Great expectations and failed leadership

Solving problems requires acknowledging tradeoffs and having an honest discussion about necessary sacrifices

A survey shows that college graduates expect to earn about $50,000 a year more than they’ll actually get, a good illustration of a troubling gap between expectations and what government policy realistically can deliver.

The headline looked like clickbait when I saw it on social media: College graduates expect to earn $50,000 more than they’ll actually make. This time the sensational claim wasn’t clickbait; it was true – or close to it.

The story was based on a 2022 survey of college students asking what they expected to make. The average answer: $103,800. The average annual pay for graduates in their first job: $55,000.

With graduation season approaching, the discrepancy fueled a new batch of articles about millennials’ unrealistic expectations. That’s unfair. The disconnect between economic expectations and what’s possible is a multigeneration problem – and these unrealistic expectations represent a core tension in modern politics.

Leaders at all levels of government are much better at creating expectations than solving problems.

Oregon’s approach to the housing crisis is another current example. I’m using Oregon as an example, but it should be noted that other states are making similar mistakes.

Gov. Tina Kotek has set a goal of building 36,000 new housing units a year for the next 10 years. It’s a good goal. We need to build at least that number to make up for more than a decade of underbuilding. But similarly, who blames college graduates for wanting to earn more than $100,000 a year. For those who live in expensive cities and have student loans, the desire is not extravagant. The question in both cases: Is there any realistic way to do that?

In both cases, the answer is “yes, but ….”

Yes, graduates could earn that much but they would have to develop skill sets that deliver more than $100,000 a year of value to their companies. Producing those graduates would require drastic changes in our education system from pre-school through high school, college and even post-graduate and continuing education programs.

Yes, we could build that many houses, but there would have to be drastic changes in zoning laws and regulations affecting builders. And builders somehow would have to find enough workers to build all those houses.

The same type of disconnect applies to many climate proposals. Would it help reduce emissions and the effects of climate change if everyone drove electric vehicles? Yes, but do we have the necessary infrastructure for that many EVs, access to enough lithium and other minerals to produce the needed batteries, and the ability to produce enough reliable electricity to power all the EVs and everything else climate advocates propose to convert to electricity?

These are difficult, complex questions with difficult, complex answers. They should be discussed in detail. In fact, there must be difficult, detailed public discussions and advocacy campaigns to successfully address many of our most difficult policy challenges as a nation. But the opposite is happening.

When, leaders tell voters “yes we can do that,” but fail to acknowledge the obstacles that must be overcome – in part because voters will be unhappy if asked to help remove those obstacles – they sow the seeds of cynicism that choke out government effectiveness like a super-bloom of weeds.

In other words, it’s time for elected leaders – and the media – to tell the public what they need to hear instead of what they want to hear. It’s not impossible. Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, is setting an important example.  Described as “a hard-choices, tell-the-truth kind of guy,”  Golden wrote an eight-page letter to his constituents explaining his plan dealing with debt ceiling and government spending. Read this Washington Post column for more on Golden. We need more Jared Goldens.

Maybe, just maybe, the shakeup in cable news over the past week offers another opportunity.

Tucker Carlson, Fox News’ highest-rated host, left the network after not-very-surprising revelations that he didn’t believe much of what he said about the 2020 election. It’s unclear how big of a factor those revelations from the Dominion Voting Systems defamation suit, which Fox settled for $787.5 million last week, were in Carlson’s departure. But it’s hard to believe they didn’t play a role. On the same day Fox announced its divorce with Carlson, CNN announced it was parting ways with high-profile anchor Don Lemon. Lemon’s misstatements were more gaffes or insults than propaganda but damaging to public discourse nonetheless.

Here's hoping that CNN and Fox will consider hiring replacements who’ll lead complex examination of complex issues instead of circus acts who toss red meat to the base voters who they have relied on for ratings. I can’t say I’m optimistic. But someone – journalists, legislators, powerful donors – has to change the conversation before we find solutions to the many shared problems our country faces.

Mark Hester is a retired journalist who worked 20 years at The Oregonian in positions including business editor, sports editor and editorial writer.