Last week, America voted for change, again! In 2008, one of the reasons Americans made this choice was to oppose a decade of faulty politics which led this country to be the epicenter of the most important financial crisis the Western world has known since the Great Depression. As Rome wasn’t built in a day, the American economic recovery had no chance to be achieved in two years, even with President Barack Obama’s will and tenacity.

We could have naively thought the 2008 Democratic wave, the strongest Congress invasion since the ’70s, meant Americans acknowledged their weaknesses as well as their strengths. When listening to the newly elected Republican agora, some may feel like America chose to move backward.

America is a role model of ultra-liberalism applied in economic and social fields. For this reason, it paid the most painful price among all other industrialized nations during this crisis. After that, what is the point of being the wealthiest country in the world if its people think their children will be poorer than they are? What lessons have to be learned from this crisis?

Well, America has to design new solutions and build new foundations for its post-crisis policies. It has to accept that going back on the old policies is not the solution. These political beliefs weakened the well-being of many of its people, threatened its leadership and created the underlying causes of this crisis. These have names: excessive deregulation and the ineffectiveness of the State.

America faces new stakes in this new decade. Who can reasonably think that everything will be the same after the collapse this country has known? New political recipes have to be cooked up for America’s sake, but they must not be the way that Republicans envision them.

Republicans argued that the fight against the size of the government and the deficit are the main battles to be led. Sure, they are important ones, but is now the right time? Indeed, they sound a bit more demagogical than logical in the actual period of recovery facing America.

First solution argued: cutting taxes. Here there is a major mathematical issue. Taxes are the main income for the federal and national government. By cutting and reducing them, it logically results in a bigger aggravation of the public deficits. Considering this, it will become even more difficult to repay the federal debt. Pragmatically, tax-cut policies would nowadays have critical effects on public finance recovery. Moreover, what billions could be cut in taxes are way less than what is needed to efficiently shrink trillions in deficit. In a nutshell, taxes are not the problem, but part of the solution!

Second solution: lowering public spending and government scope. This could be partially appropriate in regard to the global loss of income from industrial and personal taxes in the purse of the State. However, one cannot think only in the short-run.

Government initiatives represent the general interest. Sure, checks and balances are always necessary, but with what do you balance a resourceless administration? For instance, a Keynesian boost on the economy may be useful in regard to the jobs it immediately creates and the infrastructures it develops for businesses and people.

We must empower a wounded America and develop new assets to keep ahead of emergent superpowers like China or Russia. How can America do that with a weakened State without financial support? An astronomic defense budget isn’t sufficient. Americans need to be protected against many other risks to become confident again in their collective strengths. And with initiatives like the Universal Health Care Bill, it’s the duty of the State to insure it.

The country of the “new frontiers” should not forget what created it: its audacity and collective ability to look forward.

Alexandre Huau-Armani is a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences and an international student.