The “socialism” of Europe is often criticized dismissively by U.S. politicians. Paul Krugman writes in the New York Times today, “For example, does Hillary Clinton have a plan to cover the millions of Americans who lack health insurance? ‘She takes her inspiration from European bureaucracies,’ sneers Mitt Romney.”

According to Krugman, sneering at the economic progress of Europe may be a thing of the past. “Europe’s economy is actually doing O.K. these days, despite a level of taxing and spending beyond the wildest ambitions of America,” he writes. Excerpts from the article:

• Today I’d like to talk about a much-derided contender making a surprising comeback, a comeback that calls into question much of the conventional wisdom of American politics. No, I’m not talking about a politician. I’m talking about an economy — specifically, the European economy, which many Americans assume is tired and spent but has lately been showing surprising vitality.
• It’s important to get the facts about Europe’s economy right because the alleged woes of that economy play an important role in American political discourse, usually as an excuse for the insecurities and injustices of our own society.
• Are top U.S. executives grossly overpaid? According to a Times report, Michael Jensen, a professor emeritus at Harvard’s Graduate School of Business whose theories helped pave the way for gigantic paychecks, considers executive excess “an acceptable price to pay for an American economy that he believes has outstripped Japan and Europe in growth and prosperity.”In fact, however, tales of a moribund Europe are greatly exaggerated.
• It’s true that Europe has had a lot of economic troubles over the past generation. In the mid-1970s the Continent entered a prolonged era of sluggish job creation, which contrasted with vigorous employment growth in the United States.
• Since 2000, employment has actually grown a bit faster in Europe than in the United States — and since Europe has a lower rate of population growth, this has translated into a substantial rise in the percentage of working-age Europeans with jobs, even as America’s employment-population ratio has declined.
• In particular, in the prime working years, from 25 to 54, the big gap between European and U.S. employment rates that existed a decade ago has been largely eliminated. If you think Europe is a place where lots of able-bodied adults just sit at home collecting welfare checks, think again.
• The number of broadband connections per 100 people in the 15 countries that were members of the European Union before it was enlarged in 2004, is slightly higher than in the U.S. — and Europe’s connections are both substantially faster and substantially cheaper than ours.
• I don’t want to exaggerate the good news. Europe continues to have many economic problems. But who doesn’t? The fact is that Europe’s economy looks a lot better now — both in absolute terms and compared with our economy — than it did a decade ago.
• What’s behind Europe’s comeback? It’s a complicated story, probably involving a combination of deregulation (which has expanded job opportunities) and smart regulation. One of the keys to Europe’s broadband success is that unlike U.S. regulators, many European governments have promoted competition, preventing phone and cable companies from monopolizing broadband access.
• What European countries definitely haven’t done is dismantle their strong social safety nets. Universal health care is a given. So are a variety of programs that support families in trouble, helping protect Europeans from the extreme poverty all too common in this country. All of this costs money — even though European countries spend far less on health care than we do — and European taxes are very high by U.S. standards.
• In short, Europe continues to be a big-government sort of place. And that’s why it’s important to get the real story of the European economy out there. According to the anti-government ideology that dominates much U.S. political discussion, low taxes and a weak social safety net are essential to prosperity. Try to make the lives of Americans even slightly more secure, we’re told, and the economy will shrivel up — the same way it supposedly has in Europe.
• But the next time a politician tries to scare you with the European bogeyman, bear this in mind: Europe’s economy is actually doing O.K. these days, despite a level of taxing and spending beyond the wildest ambitions of America

From the New York Times, “The Comeback Continent,” written by Paul Krugman

Sen Edward Kennedy in an opinion article printed in The Washington Post argues that the No Child Left Behind Law needs revision and better funding but that it should not be abandoned. This is the sixth anniversary of the singing of the NCLB law. Kennedy was a lead author of the bill and attended the signing in Hamilton along with John Boehner and President Bush. Excerpts:

• On the plus side, the law demands that all children must benefit — black or white, immigrant or native-born, rich or poor, disabled or not. Before its enactment, only a handful of states monitored the achievement of every group of students in their schools. Today, all 50 states must do that. Across the country, schools are poring over student data to identify weaknesses in instruction and to improve teaching and learning. All schools now measure performance based not on the achievement of their average and above-average students but on their progress in helping below-average students reach high standards as well.
• The positive changes are evident in the National Assessment of Educational Progress, better known as “The Nation’s Report Card.” The improvements are still modest, but they’re noticeable, particularly among students who formerly were low achievers. We’re beginning to see a narrowing of the achievement gap between white students and other students.
• All of this is good news. But the law still needs major changes to bring out the best in all children. The process for rating troubled schools fails to reward incremental progress made by schools struggling to catch up. Its one-size-fits-all approach encourages “teaching to the test” and discourages innovation in the classroom. We need to encourage local decision makers to use a broader array of information, beyond test scores, to determine which schools need small adjustments and which need extensive reforms.
• The act doesn’t do enough to support teachers as the professionals they are by training and mentoring them and by placing good teachers in the schools that need them most. It fails to deal with the dropout crisis, which puts large numbers of young students beyond the reach of the American dream. It doesn’t involve parents enough in helping their children succeed. It falls short in achieving smaller classes so that teachers can give children the one-on-one attention they need.
• Most of all, the law fails to supply the essential resources that schools desperately need to improve their performance. We can’t achieve progress for all students on the cheap.
• As Democrats and Republicans choose their nominees in our democratic process, and as President Bush prepares to deliver his last State of the Union address, let us all remember that we owe it to our children and our children’s children to put progress ahead of politics and support what is working in school reform, and to work together to fix what is not.

From the Washington Post, “How to Fix ‘No Child’, “ written by Sen. Edward Kennedy