Embarking on a Voyage to the Future, Sailing on an Ocean of Change
President Trump, who promised to be an agent of change, will address Congress and the Nation tonight, detailing his Administration’s priorities and policy agenda at a pivotal moment in American history and the beginning of a global transformation.
As the new President takes the helm of the ship of state, he must navigate a roiling sea change of colliding and converging trends?—?a competitive playing field ever more crowded with strong challengers flexing their muscle, game changing business models and technologies disrupting the job market and almost every industry, and the rapid unfolding of great revolutions in science and technology with profound implications for the competitiveness of nations. These are historic changes in terms of their size, speed and scope, and present the economic challenge of our lifetime.
The U.S. Council on Competitiveness 2016 Clarion Call, A Competitiveness Agenda for the 45th President of the United States charts a route through these stormy seas to an American future of higher growth and productivity, and the good-paying jobs we need. It urges the new Administration to act to ensure our leadership in innovation and technology, develop our talent, bolster investment, and build a world-leading physical and cyber infrastructure. The Clarion Call's Competitiveness Report Card shows U.S. performance in these critical foundations for success is mixed. But, a few grades of D and F require urgent action.
Grade F: Investment in Federal R&D has lagged, while a growing number of challengers build their own versions of the U.S. innovation model. For example, China’s investment in R&D has grown more than five-fold just in the past decade, from $70 billion in 2004 to $368 billion in 2014, and is now second only to the U.S. investment. Yet, despite the critical role Federal R&D has played in our technology leadership for more than half a century, and despite urgent calls to increase investment, basic research has largely been flat for a decade and a half, and investment has not kept pace with the size of our economy. We should double that investment, and forge new partnerships between researchers and industry to commercialize the results.
Grade D: Our corporate tax rate is too high, the highest in the developed world. Businesses and entrepreneurs are optimistic that the Trump Administration and Congress will lower the corporate tax rate to a globally competitive level, and reduce taxes on repatriated earnings. The timing couldn’t be better! Marrying a fresh infusion of investment capital to the tremendous opportunities emerging from today’s revolutions in science and technology can jump-start new industries, spark start-ups, fuel scale-ups, and motivate new partnerships between industry and our labs to move a flood of new technologies to the marketplace.
Grade F: Our infrastructure is crumbling, much of it out of date. At the same time, our competitors are rushing to apply new materials, energy and energy efficiency technologies, and the smart digital revolution to build modern systems, knowing that infrastructure is the bedrock of competitive economies, a productivity enabler and magnet for global investment. So should we, as the Trump Administration and Congress plan large new investments in infrastructure. This is a golden opportunity to improve the efficiency of our economy, and make the United States a global leader in the markets for infrastructure technologies as developing economies build-out, and new cities rise and metros grow with a rising urban population.
As we embark on a new journey with a new President and new Administration in a turbulent and transforming world, as old ways and old models fall to the wayside, we must remember that major change always comes with uncertainty and risk. But, as America’s famous Revolutionary War Naval hero, John Paul Jones, proclaimed: “It seems to be a law of nature, inflexible and inexorable, that those who will not risk?—?cannot win.”
Let’s unleash our country, cut the lines from the old norms, and dream, invest, create and win the future!
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Deborah L. Wince-Smith is the president and CEO of the U.S. Council on Competitiveness, a nonpartisan leadership group of CEOs, labor leaders, university presidents, and national lab directors. Together, they advance pro-growth pubic policies and promote public-private partnerships where new technologies are born.