Competitiveness Can't Compete With Politics

President Bush unveiled the so-called American Competitiveness Initiative during his State of the Union address in January. Since then, though, the ambitious plan with bipartisan support has been stalled by election-year politics.

After pressing since 2004 for legislation to help the United States maintain its technological dominance, the tech industry thought everything was aligned for action this year. Tech executives thought the whole package would be wrapped up in months, not years, and warned that the United States risked falling behind in the global economy unless Congress acted quickly.

"These CEOs aren't Washington guys, and in their minds, when everybody agrees that something's necessary … they just can't see why action is so difficult," said Bruce Mehlman, executive director of the Technology CEO Council, a public policy association of nine top high-tech chief executives.

"We're sorry that some of the important provisions got tied up in much more controversial issues," said White House science advisor John H. Marburger III. "We can't just give up after a year. The stakes are sufficiently high to view this as a multiyear campaign."

The experience has provided another lesson in Silicon Valley's political education: how the crosscurrents of a high-stakes election can derail even broadly popular legislation.

News story: Competitiveness Can't Compete With Politics