There is no doubt that America is in a jobs crisis, and while there should be no higher priority for Congress than creating and finding jobs for our neighbors who are currently out of work, we must also make sure we're cultivating the ideas that will power the American economy a year, a decade, and a generation from now.
Innovation is an economic imperative.
For decades, manufacturing jobs have been a reliable path to the middle class for millions of hard-working American families, but that path is not nearly as wide as it was just ten years ago. Since then, our nation has lost more than three million manufacturing jobs. As plants shut down, communities are flooded with skilled workers forced to take lower paying, unskilled jobs -- oftentimes two or three of them -- just to make ends meet.
The reality is that we're not going to be able to reopen all the plants that have closed and get those workers back on the assembly lines making the same products. Instead, we can pursue a new manufacturing agenda -- one that will help entrepreneurs to create innovative businesses that will open new plants and hire American workers for skilled and sustainable jobs.
While labor-driven commodity manufacturing may have moved to the developing world, we can still remain a world leader in innovative and high-performance manufacturing -- as we are today in industries ranging from aircraft to pharmaceuticals.
The innovations of today will be built in the factories of tomorrow.
Finding ways to make things better, quicker, and more efficiently is just part of who we are as Americans, but research and discovery take patience and investment. While Congress does not directly create jobs, it can help create an environment that supports inventive companies so they remain competitive.
Supporting American innovation calls for a long-term strategy that includes educating a workforce for the demands of a cutting-edge economy, directing investment to advanced research, and providing targeted tax credits to the companies that are on the verge of the next groundbreaking product, service, and processes.
If innovation is the engine that drives our economy, then investment is the fuel that powers the engine. Now isn't the time to be starving the engine.
The government has played a critical role in fostering innovation throughout our nation's history. Nearly every component of the iPad, for example -- one of the most transformative consumer products in a generation -- can be traced back to federally funded research. Tiny microchips, accelerometers, the global positioning system, and scratch-resistant glass are all available to Apple today because forward-looking legislators recognized that federal investments in research could eventually have significant impacts on our economy.
Federal investment in research at the University of Delaware is currently supporting an investigation of disease pathways; the development of newer, stronger magnets; and advanced work in chemistry, biological sciences, marine biosciences, and materials science and engineering. It is even helping develop and build a massive neutrino telescope at the South Pole. Any one of them could result in breakthroughs that facilitate the development of new technologies and products to power the new economy.
The inventor of the laser wasn't trying to invent CD players, barcode scanners or laser scalpels, but none of those would exist -- nor would the jobs building and supporting them -- without his work. Even GPS wasn't invented on its own; what eventually became GPS was a series of scientific discoveries that were completely unrelated.
Investments in the research of today are investments in the jobs of tomorrow. Our nation's economic recovery depends largely on the strength of American innovation, and at this critical moment, we simply cannot afford to starve our economy of the investment it needs.
The op-ed appeared in The News Journal.