WASHINGTON — Being competitive has never been more important, says Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.). And, if you’re American, it’s in your blood. But, Young says we’ve fallen behind and we need something or someone to light a fire under us so that we don’t lose ground and give it to competing countries like China.
“I believe that if we have the right leadership and we harness the power and potential of our people, we can defend our values, our way of life,” he said in a virtual discussion Friday, with the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Young has been pushing his “Endless Frontier Act”, as a way for the federal government to play the role of catalyst, by putting money into research in areas like quantum computing, where China has demonstrated capability.
“It’s gonna take some adaptation. This won’t happen by itself,” he said.
Young said that by being more competitive than we have in recent years that the American people have the potential to not only defeat foreign adversaries, but to shore up our place in the world economy.
“There’s a happy coincidence between domestic policy here and foreign policy,” he said. “If we’re able to harness the power and potential of rank and file Americans, we’ll grow at a faster rate. We’ll out innovate and out compete others, like the Chinese Communist Party.”
One obstacle, though, is that America doesn’t seem to have much of a plan.
“We really don’t have a cohesive economic strategy,” he pointed out.
Young believes it belongs to the government, to Congress mainly, to make that happen.
