Hey, do you know what might help stimulate the economy?

… learning to speak and write in English.

Now before anyone gets their panties in a wad, we are generally against any sort of formal declarations of English being the “official” language of this country.

When we were growing up and leafing through encyclopedias and almanacs that contained info-blurbs on all the nations on the planet and reading about “main exports” and “Gross Domestic Products” and “chief ethnicities”, it seemed pretty cool that the official language of the United States was “none”. To us, nothing was better representative of the melting pot that our nation was than to be above or just to busy to get around to declaring English the official language.

And perhaps more importantly though, it appeared to contain a tacit acknowledgement and admonishment: “Why do we need and official language? Doesn’t it seem pretty obvious that in order to succeed and get ahead here, it behooves one to learn the English language?”

Unfortunately, most of these proposals are largely symbolic in nature and don’t come equipped with the mechanics that would “nudge” (see, we learn quickly. Thanks, Robert Reich) English-as-second-language folks towards English in a more expeditious manner such as eliminating/cutting back on government signage, forms and publications printed in other-than-English. (The citizens of Nashville just recently shot down a proposal that would've done just that).

The fact of the matter is and it is something we see on a daily basis in our job is that lack of communication skills in the work place is an impediment to progress and achievement and contributes mightily to waste and inefficiency. People that cannot effectively communicate in English here in America simply will not find better paying jobs – this is fact.

So we wonder if somewhere under that $825 billion Christmas tree is a little something that would be of immediate benefit to low-pay/low-skill citizens and have lasting beneficial effects in way of classes that would provide an avenue to better jobs and a better way of life in this country, strengthening them as citizens and strengthening this country as a whole in a shared and common tradition: the English language.

We realize this plea for unity and oneness probably won’t pass the diversifiers’, the people who will be running the near trillion dollar make work program, sniff test but we figured we’d throw it out there anyway to see if these people practice what they preach.