No duh—more business income translates into more in tax monies collected, and so theoretically, more with which to meet budget shortfalls and pay down our astronomical national debt. Almost exclusively, however, discussion about deficits and debt reduction inevitably centers on how best to reduce government spending or to increase taxes. Mostly liberal proponents of increasing taxes argue over what level the tax rates should be increased to and for which segments of the population. Proponents of decreased spending, debate over which federal programs should be trimmed or eliminated altogether. The choice poses a classic false dichotomy, given that a rising tide lifts all boats. Even if cutting government spending is clearly part of the answer, it isn’t exclusively all that is required or at least all that proves helpful. President Reagan knew it was possible to grow the whole pie larger, and a free market economy should never be viewed as a “zero-sum” game.
Of course today with the accumulated national debt and annual budget deficits climbing to new highs, and the nation’s economic health anemic at best, the dichotomy (false or not) becomes untenable. Increasing the tax rates and cutting federal spending programs cannot be done without considerable pain and political difficulty, not to mention without disturbing perhaps the majority of Americans who will be affected in some way. Obama’s deficit commission stated that making reductions for sustainable levels of debt and deficits would necessitate large tax increases or major spending cuts and quite probably some of each. Even if these are done, however, given those structural dislocations in the current economy, it is not very likely that the measures will do enough in time to turn this economy around to any long-term satisfaction of the American people. The fact is that both options in isolation or together merely share (and also redistribute) scarcity.
Without a doubt spending should not be profligate, and taxes should be fairly levied and impose the least burden possible. Notwithstanding, the more effective answer to reducing debt and alleviating deficits, is to grow the economy and increase business revenues. Significant and sustainable increases in the revenues of businesses, however, are unlikely using the standard approach and economic shell games of today, whether off-shoring of jobs, lay-offs of domestic labor, or selling off various assets and subsidiaries to foreign buyers. To achieve any real or sustainable increases in revenue, businesses must increase and maintain their competitive advantage in domestic and foreign markets. Moreover, a true competitive advantage is a matter of producing goods and providing services that customers want to purchase because the products and services satisfy customer needs better than the competition. If a business is not excelling at satisfying customer needs, then any other perceived “competitive advantage” equates to little more than rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.
Under President Reagan, Michael C. Sekora directed a program called the Socrates Project within the U.S. intelligence community. Socrates enabled the United States years ago to foresee America’s present economic crisis, and it also identified the means to rebuild the country’s competitiveness and to turn things around. George Herbert Walker Bush scrapped the program for a globalized, one-world vision and supposed “New World Order.” In his scheme of things he was willing to tolerate the movement of American wages downward, willing to see well-paying and secure manufacturing jobs sent abroad to other countries. It is high time now, however, particularly since the last election that we start to complete Ronald Reagan’s economic legacy by returning America to its preeminent position in the world. The United States should pursue national strategy to this end.
The Socrates Project utilized all source intelligence and determined by examining competition worldwide that the U.S. and its organizations had begun losing competitive advantage in the marketplace after World War II as a result of switching from technology-based planning to economic-based planning as the foundation of most decision-making. Socrates also foresaw that if the U.S. continued to rely upon economic-based planning with its inherent degradation of competitive advantage, the economic health of the U.S. would eventually go into a catastrophic freefall where no amount of economic maneuvering would be able to stop it. Socrates “saw” that China via an aggressive use of technology-based planning was, in effect, rapidly building itself into the next world superpower atop the wreckage of U.S. manufacturing industries and systemic failure to apply technology strategically to marketplace coordination and real goods and services output. China was outmaneuvering the US and its organizations in the acquisition and utilization of worldwide technology purposefully, in order to decimate America's ability to generate competitive advantage long-term and to ensure a maximum competitive advantage across the full range of markets and industries well into the future.
The Socrates Project developed a highly advanced form of technology-based planning called automated innovation to restore America’s competitiveness. In automated innovation, the process for acquiring and utilizing technology for a competitive advantage, including research and development, is automated so that it can be executed with unprecedented speed, efficiency and agility. Automated innovation enables the U.S. and its major public and private organizations to consistently outmaneuver China in the exploitation of technology, in order to acquire and maintain maximum competitive advantage. Automated innovation would thereby greatly increase corporate revenues too. A Socrates Project system was deployed under Reagan and is credited with helping bring our country back economically after the devastating Carter years, when so many key industries were losing position in global competition. After the first President Bush abolished the Socrates Project, the basis of the Socrates initiative moved into the private sector where it was refined since the 1980s.
Contemporary debate in terms of how best to reduce the U.S. national debt and close federal budget deficits must include a third leg as it were, and not just the tired rhetorical tug-of-war between the need and desire to increase taxes or to cut spending. What needs to happen is that private businesses must increase their revenues in a significant and sustained way, in order to grow the economic pie and bring in more tax revenue towards retiring the debt and living within budget means. Political debate must include more than the usual suspects. Corporations and businesses have to refrain from mere economic shell games that claim profit as they hollow out their insides or lay off more American workers.
Businesses grow when the tax and trade policies are less regressive, when public-private partnerships produce the tools they need to have a real technology-based competitive edge. The U.S. Government and various State Governments should look into tech-based planning and associated tools, in order to fully address their sagging economies and mounting debt burdens. The problems we face are unique and systemic and not entirely cyclic in nature. To address the economic health of the U.S., Congress should move resolutely towards reexamination of President Reagan’s Socrates Project and the swift deployment of an upgraded and reconstituted Socrates system enabled with 21st century technology, in order to usher in automated innovation and return us to the deliberate path of sustained economic prosperity and a choice of what’s best for America.
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