Across the Divide
There are few things both sides of the political divide agree on these days. But there is one that aligns for economic and national security reasons. America needs to produce essential products we use here at home. The best examples of these are right down the road from my house, here near good ol’ Pataskala.
First Solar is the nation’s largest solar panel producer (50% of US production),. And there’s a plant at the corner of Mink Street and Refugee Road. They use Chinese technology to make the panels, both here in Pataskala and in Arizona (Energy Sage). Ten years ago, most solar panels were coming from China. Now the US has its own production, lessening our dependence on an economic and military rival.
And just up that same Mink Street (actually in Johnstown) the massive Intel chip manufacturing plant is going up. Computer chips, are the “brains” of everything from phones to cars to TV’s (and of course computers). Almost all of them come from Taiwan. And while Taiwan is both a US economic and military ally, the island nation’s proximity to mainland China makes it vulnerable. China’s avowed national goal is to “recover” the island for the Chinese Communist Party. (Taiwan was the refuge of the opposition Chinese Nationalists, driven from the mainland in 1949).
The United States pledges to defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion. But even with our military force, a battle for the island would disrupt world chip production. It makes sense for the US to add its own domestic chip production to reduce economic vulnerability. President Biden’s Chips and Science Act provided support for the building of 19 chip plants in the US. The Intel campus on Mink Street is one of those.
Birthright
Biden, Trump, and Harris are all for “Made in America”. That is, until it comes to the intellect to lead America’s technological rebirth. While Trump takes heroic stands before “the Flag” and disparages immigrants, some of those around him jostle for the opportunity to bring in more immigrants under the “H-1-B” program. Both Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy claim the US needs to bring in the world’s best, because Americans aren’t good enough for the work. Ramaswamy posted on Musk’s ‘X’: “(American culture) has venerated mediocrity over excellence, leading to a nation that does not produce the best engineers.”
Ramaswamy, was a child of immigrants from Sri Lanka. His father was a General Electric engineer and patent attorney and his mother a psychiatrist. Neither were US citizens. Vivek was born in Cincinnati and has “birthright citizenship” under the 14th Amendment. Ramaswamy was educated at Cincinnati’s St Xavier High School, Harvard undergrad, and Yale Law School. As my (English) mother would say, he is the proverbial “Pot calling the kettle black”. If American culture venerates mediocrity over excellence, he is a product of it.
Naturalized
Musk’s career itself is a result of an F-1 US student visa. He came from South Africa to study in Canada, then ultimately moved to the University of Pennsylvania to get his undergraduate degree. He then remained on the visa to go to Stanford for graduate school, but never enrolled in classes. Instead, he and his brother developed an online city guide application, which they sold to Compaq for over $300 million. That work was, and is, illegal to do under an F-1 visa.
But that was the basis for Musk’s fortune. And while Musk, and his brother, later got legal work visas, if they had answered the application truthfully they would likely have been denied and removed the country. Both are now naturalized US citizens.
Of a Feather
Here are two, “birds of a feather”, as Mom would say, in Trump’s orbit. They stand in stark contrast to the “Steven’s”; Bannon and Miller, who take a dim view of any immigrant (particularly those of darker skin tones). And while all of them have degrees from American universities, they all express disdain for Americans with the same credentials (Bannon from Virginia Tech, Georgetown, and Harvard; and Miller a Duke undergrad).
But they have one important point. More than half of students enrolled in post-bachelor’s education in US engineering schools are not US citizens, and in some areas, like petroleum engineering, less than 25% are. American universities are educating the world, but fewer and fewer Americans.
Made in America
So maybe the solution to their concerns isn’t so much with immigration, but with graduate school admission. Just like the solar panels and the chips, the American government (even a Trump government) needs to make it a national priority to get Americans into the elite post-graduate programs at American universities.
And for those who are somehow convinced that the American educational process can’t produce such students anymore; take a look at the cost of getting an MIT Engineering degree – $86,000 — a year. Purdue, another top ten Engineering School is better; about $25,000 a year. Perhaps it isn’t the educational process, but the price.
American education may be the best in the world, but it is expensive. Ask any recipient of a student loan. Sure, it’s expensive for students from other countries as well, but they are often getting aid from their own governments. To be told that Americans just can’t hack it, especially by a naturalized and a birthright citizen who took full advantage of what American education can offer; well, it all kind of sounds un-American.
