WHOI-90-52

proposas submitted to SBIR and approved on merit go unfunded, its budget should be increase
by rasing the set-aside to 2.5 percent and lowering the threshold for agency paricipation to $50 .
milion.
Finally, the federal governnt needs to develop a strategy for direct, overall support of state
technology program. Such a strategy could include a federa grats program, most appropriately
locted within the offce of the Undersereta of Technology and assisted by an advisory
committee that included representatives of the NGS Working Group. As an indication of the
importce of this effort, the federal government should make available to the states a sum of
at least equa to what the states are currently investing themselves. New sources of revenue
dedicate to this purpse should be develope. For example, it has been estimated that 5 percent
of a propose trsfer ta on leveraged buyouts and other stock trsactions would generate $10
billon annualy. This money could be use to provide the necssa funds and at the same time
ta a generally unproductive use of capita in order to invest in new productive tehnologies.
Federal funding would be contingent on the state providing matching funds and enlisting support
from industr. Criteria. for such funding should be broad enough to allow states to continue to
pursue their own diverse efforts. Letting states decide how to spend the money would not only
increase the likelihoo that it would be spent effectively but would reduce the speter of a
centralized federal agency tring to pick winners and losers.
As Senator Dale Bumpers (D-Ark) pointed out in last yea's debate on the trade bil, "There is
no monopoly here in Washington on how to make America competitive. In fact, we here in
Washington may know less about how to meet the competitiveness challenge than do state and
loc officials. We should be careful not to underte federa government initiatives when it
would be more effective to provide support to state and loc government initiatives. II While the
states wait for the federal government to recognize the wisdom of this position, we wil continue
to support technology development as best we ca. Global competition. no longer allows us the
luxury of delay.
Recommended Reading
Office of Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress, Paying ~ Bil: Manufacturing and America's
Trade Deficit. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, OTA-ITE-390, June,
1988.
David Osborne, Laboratories of Democracy. Boston: Harard Business School Press, 1988.
Office of Science and Technology, Minnesota Deparment of Trade and Economic Development,
State Technology Programs in the United States. 1988. July, 1988.
Christopher M. Coburn, "The Cleanghouse for State & Lo Initiatives on Productivity,
Technology & Innovation," testimony to Subcommittee on Science, Resech and Technology
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