Las Cruces —
Experts in economics, health care, national security, technology and education converged at the fourth annual Domenici Conference where they painted a bleak future for America.
They worked with students from UNM and three other state schools to explore critical problems facing the nation and ways to fix them.
The conference focused on five policy areas: American competitiveness in science and technology, health care, the national debt, cybersecurity and national security, with a statement from Gov. Susana Martinez on state matters and the premier of “Domenici,” a documentary chronicling the life and service of former New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici.
Under the format adopted by the conference, university students were the only participants allowed to question the policy experts.
Gene V. Henley, Associate Director of the School of Public Administration, said that the growth of UNM’s participation in the conference has more than doubled.
“Last year we sent five people to the conference and this year we were able to send 14,” he said. “Best of all these weren’t just observers — every student we sent are panelists who get to really frame the conversation based on the questions they get to ask.”
The federal debt and how to fix it dominated discussions at the conference last week. Currently, America is $14 trillion in debt, which Domenici said represents a tremendous threat to American prosperity and security — more than America losing its competitive edge in science and technology or the nation’s inadequate health care system.
“The truth of the matter is that if we don’t fix this within the next three to five years than all of the nice things we have been talking about — that we ought to do to catch up to the other countries — we aren’t going to have enough money to do them,”
Domenici said. “We are not even sure that the great American dollar will be the dollar that it is. … Unless we put some fire in our bellies and will in our heart and show the world we mean business, other countries may abandon the dollar as international currency and America may become a second-rate power on the world stage.”
Norman R. Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin and former secretary of the U.S. Army, led the American competitiveness presentation stating that the United States is losing its edge because America’s K-12 education system is dysfunctional and technology and engineering research have fallen by the wayside.
His findings can be found in the National Academies reports “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” and “Rising Above the Gathering Storm Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category Five” available at nationalacademies.org.
According to Augustine, the K-12 system is performing abysmally when compared to the rest of the world, more than six million U.S. students dropped out of high school over the past five years, and U.S. universities have fallen from their standing as first in the world due to massive budget cuts. The number of students graduating with science and technology degrees fell by 20 percent over the past two decades. Furthermore, funding for higher education is at a 25-year low.
“If this continues, the consequences likely will be that we’ll have profitable companies doing business abroad; CEOs will still get their bonuses, but there will be no jobs for most Americans,” he said.
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In addition to highlighting problems facing U.S. competitiveness, Augustine recommended ways to get the nation back on track.
“How do we leverage the human and knowledge capital in our universities and get that into the market?” asked Jake Wellman, a senior and student regent at UNM.
“The best way in my experience is to move people in and out of universities,” Augustine said “Let these researchers form or join companies and get that product to market and then let them go back to a university and continue to teach, research and innovate, or take qualified people in our corporations and bring them to universities where they can teach and share knowledge.”
Other conference presenters included former Sen. Tom Daschle who spoke on health care, Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of both the CIA and the National Security Agency, who spoke on cybersecurity, and Gen. James L. Jones, former national security advisor to President Barack Obama, who spoke on national security.
