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Michael S. Dell
CEO
Dell (DELL)
"Middle schoolers in the U.S. rank in the 20s, out of the top 30 industrialized nations. What are you going to do about it? And why isn't this a national crisis? Ultimately that's what's going to drive our competitiveness.
Given that the U.S. has less than 4% of the world's population, but over half the world's wealth, how does the candidate think about competitiveness for the nation? I hear a lot of 'We're going to tax this, and we're going to tax that.' How do we stay competitive? Jobs don't get created with new taxes. And I think we've got some big issues to deal with and some tough competitors out there globally.
I think education and the competitiveness would be the two big ones that I would probably clue in on. I mean, on competitiveness, we already have almost the highest tax rates in the world, and there's some discussion that they will go even higher. Is that the path to competitiveness? I don't think so, particularly in a world where, going back to the education issue, you live in China, you go to high school, there's about a 100% chance you'll take calculus. You live in the U.S., you go to high school, there's about a 12% chance you'll take calculus. How can we expect to be the richest nation in the world with that kind of disparity, and what do you actually do about that? So it's a tough time to be President."
