The New Republic

With budget chaos deepening in Washington and the politics of gesture ascendant, it’s hard to know how seriously to take President Obama’s FY 2012 budget proposals--released against the backdrop of budget melodramas and the massive proposed program cuts being pushed by th READ MORE >>

The White House’s recent update of its 2009 “Strategy for American Innovation” improves on the first edition. READ MORE >>

In 2007, the America Competes Act created a new agency called ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects-Energy) in order to fund and foster breakthrough energy technologies. Since then, one of us, Mark Muro, has consistently endorsed the agency’s vision and strategy. Staffed on a temporary basis by scientists with extraordinary talent for both invention and commercialization, ARPA-E functions like a venture-capital firm with a public-goods focus. READ MORE >>

One surprising passage in Tuesday night’s State of the Union speech was President Obama’s sudden embrace of government restructuring. About 43 minutes into the speech, the president placed the federal bureaucracy’s institutional anachronisms on center stage, and declared the issue not just a matter of efficiency but of national competitiveness. READ MORE >>

Too often in recent American history the “innovation” agenda has felt like a specialized, glossy cant for good times—for Silicon Valley venture capitalists, Boston technologists, and Wired readers. Last night, in his State of the Union speech, President Obama changed that. Instead of settling for austerity-talk or “small ball,” Obama placed innovation at the center of his narrative, and promoted technology innovation (especially clean energy innovation) as the central imperative of national economic renewal.. READ MORE >>

As a new class of governors mulls how to reignite job creation, it’s safe to bet that too many of them will go in for firm “recruitment.” Eager to deliver results fast, these well-intentioned executives will seek to out-compete rival states in an expensive race to poach companies and jobs from elsewhere. Their hope: secure some splashy ribbon cuttings and early announcements of job-creation. READ MORE >>

Will states soon begin defaulting on their debts, with further negative implications for localities and U.S. metropolitan areas? READ MORE >>

There’s been a lot of talk about state budget woes across the country as impacted by the Great Recession. However, beneath these cyclical declines in revenues are some far more daunting issues that states must confront to get themselves on a sustainable fiscal path. READ MORE >>

Perhaps lost in the flurry of last month’s lame duck session of Congress, America’s flagship “competitiveness” bill, America COMPETES, passed last month when the House accepted the Senate’s text and officially reauthorized it just before Congress adjourned. READ MORE >>

So it’s time to get this done. Late last Friday the Senate passed a severely edited version of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 to continue funding for a number of science, education, and technology programs and agencies. That means HR 5116 now heads back to the House for a vote as early as today—a vote that, while in some ways frustrating, remains essential. READ MORE >>