ITIF: Carrier Deal Should Carry Over to Broader Tech Policy

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation is calling on the Donald Trump Administration to focus on the art of the long-range economic growth policy. In response to the announcement that President-elect Donald Trump and VP-elect Mike Pence had helped broker a deal to keep Carrier air conditioner jobs in Indiana rather than fleeing to Mexico, ITIF said that working to keep and grow American jobs and companies was the right idea but that "lurching from deal to deal" was not.

ITIF, whose bipartisan board members range from Trump FCC transition team member Jeff Eisenach to Blair Levin, former top aide to Democratic FCC chair Julius Genachowski, downplayed the extreme reactions from both sides. "Contrary to early reactions from the left and the right, the Carrier deal opens the door to a new approach to U.S. economic growth policy that is sorely needed," said ITIF president Robert Atkinson. "It sets the precedent that growing, attracting, and retaining globally traded, innovation-based industries that are both high-value and pay high wages is central to U.S. economic growth..."