Bucks do a lot. The United States’ hegemony in the 20th century is the result of its vast wealth and productive economics. Our post-WW2 economy just kept growing with the expectation that every year would bring yet more innovation, productivity, and “good times” for almost everyone, though some were left out out. The last half of the 20th century was populated with immense innovation on all fronts of our culture. We built interstates, houses, shopping malls, and factories. We invented and made an unbelievable variety of new “things.” We manufactured our prosperity.
How did this happen? Industrialists reinvested in their industries. Board of Directors and stockholders profited proportionately to the capacity of their business to provide products for the economy. And, the federal government invested in national projects, in the infrastructures of roads, bridges, dams, and national parks. The greater the price tag, the greater the governmental involvement. And, states invested in their universities’ research and development departments, hospitals, and public schools. Growth in population was matched by growth in national, state, and local capacities to serve the new population. America boomed! Investment begat our prosperity.
Our population grew both by domestic births and immigration. Baby Boomer births were matched by millions of people coming to our country. Increased population fed the repetitive cycles of increased consumer buying and increased goods production. Increased population and increased housing construction increased taxes paid and taxes increased public services. We were on the uphill slope of positive trends caused by multiple investing sources that believed investment in the commonwealth of people would grow the prosperity of all people. Increased population begat our prosperity.
Just as investment bucks caused the space race, investment bucks propelled the nation’s innovation and productivity growth of the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. Bucks fueled the imaginations and ambitions of our nation’s most talented creators and investments funded their productivity in science and industry, agriculture and construction, education and medicine, and large and small business. Talent included both the geniuses of innovation and the educated consumer population that appreciated and was advantaged by the products of genius. Investment begot talent and talent grew more talent. Talent begat our prosperity.
If asked what made America great in the last half of the last century, a straightforward answer was a commitment and investment in the development of national assets and talents.
And then, the good times slowed to a stop. Causation? What happened?
What do we know?
America changed. Our national goals and ambitions have changed. And our commitment to the development of American talent changed.
First, the American Dream changed from being inclusive to being exclusive. Our older generations who achieved the 20th century version of the Dream became more concerned with protecting their holdings than extending opportunities for others to gain any traction in achieving the Dream. National policies began to favor WASPs and became increasingly averse to diverse people. We became protectionists instead of opportunists.
Our government now has annual goals of deporting one million immigrated people from the United States and of holding of 100,000 people in ICE custody pending their deportation. Housing construction, food processing, elder care, and service industries are being decimated by this policy. Immigrants always have come to America seeking a better life and willing to do work that Americans will not do. Thinking we are protecting America by forcibly removing labor and potential talent that we cannot replace is the opposite of what made us prosperous.
Further, government is curtailing visas for foreign students who want to enroll in our schools. We are fed with false fear that America is educating foreign talents that will return to their homeland and compete against us. This falsehood ignores the truth that most foreign students stay in the US and contribute to our talent pool. We are refusing to develop international students who annually beget more talent for our country.
Second, American productivity changed. In the 1960s, manufacturing was 30% of our annual gross domestic product. America was industrial. In 2025 manufacturing was less than 10% of the annual GDP. In 2026 the US economy is based on the wealth of tech companies that produce media and their accoutrements. The US economy today is not based upon tangible wealth but on the vapors of digital and social information and entertainment. We annually become less and less of an industrial nation. The less we produce, the more our economy becomes quicksand and the foundations of our prosperity founder.
The backside and downhill slope of any trend is disturbing. It begs for an explanation. Where the US once led the world in industrial manufacturing, we now trail other nations. Europe and Asia benefited from historically later industrial revolutions than America. This leaves our manufacturers languishing in the American rust belt of pre-WW2 mills and plants. Our once dominant auto industry now only makes SUVs and pick-up trucks. Germany prospers with high productivity in producing machinery, autos, and engineering-intensive equipment. Scandinavia, Netherlands, and Austria prosper with advanced, specialized, high-value manufacturing. Japan and South Korea lead the world in auto production, robotics, ship building, and electronics. The United States cannot compete with China in the making of e-cars, so we ban their import.
