Rivals’ visions differ on unleashing innovation

Outlook in Obama book
In October 2006, Mr. Obama, who had been elected to the Senate from Illinois two years earlier, published his second book, “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream.” He wrote of visiting Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., where, among other things, he saw a map of the world with lights showing where Google searches were going on. Swaths of Africa and South Asia were dark. But so were portions of the United States, he wrote, where “thick cords of light dissolved into a few discrete strands.”

Many of the engineers Mr. Obama met at Google were from Asia or Eastern Europe. “As far as I could tell, not one was black or Latino,” he wrote. His guide told him that finding American-born engineers of any race was getting so hard that American companies were setting up shop abroad, in part for access to talent.

America, Mr. Obama wrote, cannot compete with countries like China and India simply by cutting costs and shrinking government. “If we want an innovation economy,” he added, “one that generates more Googles each year, then we have to invest in our future innovators — by doubling federal funding of basic research over the next five years, training 100,000 more engineers and scientists over the next four years, or providing new research grants to the most outstanding early-career researchers in the country.”

He acknowledged that his plan would cost about $42 billion over five years — “real money, to be sure, but just 15 percent of the most recent federal highway bill.”

The next year, Mr. Obama joined other senators to introduce a bill that built on the recommendations of “The Gathering Storm.” It eventually drew 69 co-sponsors from both sides of the Senate aisle; Mr. McCain was not among them.

Mr. Obama then offered amendments to the bill intended to increase federal support of science education, particularly among women and underrepresented minorities. “If we do not tap the diversity of our nation,” he said on the Senate floor, “we will diminish our capacity to innovate.”

The Senate passed the bill 88 to 8. Mr. McCain abstained. President Bush signed the bill, the America Competes Act, into law. But Congress has yet to finance its programs, estimated to cost about $43 billion for the first three years.

Candidates’ platforms
Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama acknowledge the importance of scientific research. The two men, for instance, advocate making research and development tax credits permanent. They would move the presidential science adviser back into the close orbit of the White House, a position it occupied until 2001, and they support the human exploration of space.

Though their approaches differ, both call for changes in the operation of the patent office, agree that access to broadband must be expanded and advocate steps to encourage technically trained foreigners to enter and stay in the United States.

But Mr. Obama looks to encourage basic research with infusions of federal cash. Mr. McCain says easing regulatory and tax burdens will encourage private spending on research. (Experts say industry now tends to focus on near-term applications, while government finances more basic research that has greater breakthrough potential.)

Mr. Obama has proposed doubling federal financing for basic research in physics, life sciences, mathematics and engineering over 10 years. He has promised to review export rules he calls outdated and sees as having “unduly hampered the competitiveness of the domestic aerospace industry.”

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