So it’s been a while since my last post, and I guess I’m coming out swinging for the fences.

Today, PRI’s program The World program featured a story on American philanthropist Greg Carr, who’s spending $40 million to promote eco-tourism in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park. In explaining how he’s been able to convince locals in this part of southern Africa, one of the poorest regions on earth, not to take the unsustainable and destructive approach of poaching and clear-cutting to feed their families, Carr tells the story of a young man who had learned English in order to be a paid guide for Americans and Europeans visiting the park. Carr explains that that young man’s goal now is to learn enough languages so that he can guide any European who visits the park, and that as a result, the young man will earn as much as 20 times as much as his father, who runs a small slash-and-burn subsistence farm. Carr uses this as an example of developing a skill and making it in “a knowledge industry.”

Also today, one of my favorite journalists, Jack Lessenberry, argued that Michigan’s choice is to “Fund education – or die.” Lessenberry writes that “our only hope, really, is to attract new high-tech, new-economy jobs.” How do we do that? Again Lessenberry has an answer: “We need to do everything we can to get more of our students in colleges and universities and high-tech vocational programs, or they will have no future.” In addition, “as important as higher education is, it means nothing if we don’t have decent lower education for everyone — kindergarten through high school.”

My only criticism of Lessenberry’s argument is that schooling should start even earlier – that a first step is to make a real commitment to early childhood education in Michigan. Tomorrow, by the way, the Michigan Early Childhood Investment Corporation is sponsoring a presentation by Rob Grunewald, an Associate Economist for the Federal Bank of Minneapolis, who will tell legislators and others that according to a recent report, the state gets $17 in benefits for every $1 it invests in quality preschool. One quote from Grunewald especially stood out: “In these times of budget shortfall it’s important to protect what investments are currently in place in those areas because ultimately investments in early education to pay back in the long run.”

It seems, however, that not everyone in Lansing is listening to this economist. Down in Lansing today, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop and his GOP colleagues pushed through a series of devastating cuts after Bishop’s phony budget deal went nowhere. Included among the cuts are $25,500 to Early Childhood Education. What was that about investing in our future? Paging Federal Bank of Minneapolis Economist Rob Grunewald to the Senate chamber…

Senate Republicans also slashed nearly $18 million from Michigan’s community colleges, including $128,900 from West Shore Community College in Scottville and $534,100 from Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City; $83,300 for screenings and treatment services for newborns (Welcome to Michigan!); $333,300 from Family, Maternal, and Children’s Health Services for their childhood lead program; $666,700 from the pregnancy prevention program (but don’t go looking to these “Pro-Life” legislators if you do find yourself with an unwanted pregnancy); $55,600 from a nutrition program for the elderly; over $97 million from higher education (nevermind, Jack Lessenberry, nevermind); $3.5 million of state aid to libraries; over half-a-million from the Department of Natural Resources; and over $90 million in revenue sharing to local governments. And don’t forget: Senate Republicans today voted to cut $15 million from the School Aid Fund, while robbing $300 million (subscription required) from the 21st Century Jobs Fund. (You can read through all the cuts here and here.)

So how do these things fit together, these three disparate strands all reported on the same day. It’s simple. If we don’t invest in Michigan, who will? That $25,500 cut in early childhood programs will end up costing Michigan over $433,000 in the long run. Robbing $300 million from the 21st Century Jobs Fund to cover the short-sighted irresponsibility of the Senate Republicans makes it that much harder for Michigan to get back on her feet. And the cuts to higher education, community colleges and the school aid fund – totaling $130 million! – makes Michigan’s turnaround that much more difficult, and that much further away.

That 16 year old young man in Mozambique understands something that Mike Bishop and his Republican colleagues do not and probably never will: that education and skills are the only true path to future prosperity. We can’t cut our way to a brighter future. We need to invest in it.