And American businesses moved their production sites offshore to Asia, India, South America, and Europe. Business investment traded national interest for their self-interest of profits based upon the lower cost of labor around the world. American steel mills, textile, and microchip producers cannot match international competitors and have shuttered their domestic facilities. We self-inflicted our industrial decline.
Third, America had a strong legacy of investing in education and domestic talent development. Public education provided a literate workforce, and colleges and universities honed American children into world leaders in every field of endeavor. American higher education and American ingenuity were the “think tank” and “skunk works” that drove American innovation and production. No longer.
As the costs of K-12 and college education increase, federal and state investments lag in annual funding commitments. In the early 2000s most, state legislatures cut their education spending to fund other state priorities, such as roads and prisons. The legacy of state funding for heavy cost programs like school buildings, student transportation, and special education gave way to local referenda. By statute, K-12 education is a state responsibility, yet financing local schools is evolving into a local taxpayer responsibility. We annually bemoan low test scores in reading and math and point to teaching and curriculum. However, the blame is ours to own. Classroom teaching no longer attracts talented college students because teachers are the lowest paid profession requiring a baccalaureate degree. Provisionally licensed teachers today teach in more than one million classrooms. We are getting the less educational outcomes we are paying for.
Parallel to decreased support for education, our government attacks colleges and universities and withholds approved congressional funding as leverage to force changes in enrollment and curriculum. The government’s argument is partisan as higher education communities typically are more liberal and favor the Democrat party. Partisanship is shuttering and hamstringing our nation’s research and development centers. The losses of R & D will geometrically increase in the years ahead.
These three causations, a non-productive economy, policy-based attacks on immigrated people, and our diminished education systems are propelling the United States down the backside slope of its international economic hegemony. Our national ambivalence toward the assets that made America – our productive economy, our ambition to be leaders, and our development of American talent- is begetting the decline of the American era.
Ambition turned to ambivalence.
American ambition has turned south with ambivalence. Ask yourself – Excluding energy extraction, digital technology, and biotechnology, what major American industrial breakthrough of the last thirty years has significantly raised broad national productivity? Hard to pinpoint, eh? There are not any.
At the same time, our nation’s production of billionaires is skyrocketing. The wealth of our top .01% is not causing national domestic economic growth. On the contrary their conspicuous consumption and political machinations to secure their personal prosperity have undermined the national ambition. They are the new oligarchs of America, and they make it harder than ever for the non-wealthy to bootstrap their way to middle class security.
What to do.
Start in the middle – at the state level. When national leadership is obstructive and local leadership is without adequate resources, start at the state level where there continues to be is a level of relevant autonomy.
The following are explicit steps a state can take to energize and realize talent development, economic, and civic growth.
- Provide free K-14 education. We have a tradition of providing education to children in kindergarten through grade 12. Recently, school boards have extended free public education to pre-Kindergarten children. We need to extend a free education for all children to grade 14 – two years of technical college or two years toward a baccalaureate degree.
Grade 14 makes sense because too many college and sophomore students spend two years taking post-high school and introductory college courses as they decide on their degree. It is not until their grade 14 that they really are into a college education. And students who attend technical colleges
The delivery of a free, appropriate, and public education needs this addendum – a free, appropriate, and public education that delivers equitable and high-quality outcomes. Wisconsin’s Choice Program approximates a free K-12 education whether in public, charter, or voucher-supported private schools. However, there are real and significant differences in the outcomes children achieve that are dependent upon their socio-politico-economic community. An education that grows talent cannot abide the arbitrariness of location. Talent development must be achievable in every community.
Redefine grade level promotion, middle school, and high school graduation to a standards-based that will ensure every student, no matter their school choice, meets equitable and high-quality outcome requirements. It is not difficult for school boards to install these requirements, if they are committed to the Wisconsin Promise.
