My response to the White House’s Advise the Adviser outreach, February 9, 2011:
Differentiate between infrastructure that serves consumers and infrastructure of innovation. Invest in infrastructure for innovation. That is education, basic science, and public or public-private programs that make technological leaps that are then capitalized on by the next generation of entrepreneurs and by society. NASA and Star Wars are perfect examples. Whether going to the moon or a missile shield were important or successful, the resulting advance in science caused by these programs served business and society. I am not saying anything new here except that infrastructure for consumers — roads and bridges for example, are not necessary for innovation in the 21st century and thus are actually to some extent government spending that removes money from the possibility of innovation.
On the other hand, all the money spent on medical information systems, as the President has already suggested, will serve innovation, business prospects and societies worldwide.
When you cut spending on roads, car travel may become more difficult and more expensive. But that may be as it should be. Of course, the government is the engine for public infrastructure. But don’t think that this creates innovation, jobs, and the next advance in standard of living. People can innovate over the Internet, over the phone, in their garage. Real innovation comes from having purpose, opportunity, drive, ability, etc.
From a PR perspective, I don’t think the President has made this distinction clear. Similarly, the worldwide community can participate in American innovation through the Internet. We can be the engine of technological advance. What we need is the proper goals and investment in areas that will be productive.
A Mission to the Moon project or Manhattan project devoted to alternative energy, global education, medical information collection and organization, pharmaceutical basic science, are all areas that could bring leaps of innovation resulting in prosperity at home and eventually abroad.
