The US international competitive position.

The US international competitive position.

Author: Tony

There exist two alternative visions on the U.S international competitive position: the visions represented by the Republican Party and the visions represented by the Democratic Party. The current presidential candidates (Mitt Romney and Barrack Obama) do represent the philosophies and core beliefs of their respective parties. The policies of each party with regards to education, energy and the environmental will be discussed below.

The Education Policy.

The Republican Party holds the view that all students must become competent in reading and arithmetic. It promotes scholastic attainment and little government interference with the education sector. It also believes that all students must master competent a command of the English language. It also adheres to the belief that all students should be tested on the subject matter that they have learned. It also believes that school reports should be availed to the students’ parents, and that the school should be held responsible for the scholastic progress of its students.

The Democratic Party believes that schools should ensure that they have imparted basic skills in their learners. They promote government intervention in order to expand educational opportunities to all children. They also hold the view that school examinations do burden the educators and wastes valuable classroom time. The party holds the view that the concept of literacy should be determined by the school unions and not the Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs). The party also supports the reduction of interest rates on student loans and it promotes tax exemption for college tuition.

It is evident that the education policy of the Republican Party is based on the precepts of personal responsibility, pursuit of success and minimal government support. The education policy of the Democratic Party is based on its precept of wealth redistribution and government supervision as is exemplified by their promotion of higher taxation by the government to support expanded educational opportunities that will ensure that children from low SES (socio-economic status) background get educated.

Energy and Environmental Policy.

The Democratic Party believes in the development of a nationwide renewable energy sector (such as wind and solar farms); and, it abhors tax cuts to petrochemical consortia. It promotes provision of incentives to entities that invent novel clean-energy technologies. The party also promotes environmentalism as is evident by its promotion of alternative energy as a substitute for fossil fuels. It promotes conservation of ecosystems, and, use of modes of transport that have minimal levels of atmospheric pollution (such as electric trains and open air travel). It also believes in the need to control global warming, and enactment of laws that will mitigate the adverse effects of global warming. Also, it strongly opposes the view that environmental conservation will lead to the disintegration of the economic infrastructure in the US.

The Republican Party supports environmental protection as is exemplified by its support to the Clean Air Act. It believes that environmental degradation should be solved by market-based solutions. Thus, it rejects ratification of environmental protocols that are potentially harmful to the US economy. Hence, it supports further oil exploration. It also supports energy independence. It bases its support for tax incentives to energy consortium on the premise of Laissez-faire economic principles.

The Democratic Party liberal philosophy inclines it to promote government intervention in issues relating to energy security and environmental management. Its principle of economic wealth redistribution makes it abhor tax incentives to wealthy entities which degrade the environment (such as most energy consortia). The principles of environmentalism inclines the party to promote environmentally-sensitive (and focused) energy policies. The conservative philosophy of the Republican Party inclines it to support the use of conventional energy forms (such as fossil fuel), tax exemption to highly profitable economic entities that sustain the US economy and market-focused environmental management.