Our Sputnik Moment

President Obama laid down the marker for the U.S. to "win the future" - - his words were a new "Sputnik Moment."  He called for sharp increases in investment in infrastructure, education, and new technology, which cost many billions of dollars.  How we plan on paying for this is never stated.  Our "Sputnik Moment" meets a new reality in which our desires to invest in the future run into our obligations to pay for the past.  The past is represented by three huge cost buckets - - our accumulated national debt, our unfunded obligations under Social Security, and our unfunded obligations under Medicare.

What typically is lost in the national discussion is the idea that strategic investments in infrastructure, education, and new technology have the potential to create more value than its costs.  The Interstate Highway System in the 1950s and 1960s has been estimated to have a 35% return - - annually.  The economists Kevin Murphy and Robert Topel have suggested that the social benefits of medical research reach into the trillions of dollars.  From the Internet to GPS - - strategic federal investment expenditures have been a driver of our modern economy.

Innovation is good for the economy.  Strategic investments in innovation is good for the economy.  Cutting investment back to 0% is not good for the economy.  Engineers need to remember this simple fact -  it's hard to make a case for investing more when everyone believes we should be spending less, but there's never been a better time.  Interest rates are historically low, so borrowing is cheap and the weak economy means that there's less competition for labor and resources.

How we manage the tension and conflict between the need to invest in the future while having tunnel vision regarding the past will be our most important national performance metric.