Hello Readers,

My friend Bart Preecs took issue with some of my comments in my Nov. 2 post on the elections and to beware of those that campaign on jobs, even though the vast majority of politicians have never created one.  Below are Bart's comments that he offered me and I wanted to post them here.

"Government research and support has been a major contributor to all kinds of technology, from the Internet in recent times, to the transistor and semiconductor in the last century, all the way back to the telegraph and telephone industries in our country’s first hundred years.

This is true and the question of how government at all levels can best support economic development does deserve serious consideration. One obvious answer is that basic research is vitally important to our future prosperity and the WTIA has always strongly advocated for funding for the kinds of basic research that will fuel (pun intended) jobs and business in the years ahead.

Another critical support is the creation of public goods, like roads, bridges, and airports that would simply be impossible to build or maintain by private, for-profit companies.  If every airline had to build its own airport, it’s doubtful that we’d have more than one airline in the country, and Boeing would be a much smaller company.

There’s a legitimate debate over whether broadband communications networks falls into that category as well, and WTIA members have the expertise and experience to promote a healthy debate about what steps governments at federal, state, and even local levels might need to play for our region and our nation to be competitive in a globalized, hyper-connected world.  (Lew, if you want to refer to an interesting study of how the U.S. stacks up in broadband, you could link to http://www.fcc.gov/stage/pdf/Berkman_Center_Broadband_Study_13Oct09.pdf )

As we continue to seek ways to recover from the recent financial turmoil, and build a prosperous, sustainable future for our country and for the rest of our six billion neighbors, the proper roles of government action and private sector investment must always be a balancing act, one that we’ll continually need to revisit.” 

Thanks Bart for putting this into perspective.  BTW, Bart is currently looking for new opportunities.  He is an excellent communicator and a great guy.  You can reach him at bpreecs@gmail.com