‘What would YOU tell President Obama...?’

The housing crisis, rising debt and human rights are among the most important issues that UConn students and Economics Department faculty said they'd like to talk to President Obama about. A talk entitled "What would you tell President Obama to do if you had his undivided attention for 10 minutes?" moderated by Dr. Metin Cosgel, the Economics Department head, gave audience members the chance to ask questions and economics faculty a chance to facilitate discussion about their primary concerns.

The panel started with Dr. Arthur Wright, professor emeritus of economics. He began by saying that our political system is in a state of gridlock, and that the problems in Europe are affecting the U.S. as well. Wright said that we "can and should do what we can domestically," and that the focus of national debate needed to change.

"We can't just talk about deficit and debt as the GOP tends to focus on," Wright said. "That'll just lead to long-term deficit." He advocated a long-term plan to restore investor confidence, which would entail investments in public infrastructure, changes in the education system, a focus on total mortgage debt and changes to Social Security and Medicare – a combination of tax hikes and cuts.

Wright was followed by Dr. Steven Lanza, also a professor of economics at UConn who, for the most part, agreed with his colleague. However, Lanza advocated more focus on the housing crisis. He brought up a plan proposed by President Ronald Reagan's former chief economic adviser in a recent New York Times article that advocated a "homeowner forgiveness" plan. Lanza also was strongly in favor of delaying access to Social Security and retirement, and changing the school system – specifically lengthening the school year, saying, "We're using a 19th century model for a 21st century world."

Next came Dr. Stephen Ross, another professor of economics, who started off by saying that the problem was not as bad as it was made out to be. He stated that the issues could not be solved by a few clever policies, and that time was what would fix the problems. He did suggest refinancing negative equity, which he said would put money in people's pockets without deficit and without involving an act of Congress.

After Ross was Dr. Lanse Minkler, associate professor of economics. He focused on human rights, saying that the government should just give every unemployed person a federal job, since according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, people have a right to employment.

"I thought it was a very insightful debate but there wasn't a lot of variation in opinion," said Adam Blum, a 7th-semester economics and political science major. "It was mostly different points of view on the same issues, but I especially enjoyed the discussion on education."

"I'm not really into economy stuff, but I learned a lot," said Karin Tse, 1st-semester pre-pharmacy major.

"I didn't know how far behind we were," said Vincent Do, 3rd-semester pre-pharmacy major.