Norman Augustine
Can America Compete?
February / March 2007
Volume 5 Number 1
Can America compete? Does anyone care? The answer to the first of these questions may, on the surface, seem somewhat confusing. On the one hand, America's competitiveness rating, as assessed by the World Economic Forum in Geneva, recently plummeted from first place to sixth place in a single year.
Perhaps even more revealing, a city in Pennsylvania recently adopted the slogan, "Pittsburgh can become the Bangalore of America." On the other hand, the U.S. just completed an extraordinary sweep of science-related Nobel Prizes.
Unfortunately, the answer to the competitiveness question becomes much clearer when one considers, as Wall Street likes to say, "broad forward-looking indicators" rather than relatively narrow indicators looking back in time. By this latter standard, which includes our failing K-12 education system; our inadequate investment in basic research; our inability to attract large numbers of the "best and brightest" into science and engineering (which contributes to our heavy dependence on an uncertain supply of foreign-born scientists and engineers); our antiquated patent, visa and tax polices; and our legal system, which has American companies spending more on litigation than on research and development—€”the answer is a resounding "not for long."
Taken together, these trends suggest that Americans are likely to find it increasingly difficult to compete for jobs in the evolving global workplace —€”and without jobs there will not be the tax money to provide for homeland security, national defense, federal health care and the myriad of other services that underpin our standard of living.
The second question, "Does anyone care," is more complex. Certainly the business and academic communities have been sounding the alarm for a number of years. Since the release a year ago of the National Academies study of competitiveness, known after its title as the Gathering Storm report, there has been greatly increased attention to the issue both in the media and in Congress.
In fact, legislation initially introduced in the Senate to implement the twenty recommendations contained in the Gathering Storm report was co-sponsored by 70 members —€”35 Democrats and 35 Republicans. A subsequent, related bill was jointly introduced by the majority leader and the minority leader—€”and this in an election year. The president in his 2006 State of the Union message emphasized the importance of strengthening America's ability to compete for jobs, and included in his budget request money to help do so. The nation's media promptly produced over 100 editorials and op/eds supporting such efforts.
In fact, this campaign to assist America's workers is perhaps one of the finest examples to be found in recent years of our nation's leaders setting aside partisanship and personal interests to act in the best interest of the nation's citizenry. The two highest priority actions included in Gathering Storm concerned K-12 education and federal funding of basic research. It is, in these regards, imperative that we fix our public education system that, by virtually all measures, is taking children who in the earliest grades rank highly and, by 12th grade are producing graduates that, taken as a whole, are simply not competitive by today's world standards. One of the first steps, as provided in the legislation before Congress, is to provide math and science teachers who are qualified to teach math and science.
With regard to the funding of basic research, the underpinning of most innovation and therefore new jobs, the need is to double funding of basic research in the physical sciences, math and engineering within the next seven years. A similar step was taken with regard to the biosciences a few years ago—€”a step that has already paid handsome dividends and must be sustained.
Today, as a new Congress convenes and defines its agenda, legislation already exists that, if passed, can quickly address America's competitiveness needs in such pivotal areas as improving K-12 education, increasing federal spending on basic research, (particularly in the area of reducing the nation's dependency on foreign energy), and encouraging qualified individuals to study science and engineering. The next few months will, to a considerable degree, determine whether our children and grandchildren will have the same opportunity to enjoy a high quality of life as America's earlier generations afforded today's citizens.
Norman Augustine, the retired chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corporation, was chairman of the National Academies of Sciences committee that produced the 2006 report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm.
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