Further, to fulfill the promise of college and career ready promise extend K-12 to K-14. Include the completion of either a technical education or the first two years of a baccalaureate degree in the state/local community financial commitment. There is a current gap between grade 12 and career ready – technical education is missing. A high school graduate is not career ready unless the career is entry-level, non-career employment. Career ready means trained to do career work, and this requires training. By the same token, high school graduates may be academically prepared for college, but they are not prepared for the academic and the financial requirements of college. Too many talented collegians drop out because of the financial burden not the academic work required. If we want to develop talent, we cannot strangle that development with student debt.
- Develop grade 9-14 apprenticeships. For decades education and industry have recognized the benefits of school/work apprenticeships. However, active apprentice programs are still fringe programs in schools. Instead, apprenticeships should be flagship opportunities in associate and baccalaureate degree programs. High school freshmen and sophomores should be recruited to local apprenticeships using the same in-school representative opportunities as college and university recruiters. In addition, local foundations that give graduates scholarships to attend colleges and universities also need to fund students extending their high school apprenticeships into associate and baccalaureate programs. Grade 9-14 apprentices will be the backbone and pipeline for future productivity.
- Talent identification and mentorship. Children complete interest inventories as part of their school’s counseling program. Yet few children ever see a connection between the interest inventory and their educational program. The inventory is forgotten data. Instead, schools need to use this data to help children understand their interests and talents AND to create educational pathways that actuate their interests and talents. An easy first extension is connecting every student with a mentor/practitioner/career worker in their interest area. All children have talents, but we allow most to lie fallow without any cultivation. Children just meander on through school. We waste the potentiality that children pose by not actively engaging in their interests and talents.
- Take advantage of civic projects that require talented workers. Educators extensively use problem-based and project-based teaching and learning strategies to cause children to develop creative academic outcomes. There is tremendous problem-solving commonality in what teachers and students do in the classroom and what civic and community leaders do in town halls. Each uses study, analysis, and creativity to produce problem solutions and project designs. In the future, schools should apply their instructional strategies to their community’s problems and projects, and civic leaders should promote and support students in their production of potential solutions. This will grow local talents prepared for solving local problems and projects. And it will be a substantial cost saving to communities.
- Restore college and university R & D centers. History already proves the economic benefits of these centers for inquiry, exploration, invention, adaptation, and development. As I sit and write, my workspace and my work tools are the products of R & D efforts. Our leaders need to stop thinking of support for higher education as politically beneficial or as political revenge. R & D is agnostic and non-partisan – everyone benefits. Stop making investment in college and university R & D partisan.
- Provide childcare subsidies to working parents. The high costs of childcare penalize families by forcing one parent to stop working and become a care provider. Or, by creating a prohibitive debt load for working parents. Making pre-school education part of compulsory education is one way – the subsidy becomes a voucher. Extending compulsory education to year-round schooling for children from birth to grade 5 is a second way. Our schools and our educational work force already are available and can fill these needs.
- Pay for employee sabbaticals to extend their creative years of work. A longer working life is needed to pay for our living to an older age. Retirement no longer is at age 65 but well into the 70s. A half century of working for a living is a recipe for massive employee burn out. Instead, insert required and employer-paid sabbaticals into all employment agreements. Require all employees to leave their daily work for four months every ten years. International studies of enforced sabbaticals prove that employees return from sabbatical with a refurbished work attitude and productivity. To force old work rules on employees who will be working decades beyond the norm when those rules were written is senseless – we know better.
The Big Duh!
Immediately a reader may believe this is socialist ideology and an overreach of authority. Hogwash! These are 21st century applications of what we have learned to are true and effective over time. We only need the ambition to do them. A harder truth is that American productivity and culture cannot stand another decade of our national ambivalence. Our ambivalence is greasing our slide down the backside of what America once was.