What should america be like

And it told us something alarming about our president. Yes, we have a humanitarian crisis at the border that we must deal with. Yes, immigration is a complicated issue that both parties have failed to adequately address. He has used the immigration issue to his political advantage to rile up his anti-immigrant base and has implemented policies that have exacerbated the problem exponentially.

This crisis can be abated lawfully, with humanity and empathy, by bringing in more immigration judges and asylum caseworkers, releasing families to their families here in the U. It should shame us all when former prisoners of the Taliban, Somali pirates or Iran tweet that they were given soap, toothbrushes, blankets and other basic necessities that reportedly have been denied to migrant kids in U.

The second instance of Trump trampling our democracy came when he was in Japan for the G Summit. While his overall behavior was once again embarrassing and cringe-worthy, two of his statements underscore the contempt with which he holds our democracy and its core values.

Asked by a reporter if Trump would tell Putin not to meddle in the elections, he did just that—in a mocking fashion. They betray our country, our moral convictions as a democracy, our common-sense belief that our commander-in-chief should also be our defender-in-chief, not an authoritarian-wannabe who cozies up to dictators and murderous despots.

Meanwhile, our democratically-elected Western allies, built on the same values as the United States, look on while Trump insults them at every turn.

This Facebook page, made up of almost 10, current and former Border Patrol agents, is vile and filled with insults, memes, caricatures and trash talk. The current system has been successful in stimulating the creation of new molecules, but the limitations of the patent system sometimes result in denying patients the best that the pharmaceutical industry could offer. The limitations are due largely to the time constraints under which the patent system operates. Patents generally must be filed as quickly as possible after an invention occurs, and the ticking clock creates a tension with other aspects of drug development.

The generation of the necessary data requires time and money. Bringing a new medicine to patients requires a sequence of major breakthroughs, which in the current system must be accomplished well before the life of a patent runs out. There is no incentive to exhume these compounds in the absence of substantial data-package exclusivity, because patents will be either unavailable or of such narrow coverage that they would be easy to avoid in developing a related drug.

In addition, there is little incentive to pursue new indications for old molecules without appropriate data-package protection. Indeed, when no compound patent covers the product, there is a disincentive to develop new indications. If there is no compound patent and one of the indications is unpatentable, the generic medicine may be approved only for the unpatented indication. Every reasonable effort should be made to encourage the development of new indications for known compounds because of the greater level of knowledge about safety for already-marketed compounds than for brand-new ones.

Most of the world follows the latter system. Innovators seeking patent protection in the three major patenting regions the United States, Europe, and Japan must therefore manage their patent filings consistent with the first-inventor-to-file system. The committee concludes that those issues are opportunities for Congress and other relevant federal entities to take productive actions, including those outlined above. Enact a stronger research and development tax credit to encourage pri vate investment in innovation.

The credit should be extended to companies that have consistently spent large amounts on research and development so that they will not be subject to the current de facto penalties for having previously invested in research and development. The first change the committee recommends, namely making the credit permanent, is perhaps the most straightforward. Since the introduction of the tax credit in , it has been extended repeatedly, allowed to lapse, and periodically modified, all without being formalized as a permanent, reliable element of policy.

Hall and J. A Review of the Evidence. Council on Competitiveness. Washington, DC: Council on Competitiveness, See J. Any national policy on tax credits and related incentives should recognize the importance of having states and localities also conform their laws to embrace a focus on research and innovation.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Poterba, ed. In fact, the industry perspectives in the Poterba volume suggest otherwise. And the second OECD paper referenced above indicates that the differential between the overall corporate tax rate and the credit is the key factor. National Science Board. Science and Engineering Indicators NSB Science, Technology, and Industry Outlook. Paris: OECD, Also , many provincial governments offer various incentives e. September 15, Accessed October 11, Companies that consistently invest large amounts, but do not appreciably increase those amounts over time, can be entitled to little or no credit.

Credit should be allowed for all relevant research expenditures in contrast with the current incremental approach by, for example, broadening the definition of qualifying expenditures. It was not possible for the committee to conduct an ex haustive examination, but alternatives to current economic policies should be examined and, if deemed beneficial to the United States, pursued.

These alternatives could include changes in overall corporate tax rates and special tax provisions, providing incentives for the purchase of high-technology research and manufacturing equipment, treatment of capital gains, and in centives for long-term investments in innovation.

The Council of Economic Advisers and the Congressional Budget Office should conduct a compre hensive analysis to examine how the United States compares with other nations as a location for innovation and related activities with a view to ensuring that the United States is one of the most attractive places in the world for long-term innovation-related investment and for the jobs result ing from that investment. From a tax standpoint, that is not now the case.

Countries around the world are working to bolster innovation, often by improving the tax environment for high-technology business activities see Box , Finland; Box , South Korea; Box , Ireland; Box ,. Education Database. Singapore; and Box , Canada. There are strengthening signs that changes in US tax policy are needed to encourage investment in America. The flexibility of US capital markets, particularly for financing small, high-technology enterprises through venture capital and public stock offerings, had been one of our major strengths, encouraging companies to focus their innovation in the United States.

