As we welcome President Barack Obama to our beautiful campus, so alive with political interest, I have been asked by The Badger Herald what I would like the President to address. There is so much to talk about in the incredibly challenging world we live in today. Given space constraints, let me stress three hard-hitting major issues or questions. These issues embrace a singular concern: can the apparent American decline be reversed? 

First, I would like the President to address what he would do in a second term to promote real economic growth. His first term has not been exactly stellar in this regard. Three years after the recovery officially began in 2009, nearly 25 percent of Americans between the ages of 25 and 55 remain unemployed for one reason or another-the highest percentage in thirty years-and growth has been anemic compared to every recovery since the Great Depression. This includes even the deep recession of the early 1980s, which gave way to 7.8 percent growth the year after it ended. Improvement might not be on the horizon, either. Growth for the last quarter was recently revised, down to 1.3 percent from 1.7 percent, a rate well below what is needed to improve employment given population growth. Meanwhile, household net worth has declined 30 to 40 percent since 2007, and household income is also down. Many economists predict yet another recession just around the corner. What would the President do the next time around to improve the economic growth upon which so much of our nation’s prospects depend?

Second, the President should address our national debt situation. Debt hangs over our student body and future generations like Damocles’ Sword, yet public debt has mushroomed by $5 trillion since 2008. What will happen if and when interest rates rise, making it all the more difficult to pay for our growing debt? Meanwhile, no serious administrative budget has been presented to Congress in years. How can a renewal of the President’s leadership help us to get a handle on this looming crisis? 

Finally, national security should be addressed. We had been led to believe that al-Qaeda and its ilk had been dealt with, but recent events in the Middle East suggest that we are now confronting rejuvenated Islamic terrorist movements on a variety of fronts. Foreign affairs writer Walter Russell Mead maintains that we are entering a new phase in the battle with terrorism that will echo the Cold War in terms of commitment and scope. And, of course, the clock is ticking in Iran.

Donald Downs is a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin and an adviser to The Badger Herald’s Board of Directors.