Tech for America

Should we spend stimulus money on building a broadband utopia or on transforming health care? Or both? The problem with calling for any government funding of technology is that the future always sounds terrific. Who doesn't want cheap Internet everywhere, an end to medical errors, and an electric system that could change the way we drive? Sketched out like this—a series of plans that promises radical advancements after a relatively small investment of resources—it seems crazy not to sign up for every one of these ideas. After all, the U.S. government has played a huge role in the inception of nearly every modern innovation we enjoy today. Government research grants were present at the creation of microprocessors, databases, the graphical user interface, video games, the Internet, and the World Wide Web, among many other great things. But spending on tech can be very tricky. Advocates for a high-tech stimulus aren't calling for much research money. Instead they're arguing for spending at a more advanced stage of development—they envision the government sponsoring the creation and deployment of ready-to-use technology. And we're all familiar with spectacular government-funded tech failures at that stage—think missile defense, the terminally broken computer systems built for the IRS and the FBI, and the Census Bureau's stalled effort to automate its data collection.