The rapid rise of venture capital in the late s, however, was followed by the precipitous collapse of the technology.

First, Ireland aggressively courted multinational corporations and maintained a business-friendly The End of the Rainbow. New York Times, June 29, Singapore is continuing its long history of active government involvement to promote innovation. Accessed September 15, The first part, called Achieving Excellence: Investing in People, Knowledge, and Opportunity, is a plan to expand the Canadian economy.

Executive Summary. Ottawa, ON: Government of Canada, Knowledge Matters: Skills and Learning for Canadians. Venture-capital investments have been fairly flat since then, so the United States no longer has that advantage. The committee believes that the United States can and should do more, particularly in tax policy, to encourage long-term investments in innovation, but it was not able to examine all options and their implications within the schedule mandated for our study.

Several creative new approaches to capital-gains taxation were discussed, including the option of reducing rates for very-long-term investments or offering more liberal allowances for loss writeoffs. Finally, incentives for the purchase of high-tech manufacturing and research equipment—through tax credits and accelerated depreciation—were considered. Those new approaches would have widespread consequences for the economy as a whole and for our national fiscal position.

It would be neces-. It would also be useful to compare the effects of various options, especially with reference to what other nations are doing. Any such analysis should examine US and foreign tax systems with a view to developing a package of incentives to ensure that the United States remains a highly attractive place for long-term innovation-related investments and for location of the follow-on jobs they produce.

Several nations are well ahead of the United States in providing broad band access for home, school, and business. That capability can be expected to do as much to drive innovation, the economy, and job creation in the 21st century as did access to the telephone, interstate highways, and air travel in the 20th century. Congress and the administration should take prompt action—mainly in the regulatory arena and in spectrum management—to ensure widespread affordable broadband access in the near future.

The production of information-technology equipment and the use of information technology have been important engines for US productivity growth in a range of industries and for the resulting low-inflation economic expansion briefly, but significantly, interrupted in that the nation has experienced since the mids. Although some believe that broadband access is not critical to US competitiveness, the committee disagrees. The information technology revolution will continue to fuel economic growth, the creation of high-paying jobs, and US leadership in science and engineering well into the future.

Accelerating progress toward making broadband connectivity available and affordable for all US citizens and businesses is critical. Although penetration of broadband service in the United States is increasing rapidly, broadband leaders such as South Korea and Japan are still far ahead.

Technology and Economic Performance in the American Economy. Paris: OEDC, President Bush has announced a national goal of ubiquitous broadband access in the United States. Many of the barriers to more rapid broadband penetration lie in the area of telecommunications regulation and spectrum policy, where in some cases entrenched industry interests are clashing to preserve and extend the advantages offered under policies promulgated in the past.

Telecommunication infrastructure will be crucial to the competitiveness of any country in the 21st century. It is the medium by which data are accessed, consultations take place, and decisions are transmitted. One has only to look at the vast amounts of information transmitted by the financial community, the use of information in the retail market for example, WalMart, the largest retailer in the world, owes much of its competitiveness to its information-technology infrastructure for tracking sales, inventory, and consumer purchasing trends in real time , and the growth of online sales in almost every business segment of the economy.

As the Internet becomes more dominant in communication, information access, commerce, education, and entertainment, the key infrastructural factor will be broadband access. The potential effects on society and individuals of distance learning, telemedicine, Internet entertainment, and delivery of government services demonstrates how great the impact of broadband on the competitiveness of any country could be.

The United States was an early leader in Internet broadband penetration but recently has fallen out of the top 10 countries in per capita broadband access. In fact, vast rural regions of the United States are devoid of affordable bidirectional broadband capability. Just as the United States was a leader in providing ubiquitous telecommunication capability to its citizens in the 20th century and reaped the benefits of voice-connectivity technology, it should be a leader in facilitating broadband Internet connectivity to its citizens in the 21st century.

That infrastructure not only will support existing commerce but will facilitate the growth of new industries. Broadband is an important issue for ordinary citizens providing, for example, the ability to telecommute on a national and international scale as well as small and medium-sized businesses. But with the election approaching, the criticisms of elected officials have taken on an especially sharp edge.

And elected officials receive very low marks for honesty. There are few meaningful partisan differences in views of elected officials. Nearly identical shares of Republicans and Democrats view elected officials as intelligent, honest and selfish.

Deep partisan divides among the politically engaged. Views of government agencies. Most government agencies continue to be viewed favorably by majorities of the public. Postal Service — the highest rating among 17 agencies and departments tested. Is politics a contest between right and wrong?

Opinions of the political parties and governance. Views of other national institutions. The federal government is not the only national institution viewed negatively by the public. Opinions about taxes and government. While the public expresses a range of negative assessments of the government, there continues to be limited public outcry over personal tax burdens. It organizes the public into nine distinct groups, based on an analysis of their attitudes and values.

Even in a polarized era, the survey reveals deep divisions in both partisan coalitions.