2020 Preparations - Step 1: Education

The rest of the world isn't going to turn back the clock so that the U.S. can continue to be unchallenged militarily, economically and intellectually.

It seems to me that the U.S. must begin to adapt to the new rules of engagement. It should be obvious that it is not in our best interest to try to match the ridiculously low wages driving manufacturing out of this country. That would be self-defeating. But we can make it harder for other nations to compete with us intellectually.

I sent the following letter last September and it is one possibility:

Rep. John Boehner, Chairman
Committee on Education and the Workforce
U. S. House of Representatives
2181 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

Subject:Expanding America’s Intellectual Resource

Increasingly, the ranks of our universities PhD programs are being populated with students from other nations. While diversity of opinion, experience, and skills are valuable, I believe that such diversity already exists within the tens of millions of American-born potential PhDs. The fact that a company such as Microsoft feels compelled to seek Chinese PhDs for their research staff while, at the same time, U.S. universities’ PhD programs are so heavily populated with foreign students sends a message to me that our system of education is failing to focus on American intellectual resources: U.S. citizen students.

The point of my concern is this: the U.S. is losing manufacturing and technology jobs to lower cost labor suppliers, and the argument is that this is not serious because these jobs will be replaced by better paying ones based on the U.S. becoming the wellspring of new ideas. There is no guarantee that the foreign PhD students will stay here when booming economies in their native lands offer them the chance to become part of the elite there. I would argue that without support for creating the home-grown expertise, the U.S. eventually may be relegated to just another country that had a glorious past.

I propose a simple incentive to create a more favorable environment for students: allow students who are U.S. citizens at the time they enter a PhD program and who work in the U.S. for five years immediately after receiving their PhDs a tax break. This tax break would be very simple: average the last five years of income prior to receiving the PhD and then average that with the income received over the next five years. For example, if the average income during the last five years of the PhD program was $20,000 and the income over each of the five years following was $100,000 (for simplicity), then the taxable income before any other adjustments would be $120,000/2 or $60,000. At a 25% tax rate, that would be an annual incentive of $10,000 ($100,000 minus $60,000 times 0.25). Over five years, that would be a savings of $50,000 which could be used to offset some of the costs of pursuing a PhD.

This incentive could well be the difference between a U.S. student deciding to pursue a PhD or deciding that the burden of pursuing one is too great.

Unfortunately, Rep. Boehner was too busy to respond or acknowledge receipt of the letter.

If you wish you can also contact Rep. Boehner at:

1011 Longworth H.O.B.
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-6205

Or you can simply copy the letter above and send it to Rep. Boehner with your signature.