Vice President Joseph Biden is known as the White House's eternal optimist, but his speech at Lafayette College Wednesday included an undercurrent of warning.
“The rest of the world has awakened,” Biden said during a speech in Lafayette's Kirby Sports Center as part of the college's Lives of Liberty series. Other countries, especially Brazil, Russia, India and China, are investing large amounts of their gross domestic product in research, innovation and education.
Whatever country develops solar power that is as cheap as or cheaper than coal will become the leader in innovation in the 21st century, according to Biden.
“We will either lead in the 21st century or we will follow,” Biden said. “There is no standing still.”
One of Biden's biggest concerns is the college graduation rate in the United States. Where for many years the United States had the largest percentage of college graduates in the world, the United States has now fallen to sixteenth in percent of college graduates, Biden said.
At a recent conference of national security experts, Biden said, he was asked what the single most important thing we can do to maintain security.
“The answer is simple,” Biden said. “Be the best educated nation in the world.”
College graduation rates aren't the only thing suffering, Biden said. He said the United States cannot meet its expectations “without nurturing early education.”
But his optimism for America did spill out, in the way he began sentences with “Imagine a world …”
“We're the most innovative nation in the world,” Biden said. “We're in a better position than any nation in the world to be the dominant economy of the 21st century, and that's not based on American chauvinism. It's based on knowing the history of this country. We have the most receptive environment for innovation and the most dedicated workers in the world.”
Yet statements of this sort were always tempered by a warning, that there is no guarantee of America's future unless Americans persevere, that the United States will have to be “smart and tough, not just tough.”
In the ideal of America promoted by Biden and the President Barack Obama White House, our weaknesses don't matter so much as long as we have faith in our strengths.
While much of the innovation of the United States comes from private investors, people such as Steve Jobs or Henry Ford or a dozen other famed company builders, the public sector has always played a role in nursing that innovation, Biden said. He described the efforts of President Abraham Lincoln to build a railroad across the nation, or how President John Kennedy's race to put a man on the moon helped lower the price of the semiconductor, and, thus, lead to the creation of the personal computer.
In both those examples, and in the example of President Dwight Eisenhower's push for a national highway system, opponents of the ideas worried that government support would not be enough to drive private investment.
But the naysayers have always been wrong, Biden said, and a bet against America is always a risky bet.
Biden never mentioned the November election specifically, and even went as far as noting that America with or without Obama is still America. But he implied Obama has a similar plan for transportation, job growth, infrastructure and advances in medical technology, one that is just as epic in scope as any of those proposed by the Eisenhower, Kennedy or Lincoln administrations.
The Obama administration wants to see 80 percent of energy generated from clean sources, an effective treatment for Alzheimer's, and an America where 80 percent of people have access to high-speed rail, all by 2035, Biden said.
“There are certain externalities that prevent any one business or enterprise from being able to do this on their own,” Biden said. “And that's where we come in.”
Biden has a deep regional connection to northeastern Pennsylvania. He was born in Scranton, but the connection goes even deeper, back to 1875, when his great-grandfather enrolled in Lafayette. Two of his great uncles also attended Lafayette.
After Biden's speech, college President Daniel Weiss presented Biden with a map of the school as it appeared in 1875. The framed map included a picture of Biden's great-grandfather, Edward Francis Blewitt.
Read More
 |
| Vice President Joe Biden at Lafayette College. |
“The rest of the world has awakened,” Biden said during a speech in Lafayette's Kirby Sports Center as part of the college's Lives of Liberty series. Other countries, especially Brazil, Russia, India and China, are investing large amounts of their gross domestic product in research, innovation and education.
Whatever country develops solar power that is as cheap as or cheaper than coal will become the leader in innovation in the 21st century, according to Biden.
“We will either lead in the 21st century or we will follow,” Biden said. “There is no standing still.”
One of Biden's biggest concerns is the college graduation rate in the United States. Where for many years the United States had the largest percentage of college graduates in the world, the United States has now fallen to sixteenth in percent of college graduates, Biden said.
At a recent conference of national security experts, Biden said, he was asked what the single most important thing we can do to maintain security.
“The answer is simple,” Biden said. “Be the best educated nation in the world.”
College graduation rates aren't the only thing suffering, Biden said. He said the United States cannot meet its expectations “without nurturing early education.”
But his optimism for America did spill out, in the way he began sentences with “Imagine a world …”
“We're the most innovative nation in the world,” Biden said. “We're in a better position than any nation in the world to be the dominant economy of the 21st century, and that's not based on American chauvinism. It's based on knowing the history of this country. We have the most receptive environment for innovation and the most dedicated workers in the world.”
Yet statements of this sort were always tempered by a warning, that there is no guarantee of America's future unless Americans persevere, that the United States will have to be “smart and tough, not just tough.”
In the ideal of America promoted by Biden and the President Barack Obama White House, our weaknesses don't matter so much as long as we have faith in our strengths.
While much of the innovation of the United States comes from private investors, people such as Steve Jobs or Henry Ford or a dozen other famed company builders, the public sector has always played a role in nursing that innovation, Biden said. He described the efforts of President Abraham Lincoln to build a railroad across the nation, or how President John Kennedy's race to put a man on the moon helped lower the price of the semiconductor, and, thus, lead to the creation of the personal computer.
In both those examples, and in the example of President Dwight Eisenhower's push for a national highway system, opponents of the ideas worried that government support would not be enough to drive private investment.
But the naysayers have always been wrong, Biden said, and a bet against America is always a risky bet.
Biden never mentioned the November election specifically, and even went as far as noting that America with or without Obama is still America. But he implied Obama has a similar plan for transportation, job growth, infrastructure and advances in medical technology, one that is just as epic in scope as any of those proposed by the Eisenhower, Kennedy or Lincoln administrations.
The Obama administration wants to see 80 percent of energy generated from clean sources, an effective treatment for Alzheimer's, and an America where 80 percent of people have access to high-speed rail, all by 2035, Biden said.
“There are certain externalities that prevent any one business or enterprise from being able to do this on their own,” Biden said. “And that's where we come in.”
Biden has a deep regional connection to northeastern Pennsylvania. He was born in Scranton, but the connection goes even deeper, back to 1875, when his great-grandfather enrolled in Lafayette. Two of his great uncles also attended Lafayette.
After Biden's speech, college President Daniel Weiss presented Biden with a map of the school as it appeared in 1875. The framed map included a picture of Biden's great-grandfather, Edward Francis Blewitt.
Read More
No comments:
Post a Comment