The Candidates on Innovation and R&D

Neither I nor the Institute for the Future is endorsing anyone, but mulling through the websites of the final 3 last night (Clinton, Obama, and McCain). Here's what they have to say about innovation and R&D.

Clinton's site lays out a pretty detailed innovation agenda. Highlights include:

• A $50 billion fund for a new energy research agency, financed by taxes on oil companies. The emphasis is on energy independence first, and "alternative" (though specifically not clean or renewable) sources second. Read between the lines: NUCLEAR.
• 50% expansion of NSF, Energy Department and Defense Department research budgets. A very interesting proposal calls for an 8% earmark for "high-risk" research, in the spirit of DARPA. Presumably this could fund more "Grand Challenge" type science and engineering contests to broaden the innovation community.
• Triple the number and expand the size of NSF fellowship awards. This would bring the percentage of science graduates who get fellowships back to the relatively high levels of the 1960s.

Obama's innovation proposals are a bit harder to parse, scattered as they are across various issue categories. His research agenda is much bigger, calling for some $150 billion in energy research funding over the next decade (vs. Hillary's $50 billion and McCain's general lack of any statement on energy policy, let alone research), and doubling the overall federal research budget (vs. Hillary's 50% expansion).

McCain's site has a whole section on "Pro-Innovation Tax Cuts". As far as I can tell, the most relevant proposal is an R&D tax credit. This appears to be a permanent extension of the federal R&E tax credit established in 1981, though McCain only calls for a 10 percent credit, rather than the current 20 percent credit. While I'm not sure that its a lack of spending that is the problem for US R&D right now, rather the declining productivity in lead industries like pharmaceuticals and semiconductors. Still, while I suppose this credit is intended as an anti-offshoring effort, it might actually be just the thing to provide a few years of breathing room to figure out some solutions to the stagnation in R&D productivity. (Incidentally, both Clinton and Obama call for permanent extension of the R&E tax credit at the 20 percent level)

How any of this will be paid for, is indeed, something to deal with after the election.

Please point out corrections and omissions - we need to crowdsource this to keep up with the shifting political winds.

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