Washington, DC – If the U.S. hopes to maintain its position as the world leader in innovation, it must move beyond election-year demagoguery over offshore outsourcing and think rationally about the long-term health of the U.S. economy. Doing this will require the creation of a consensus-driven national technology vision and strategy, the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA) said today in unveiling a six-part policy playbook on the future of the U.S. high-tech industry. Instituting or expanding policies that encourage more innovation would also make the U.S. a more inviting place to do business and could generate high-skills job creation. In proposing a broad range of legislative and regulatory changes, EIA also hopes to improve the U.S. innovation infrastructure, so that the nation can compete favorably against other countries that offer educated workforces, lower tax rates and investment incentives.
“The current debate over offshore outsourcing has been reduced by many to a binary argument: U.S. jobs vs. worldwide trade,” EIA President Dave McCurdy said. “These are important issues, but for the sake of the nation and the U.S. economy, we should be focusing our energy on the much larger long-term issue of the future of U.S. innovation."
To achieve this, EIA is urging policymakers and candidates for political office to begin public discussion and work to create a national innovation strategy based in part on 40 recommendations outlined in its new policy playbook, entitled “The Technology Industry at an Innovation Crossroads.” Unveiled this morning in the U.S. Capitol and available online, EIA’s policy playbook addresses the future of the U.S. high-tech innovation economy and six crucial issues that EIA believes influence U.S. innovation growth and expansion:
- international business and trade;
- U.S. visa and immigration policy;
- workforce assistance and training for U.S. workers;
- the U.S. business environment;
- K-12 math and science education; and,
- research and development funding trends in the U.S.
Decades of technological advancement and innovation in the U.S. have created new products, new markets and new jobs. EIA believes what the U.S. needs now are not short-term or protectionist measures but a commitment to R&D, visa policy reform and other measures that can expand the country’s innovation infrastructure. “Over the past 30 years, innovation has given the U.S. and the rest of the world wave after wave of technological advancement and generated millions of high-skilled jobs. If we want to ensure that successive waves of innovation begin in the U.S., and that workers are the first to benefit from “the next big thing” in technology, we need a strategy that will bolster our innovation infrastructure and make the U.S. a more competitive place to do business,” McCurdy said.
To achieve these goals, EIA is making 40 recommendations to achieve the following policy goals:
- development of a more rigorous and relevant K-12 science and math education program that prepares students for the 21st century;
- visa and immigration policy reforms that keep the nation secure but also allow the best and brightest minds in the world to visit, study and work in the U.S.;
- cooperation with U.S. trading partners to ensure open markets and a free, fair and secure trading environment;
- an improved U.S. business environment through tax and regulatory reform;
- establishment of an effective and flexible system of continual skills training and worker education; and,
- a more substantial federal investment in basic scientific research.
“The core value of a knowledge-based company or society should be innovation, which at its heart is creativity plus risk-taking,” McCurdy said. “The U.S. has been the entrepreneurial and technological envy of the world because, for decades, we rewarded innovation, creativity and risk-taking. Now the world is catching up to us. We live and work in a technology-driven global economy with more educated workers, a rising consumer class, more governments that reward entrepreneurs, and freer markets than at any point in history. In the past, developing nations followed our lead. Now, these same nations aspire to lead. How are we going to react to this new level of competition from the emerging 'innovation nations'? We need to focus on our future, because if we don’t determine what tomorrow will look like, others will determine it for us. The EIA Playbook is an initiative to help U.S. policymakers determine our tomorrow so that we all enjoy a favorable outcome.”
View or download a PDF file of EIA’s “The Technology Industry at an Innovation Crossroads” Policy Playbook. To obtain hard copies of the publication or to learn more about EIA’s efforts on innovation, contact Neil Gaffney, Director of Communications.
