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Op-Ed Columnist

I Believe I Can Fly

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: November 13, 2010

Reading the headlines these days, I can’t help but repeat this truism: If you jump off the top of an 80-story building, for 79 floors you can think you’re flying. It’s the sudden stop at the end that tells you you’re not. It’s striking to me how many leaders and nations are behaving today as though they think they can fly — and ignoring that sudden stop at the end that’s sure to come.

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Finally, there is something deeply wrong about Mitch McConnell, the Senate G.O.P. leader, saying that “the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” McConnell explained that that was not because Republicans simply crave power (heaven forbid), but because this is the only way Republicans can achieve their goals of repealing the health care bill, ending bailouts, cutting spending and shrinking government.

Where do I start? We know that these were not the Republican goals because they had eight years under George W. Bush to pursue them and did just the opposite. And even if we assume that this time they really mean it, they’ve never explained what programs they would cut and how doing that now won’t make our recession worse. But even if they did, these are the wrong priorities. Our priorities now are to mitigate the recession that was set in motion under Bush and to put the country on a path to sustainable economic growth. That will require vastly improving the education and skills of our work force and enabling them with 21st-century infrastructure so they will be smarter and more productive. We know that tax cuts alone won’t do that; we just had that test, too, under Bush. It requires a complex strategy for American renewal — raising some taxes, like on energy, while lowering others, like on workers and corporations; and investing in new infrastructure, schools and research, while cutting other services.

I don’t mind if Republicans win with fresh new ideas — but not with a grab bag of tired clichés. That’s just begging for a sudden stop at the end. (Emphasis added)

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