From: egl1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Elizabeth G. Levy)
Subject: Clinton To Promote High Technology
Reply-To: egl1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Elizabeth G. Levy)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 04:55:28 GMT

CLINTON TO PROMOTE HIGH TECHNOLOGY, WITH GORE IN CHARGE

by William J. Broad, NYT 11/10/92, p.C1 (Science Times cover story)

[The article is a bit too long to type in, so I'll summerize a bit.
 The portions in quotes will be directly from the article.]

"If the promises of the Clinton campaign for science and technology
now come to pass, America is headed for a new era in which the
Government's focus on making armaments will shift to fostering a
host of new civilian technologies and industries.  No financial
midget, the civil initiative would spend money twice as fast as the
Pentagon's Star Wars anti-missile program, one of hte biggest
research project of all time.

"The aim, outlined in campaign documents and by advisers to
President-elect Bill Clinton and Vice-President-elect Al Gore, is a
new wave of research discoveries and applications that will flood
the economy with innovative goods and services, lifting the general
level of prosperity and strengthening American industry for the
international trade wars of the 1990's and beyond.

"'This is a watershed,' Kent H. Hughues, president of the Council
on Competitiveness, a private group based in Washington that
advised the Clinton campaign, said in an interview.  'We're now
going to develop an economic strategy much in the way we developed
a national security strategy to fight the cold war.'

"'It's a paradigm shift in terms of the Government's role in
technology,' said Erich Bloch, a distinguished fellow of the
council who is former director of the National Science Foundation,
the top Federal agency for the support of general research.

"At the heart of the Clinton plan is a change of focus in
Government research priorities from military to civilian endeavors.

"As a peace dividend from the cold war's end, a minimum of $30
billion over four years is to be taken from the Pentagon's research
budget and put into advanced work in areas like robotics, smart
roads, biotechnology, machine tools, magnetic-levitation trains,
fiber-optic communications and national computer networks.  Also
earmarked are a raft of basic technologies like digital imaging and
data storage, which are increasingly seen as the underlying secret
of lasting commercial success."

[...]

"The Clinton plan is outlined in an 18-page document, 'Technology:
The Engine of Economic Growth,' issued Sept. 21 by Clinton-Gore
campaign headquarters in Little Rock, Ark."

[...]

"The plan has received little notice in the nation's general news
outlets but has been widely read and applauded by the nation's
technology experts, many of whom are now giddy with excitement.  It
is seen as the culmination in a slow shift in Federal priorities
that has been grudgingly under way for years, championed by the
Democratic-led Congress but generally resisted by the Reagan and
Bush administrations."

* Some questions about where the financing will come from.  Charles
  F. Larson of the Industrial Research Institute, a trade group in
  D.C., praised the plan but expressed doubt that the Pentagon would
  reduce expenditures.  Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) notes that it's in
  the Pentagon's interest to back the plan, since the technology
  for new weapons are increasingly made by industry, not Government.

* Skeptics, like Murray L. Weidenbaum, an economist at Washington
  Univesity in St. Louis and former chairman of the Council of
  Economic Advisors under Reagan, say that money would go to pork-
  barrel projects and to "boon-doggles."  Sen. Bingaman, who is
  helping to refine the Clinton proposals (he's also the chair of
  the technology and national security subcommittee of the
  Congressional Joint Economic Committee), says that "a secret to
  avoiding the pitfalls of the past was to develop a new partnership
  with industry in which Federal funds would be matched with private
  ones, so market forces help shape and direct Federal largess and
  reduce the odds of technology waste."  The plan would require
  cost-sharing by industry, so firms will be putting up their own
  money in these projects along with Federal matching funds.

* A history of Government involvement in research for the past half-
  century.  Government has funded basic science, under the
  assumption that this will automatically lead to practical
  innovation.  "Washington made little effort to translate
  discoveries about nature...into devices and technologies, leaving
  that job to industry."  The exception has been in military and
  aerospace technologies, which were seen as essential to the cold
  war.

"A few times Government went further to direct the development of
purely civilian technologies.  But its record is mixed, with as
many failures as successes...."

"The Reagan and Bush administrations, awed by the power of laissez-
faire economics and market forces, disdained Federal involvement
in industry research, although the Bush Administration has recently
softened its ideological opposition...."

"One reason for the reversal is the example set by Europe and Japan
in using Government research to spur industrial innovation, the
programs having had mixed success.  Another reason is that in the
American economy, the seemingly endless stream of military 'spin-
offs' that long buoyed the civil sector (computer chips, jet engines,
communication satellites) are begining to dry up.  Instead, the
military increasingly seeks to 'spin-in' advances from private
industry, which in turn is rapidly falling behind foreign
competitors."

* Some details on Clinton's plan, such as Gore being in charge.
  "'This is a real job,' Mr. Clinton emphasized, rejecting the
  ceremonial presumption for much of Vice-Presidential work."
  The plan mentions research in materials and industrial processes,
  the creation of 170 manufacturing extension centers modeled on
  "the highly successful agricultural ones" and redouble the push
  for information superhighways.  Over four years, the plan would
  spend about $30 billion.  The details of the plan are still being
  discussed.



And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speak
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.	   [Henry V, 4.3]