America's Investment Problem.

Great op-ed piece by Fareed Zakaria in today's Washington Post. He pragmatically lays out the issues with the economy today, which are none of the things the Republican Party claim are the problem:

"One theory heard a lot these days is that the economy is burdened by excessive government regulation, interference and taxes. All these pressures on business, especially small business, are keeping the economy down. Cut them, the Republican candidates all say, and the economy will be unleashed. It’s a compelling picture, but the data simply do not support it."

Some of the data he presents in his column:

* A World Economic Forum survey that ranks countries on their overall economic competitiveness puts the United States fifth; the countries ahead of it, including Singapore and Finland, are tiny, with populations around 5 percent that of the United States.

* The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released a study last week measuring tax revenue as a percentage of gross domestic product. The United States came in 27th out of 30 countries.

* The World Bank study finds that the only category in which the United States is not in the top 20 is “paying taxes,” where it ranks a miserable 72.

* Only five years ago, American infrastructure used to be ranked in the top 10 by the World Economic Forum. Now we’re 24th. U.S. air infrastructure has gone from 12th to 31st, roads from eighth to 20th.

* The United States used to have the world’s largest percentage of college graduates. We’re now No. 14, according to the most recent OECD data, and American students routinely rank toward the bottom of the developed world.

* The number of engineering degrees conferred annually decreased more than 11 percent between 1989 and 2000. Even with the increase in college attendance over the past two decades, there were fewer engineering and engineering technologies graduates in 2009 (84,636) than in 1989 (85,002).

So yeah, tax cuts are the problem to fix issues in national infrastructure and education caused by a lack of tax revenue. Let me know when this alien math is supposed to work.