America Is on a Path to Turn into Detroit, and Republicans Are Cool with That

America Is on a Path to Turn into Detroit, and Republicans Are Cool with That

When given a chance to stop the outsourcing of American jobs overseas, Speaker Boehner and his Republican colleagues balked. In September of 2010, Republicans in Congress killed a bill that would have eliminated tax breaks for companies that outsource jobs.

But outsourcing isn’t the only problem that Detroit and the rest of America have in common.

In Detroit, thanks to a severe lack of funding, public education is failing that city’s children. Only 7% of Detroit public school 8th-graders are proficient in reading, while just 4% are proficient in math. And, in 2008, Detroit’s high school graduation rate was just 24.9 percent.

In the rest of the United States, public education is just as underfunded as it is in Detroit. As a result, in 2008, the US’ high school graduation rate was lower than the rates of the UK, Switzerland, Norway, South Korea, Japan, Italy and a host of other developed nations.