John Mcain vs. Barack Obama on Innovation and technology.

John Mcain Has a couple of key points in insuring innovation and technology in the future. The first is to lower corporate and capital gains taxes, this is to help investors feel that investing will be profitable (because they dont win every time lowering taxes will supposedly increase the willingness of investors to take a risk), the second is to reform intelectual property protection by (I am assuming) making them more secure the third is to allow companies to expense the first year of equipment and technology costs (I am assuming the government will be paying for that.)

John Mcain believes in low regulation, low taxes, and education. He believes that companies need the freedom to make investments. If companies have more cash (because of less taxes) they will ultimately make the desisions that will boost our economy, and boost innovation. John also sees the importance of securing patents and intellectual property because companies should make sure that their investements will safely pay off. Other than being in support of grants, He doesnt clarify how he is going to effect or imporve education, however he does aknowledge that more students should go into mathmatics and science.

Barack Obama sees that America is at risk of falling behind the rest of the world in the Global Economy. He states that a reason behind this may be that federal investments in the physical science and engineering research has dropped by more than half since 1970. He also recognizes the fact that American Students perform lower on scientific assessments than other students around the world. He blams the fact that american students are not prepared for a “21st century economy” because there has been a lack of investment and focus towards education (perhaps the single most important investment a country can make). Obama believes in keeping the enternet open he says:”A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history. It needs to stay that way. Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet. ” He also believes that America should leap ahead in broadband and intenet technologies, as well as cell phone tech. Obama also believes that he should focus on Investing in the sciences by doubling federal funding for basic research within 10 years. this will result in anging the posture of our federal government from being one of the most anti-science administrations in American history to one that embraces science and technology.

 

I believe that Obama is more aware of the issue facing America Today. Yes protection of Intelectual propert is important, but creating intelectual property is substantially more important. I beleive that funding for the sciences should definatly go up, and that is one thing Obama will do. It is important to note that many of the marketable technologies were created from an initial federal investement. Without federal investment in technology, the USA will lose its edge on Technology and therefore lose its high living standards and 13 trillion dollar economy.