Georgia is very dry. Water levels are at historic lows, and due to a less-active-than-usual tropical storm season, no relief is in sight. There is a severe watering ban back home, and restaurants aren’t even giving glasses of water to their customers.
Part of this is due to weather patterns. But a lot of it is due to poor planning. I’ve heard a lot in the news lately about former governor Roy Barnes (who I used to work for, in the interest of full disclosure). In 2002, when he was governor, he proposed a series of long-reaching water retention programs, such as building reservoirs in North Georgia. Now, pundits say, these definitely would have eased the current drought (see the following links). Georgia columnists from Tom Crawford to Bill Shipp have weighed in. Here are a couple of links:
Governor Barnes lost re-election in 2002, for a number of reasons that I won’t get into here. Because he didn’t win re-election, the water retention reservoirs were tabled. They would have been helpful now. “I told you so” doesn’t do any good in politics, though…we just need to learn for the future. The current drought in Georgia shows how people in government should make politically unglamorous investments for long-term good—or they’ll be kicking themselves later when they and their constituents don’t get water at Ruby Tuesday’s, or the green grass on their football fields turns brown.
Water protection is not something that Roy Barnes could have campaigned on. It’s not a sexy topic that would have won him votes statewide. It wouldn’t even have been noticed if it were successful. But his ideas were what public officials should pursue precisely because of that—they were unglamorous, but potentially critical to pursue in the long-term.
This idea will drive my thesis topic. In this vein, I have settled on the Lisbon Strategy for my thesis topic. I will post my extensive proposal in the next couple of days, but essentially, it involves re-investing current spending schemes, such as farm subsidies, into education and research and development. The European Union has decided that its comparative advantage in a global economy is in R&D—the so-called “knowledge economy”—and research—particularly eco-friendly research on issues related to climate change—will be worth investing heavily in (like the Georgia drought, we will regret if we don’t do it in the future).
But to do so requires money, and might require cutting back popular programs like the CAP, the farm subsidy program that makes up 47% of the European Union budget. Farming is a crucial part of Europe’s heritage and provides a good deal of European jobs, but with continued subsidies, it might not be a sustainable industry. Most farmers will keep their jobs, but others can be retrained to play a role in the knowledge economy—jobs that are safer, don’t require government subsidies, and may be more sustainable. At least that is the hope of the European Union.
But farmers—understandably—are worried about the potential for this. Europe can’t threaten a deep cultural heritage and a huge employment sector easily. If this is in the long-term interests of Europe, though, how can Europe get the people to go along with it? If the people aren’t on board, the policy will fail.
The challenge for many in government is getting past the status quo to promote necessary reform. A look at the re-shaping of the European Union budget is a highly current issue that can teach a lot.
