Since our nation's earliest days, Americans have excelled at envisioning new ideas and transforming them into the products that make the world run. From the Bell telephone, to the Wright brothers' airplane to the first personal computer, innovation has driven American enterprise from generation to generation, creating jobs in the process.
Americans overwhelmingly believe if America is to be great in the decades ahead it will be because we continue to make things and sell them here and around the world. Only by tapping into our tradition of innovation can we continue to lead the global economy of the twenty-first century. Investments in innovation will enable us to move our economic recovery forward and lay the groundwork for a new generation of well-paying jobs for the middle class that won't be shipped overseas.
Our foreign competitors are investing heavily in research and development and graduating more scientists and engineers. They are working hard to replicate the innovation culture that made us the world's economic leader. However, I believe -- and I know most Americans agree -- that we cannot afford to cede that leadership role or allow our innovation edge to erode.
According to a New York Times feature in January, when the late Steve Jobs was preparing to unveil the original iPhone in 2007, Apple executives determined that finding the 8,700 trained engineers in the United States needed to supervise its 200,000 assembly line workers would take up to nine months. In China, however, it would take only two weeks. Part of the reason is because China and other countries have been investing in science, technology, engineering, and math -- or "STEM" -- education, skills training, and basic research at unprecedented levels, building a workforce well prepared to compete for these jobs. According to the National Science Board, ten Asian nations have increased their research and development expenditures to equal ours. Furthermore, the number of Chinese graduates earning doctoral degrees in engineering has doubled since 2000 and has now surpassed the number of engineering doctorates earned here.
Across the world, our competitors are investing in their future. We cannot afford to fall behind. As former President Bill Clinton wrote in his latest book Back to Work, it's time Americans got into the future business again. Much like the successes of our past, our economic future will be fueled by our limitless energy to innovate. And the best way to tap into that innovation energy is through House Democrats' Make It In America plan, for which I have been proud to take the lead in Congress.
Make It In America is the comprehensive jobs plan this country needs, and it aims to restore certainty to American businesses and help them expand so they can create jobs and compete overseas. It combines strategic tax reform that encourages manufacturers to move production back here with investments in education, innovation, and infrastructure.
A great example of this is the America Invents Act, which Congress passed last year. That legislation will help clear the current patent backlog, speed the processing of new applications, and provide for greater intellectual property protection. When innovation drives an economy, safeguarding intellectual property is vital to making sure those who develop new products can manufacture and sell them profitably.
Other Make It In America proposals to increase innovation await action by Congress. One would establish a National Network for Manufacturing Innovation, which would bring manufacturers, academics, and government leaders together to create an innovation infrastructure that will speed the development of manufacturing technologies. Another calls for a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that will help close persistent achievement gaps, graduate more students who are college and career-ready, and include robust funding for STEM education programs from an early level. Our plan would also update and modernize the Workforce Investment Act to make job skills training more accessible to those currently out of work. A Make It In America bill I introduced last year would partner manufacturing businesses with local colleges and universities to provide training in essential skills and create a pathway to careers.
Our plan also encourages businesses to produce more of their goods here in order to take advantage of co-locating design and production, which we believe further feeds innovation as engineers move between the laboratory and the factory floor. These are just some of the ways the Make It In America plan aims to help businesses innovate and find the skilled workers they need for the jobs that investments in innovation will help create.
When Democrats first introduced Make It In America legislation two years ago, we did so in the hope that Republicans would join with us in a bipartisan effort to put more Americans back to work by investing in business growth. Unfortunately, not only have House Republicans refused to do so but they have yet to propose a comprehensive jobs plan of their own after nearly 20 months in the Majority. A glimmer of hope may be found in the 10 Make It In America bills that were able to draw bipartisan support and be passed into law -- a good start but nowhere near what must be done to meet our challenges and move our economic recovery forward.
Make It In America is about more than just promoting innovation; it is about recapturing the spirit that long made us the world's innovation leader. If we can do so, there is no limit to what we can achieve and the future we can create. It's up to Congress to embrace that future and make it possible.
Mitch Ditkoff: The Four Currents of the Culture of Innovation
Marian Croak: Dear Young Women in Technology, Welcome From a 30-year Veteran
The US does not have an export oriented culture. Americans that expatriate to try to sell US goods and services are penalized by an inane double taxation system.
Compare that to export oriented countries like Germany or Switzerland.
They are at trade parity with China despite high production costs. But their culture is export oriented. Instead of competing head on with Asia on the same products, they instead went up-market investing in R&D and exploiting niches.
US politicians are unable to look across the border for successful examples. Lawmaking is running amok in this country. It is not a democrats versus republicans problem at all. Stop the double taxation first. Encourage and support Americans that want to expatriate and sell US goods abroad. That will be a first step.
MARKET RESISTANCE is best described in Clayton Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma. The customers of many successful companies are risk-averse and resist disruptive change, and the bigger they are, the more conservative their investments. That's why innovation comes more from small companies needing a competitive advantage through disruptive change. They're the ones willing to take risks and put sweat into it.
FAIRNESS relates to free market capitalism but on a level playing field. Today, however, large special-interest lobbyists have corrupted our polital process to gain unfair advantage over the smaller, and more innovative, competitors.
AUSTERITY refers to GOP efforts to reduce the size of government that should be investing MORE in education, strategic infrastructure, and research.
The US is still world leader in innovation, by some distance. The problem is antiquated reasoning: innovation is no longer about building a better mousetrap so that the world comes - it's about continuously improving the experience in ways no one anticipated.
