Can America Solve Its Problems?

Underneath Americans' joy and hoopla while celebrating the Fourth of July was deep-seated doubt about America's ability to compete and win in a rapidly changing world.

 

Pick up any paper or watch any newscast and you're sure to see a commentator saying that America is in decline and is incapable of fixing its problems. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman says forget Iraq and Afghanistan; we need nation building right here in America, and nothing else really matters. Newsweek commentator Fareed Zakaria captures American anxiety in his new book. He notes that the world's tallest building is in Taipei. Its largest publicly traded company is in Beijing. Its biggest refinery is being constructed in India, and so on.

 

Writer Victor Davis Hanson asserts that building things is a good indication of a society's relative confidence. He points out that we haven't built a new refinery or nuclear power plant in 30 years. Seven years after 9/11, we've barely broken ground on the replacement for the World Trade Center.

 

Indeed, more than 80% of the public think that America is on the wrong track. There is a growing sense that America's political leaders are unable to meet our most pressing challenges.

 

And we do have a lot of challenges! The economy is straining under the combined weight of record-high oil, gas, and commodity prices and a depressed housing market. Our immigration, education, and infrastructure systems need fixing. We are failing to properly educate and prepare our own students even as we drive foreign-born workers with badly needed skills into the hands of our competitors. Health care costs continue to gobble up more and more of our wealth. We lack a national energy strategy. The list goes on.

 

This isn't news to the U.S. Chamber. We've been far out in front of the media and politicians in identifying the major problems facing America. And we've been among the first to propose concrete, workable solutions.

 

We were--and are--among those that believe that America's greatest days are ahead ... that the can-do spirit, entrepreneurship, risk taking, and know-how of the American people is second to none.

 

The Chamber has a program to position America to compete and win in the 21st century. We call it our competitiveness agenda, and it is at the center of everything we do. There is no more important mission than strengthening the competitiveness of the U.S. economy so that all hardworking Americans can prosper and enjoy the benefits of the American Dream.

 

Learn more about our competitiveness agenda.