It looks like the innovation issue may really be gaining some attention in Washington. David Brooks, the in-house conservative political columnist for the New York Times devoted today's column to the subject. He even mentioned in passing the Obama white paper (see earlier posting). While supposedly looking at the recommendations from the paper, interestingly enough he ignored that paper's central conclusion: that we need an activist innovation policy - complete with ways of addressing grand challenges. Brooks instead took the tack of advocating a set of high level government interventions. The included reforming education, increasing R&D spending, a National Infrastructure Bank, support for regional innovation clusters and rebalancing exchange rates. He also through in a few of the standard conservative positions: cut the deficit, lower the corporate tax rate and "Don't make labor markets rigid. Don't pick trade fights with China." (Although I'm not sure that "rebalancing the exchange rate isn't picking a huge trade fight with China.)
An Innovation Agenda in the New York Times - The Intangible Economy