For the last 3-4 decades we have become increasingly lazy. We are constantly reminded about the need to create clean, affordable energy, reliable crop production, better schools, more efficient industries like construction (one of the most inefficient) and even more effective charitable giving. Yet, no solutions. The Departments of Energy, Agriculture and Education all spend more than $100 billion a year and NONE has a solution or even a Plan. This has been going on for decades and it's time to understand the reality that government will never solve our problems - it never has. History reminds us that individuals create solutions with inventions - that's how it has always been.
Finally, we need to educate people about "creating jobs." Government and business do not create jobs, only demand does. Unmet demand inspires invention and businesses produce products or services to meet that demand. The demand creates the jobs.
A few examples of unmet demand that could create millions of jobs:
Clean AFFORDABLE energy.
Better schools that are affordable.
Reliable Agriculture.
Affordable urban living
More efficient charity tied to American Made products/relief.
That's what I've been working on for the last 10 years and will launch soon. Have a look:
http://www.solutioneur.com
Since you and your buddies on CapitolHill allowed much of our industrial production to leave the country over the last several decades, it is kind of surprising that you're now talking about building up industrial production.
Let's be clear about this Steny, allowing most of the population's means of making a livelihood to be shipped overseas amounts to treason. But don't fret, we're powerless to bring about any justice on this issue and we do understand why you did it: you need big bucks to keep getting reelected and to get those big bucks, you have to please the tiny fraction of the population that has most of the money.
The bottom line was, the rich wanted to do something that harmed the country - and you didn't have the character and integrity necessary to tell them "no".
Now you propose a solution to the mess that you created and the very first thing you mention is patent protection - another idea, which along with off-shoring, is an idea that the rich are so fond of.
Your other ideas include giving tax breaks to corporations in order to entice them to move production back here and to increase education funding. Steny, we know that certain govt agencies were giving relocation assistance and tax breaks to move their production out of the country, and we are also aware that you and your politician friends have been defunding public education for several decades.
Your sincerity is doubtful.
MARKET RESISTANCE is best described in Clayton Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma. The customers of many successful companies are risk-averse and resist disruptive change, and the bigger they are, with more to lose, they more conservative their investments are. Innovation somes more from small companies needing a competitive advantage through disruptive change. They're the ones willing to take risks and put sweat into it.
FAIRNESS relates to free market capitalism but with a level playing field. Today, however, large special-interest lobbyists have corrupted our polital process to gain unfair advantage over the smaller, and more innovative, competitors.
AUSTERITY refers to GOP efforts to reduce the size of government that should be investing More in education, strategic infrastructure, and research.
A) "patent backlog, speed the processing of new applications, and provide for greater intellectual property protection"
You know, the problem with this we can see playing out in the legal (NOT INNOVATIVE!) battles between Apple - Samsung - Google. "Patents" for "left click", for certain finger movements on touch screens, for a tablet design saying "flat, with rounded corners"?
I am all for protecting engineering innovations, but not like that. These battles are turf wars, distracting from making a better product leading only to legal market share struggles.
B.) That said, none of what is written here - afaik - even remotely resembles the approach we take in Germany, which is taken in South Korea, Japan and China. The approach we take is first to make it a tuition- free, national obligation to teach our kids as best as we can; encourage them to explore. Having close, not monetary, relations between (in particular) the regional universities of applied sciences, companies and pupils. Or between vocational education schools, companies and secondary education pupils.
So, why are people in the US so focused on China? No analysis of China alone/ prominently IMO will get you anywhere. China is a non compatible regime. A system diametrically opposite of the US - and neither the US or China will realistically suddenly have a change of hearts about these fundamental issues.
Why is it impossible for the US to publicly take a page or two from other democracies' "national economic guidelines" books and adopt them for the US? Is it because of pride? Vanity?
Whodda thunk it?
Ah, the sweet smell of industrial policy and the educational-congressional complex; it smells of... VICTORY! Bwahahahahahaha!!!!
Not only does such innovation not advance us in any way, it's also highly inefficient economically. Think of everything that's "innovated" before it served a useful life. From people who sell their three-year-old car to buy a green one, to people who have owned every single Apple product released since 2000, none of this innovation produces any benefit or gain for society. It merely makes a small minority very, very wealthy.
We need a thinking Congress that helps to deal with real problems - like the "rise of the rest."
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/features/collections/the-rise-of-the-rest
Employers need educated employees.
Congress has cut funding for education.
Employers need employees educated in Science, Math, Engineering and Technology
Congress has made laws that allow federal funds to be used by religious indoctrination training centers that don't believe in science - wastig our federal dollars.
Employers need employees that have critical thinking skills.
Congress has made laws giving moocher states that already take more than their fair share of federal dollars, the right to take federal money while they purposely cut teaching of critical thinking skills.
Congress - 535 lazy, crazy, venal, corrupt, corporatist kleptocrats - has done nothing to help with innovation, education, or jobs.
Congress has done nothing to help make America more competitive. Congress does not invest in America or Americans.
Congress is 535 cowering, corrupt, craven individuals - drunk skinny-dippers howling for Secret Service blood.
Congress utterly fails its essential purpose.
Congress is not paid to try. This isn't grade school sports where everyone gets a cute little trophy for "trying."
Congress is paid to solve problems. PERIOD.
Most people get paid for results. Most people get paid for accomplishment.
Congress gets paid for doing nothing, accomplishing nothing, solving nothing.
For the past few years, Congress has acted like a bunch of three-year olds demanding their way and accompished so little it is startling.
While the American people need jobs.
While the American economy needs stimulus.
Hoyer is just another incredibly corrupt, venal, useless tool who chooses to accomplish nothing - because he gets his pay and his insider trading no matter what.