America’s competitive edge is shrinking — Congress can reverse the trend

Forty-four years ago I had the occasion to be among the first American businesspersons to visit China and tour factories and university research laboratories. I saw a few automobiles and all adults wore Mao suits. Crowds followed me when I walked along the streets, obviously curious about this strange, tall creature. Apparently having heard at least something of the prosperity of the West, I was occasionally asked if I owned more than one bicycle. 

On subsequent visits to China, I witnessed change of a magnitude surpassing anything I have ever observed in any of the other 129 countries in which I have traveled. Being an engineer, the change was especially apparent in the fields of science and technology. Notably, in the year 2000, the U.S. granted four times more doctorates in the natural sciences and engineering than China, but today China is graduating one-fourth more than the U.S., and the differential is expanding. Correspondingly, the United States began the above period with a factor of nine advantage in investment in R&D at purchasing power parity, but now, absent dramatic action on our part, China is projected to pass us within the next few years.  

Science and technology matter. Several studies, two of which led to Nobel prizes, have indicated that up to 85 percent of the growth in America’s GDP can be attributed to advancements in just two fields, science and technology. The United States cannot hope to compete with China, industrially or militarily, on a person-to-person basis given the latter’s four-times greater population. America’s competitiveness will depend on such assets as freedom, free enterprise, allies, innovativeness and prowess in science and technology. But in all-important basic research, America ranks 29th among nations in the fraction of R&D that is federally funded. 

In 2007, it was my privilege to lead a study of America’s competitiveness that was requested by Congress and overseen by the National Academies. Twenty individuals, university presidents, corporate CEOs, former and future presidential appointees and several Nobel Laureates performed the study.  

The 565-page document that was produced, known as the “Gathering Storm” report, concluded that America had moved onto a path that would lose the scientific leadership it had been building since the 1940s, and that this was largely due to the lack of investment in research and the failure of our nation’s primary and secondary public schools to produce a sufficient number of graduates qualified to pursue careers in science, engineering and mathematics. The most recent well-regarded international test of academic achievement of 15-year-olds placed the U.S. in 17th place in science and 37th in mathematics. China ranks number one in each, but only tests students in a few major cities. The qualifications and interest of America’s youth in pursuing careers in science and technology is suggested by the fraction of college students receiving their undergraduate degrees in, for example, engineering, wherein America ranks 76th worldwide — just behind Mozambique. 

Congress acted on the Gathering Storm report, enacting the America COMPETES Act of 2007. Subsequently, it legislated several bold plans to sustain U.S. leadership in science and technology, but it has, unfortunately, consistently failed to provide the funds needed to implement those plans. Ironically, China seems to have adopted many key parts of the plans and funded them.   

According to a new analysis by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, current annual federal expenditures on research (even with funding growth set merely at the rate of inflation in the years beyond those specifically addressed in the reports) are now $6.7 billion below where they would have been under the COMPETES Act of 2007 and $4.9 billion below where they would have been had the COMPETES Act of 2010 been funded. Had federal funding kept pace with China’s overall R&D growth rate during the period, the shortfall is $47 billion.   

It is, of course, not China that stipulates how much America invests in basic research (currently 0.2% of GDP — about what our citizenry spends on beer) or the quality of our public schools. As Pogo the Possum was prone to pronounce, “It is us.”   

Congress’s passage of the competitiveness legislation before it, along with the research investments it calls for, is essential if America is not to awaken one day in the not too distant future to find itself a formerly competitive nation.   

Norman R. Augustine is retired chairman & CEO of Lockheed Martin and former undersecretary of the Army. normaugustinelmco@gmail.com