ERIC LUNDQUIST
Campaigning for answers
Candidates should address technology’s role in this economy
By the time you read Providing facilities where lenge. The challenge can
this, the Super Tuesday ideas can be incubated be as threatening as World
primaries will have come and living expenses won’t War II or as far-reaching as
and gone and the presi- break the bank may be a getting the first astronaut
dential campaigning will good alternative to funding to the moon. Whether you
be in seriously high gear. research that could take 50 believe in reducing oil and
While the candidates seem years to mature or cutting gas consumption because
to have done a decent job of deals with companies that you are an environmentalist
courting high-tech campaign may have to close up shop at or because you’re concerned
dollars, it seems to me there the first sign of a downturn. about a country that doesn’t
has been little discussion How do you balance a own the source of its eco-of what role technology company’s right to locate nomic well-being, replacing
companies should play in in an area where the work our reliance on gas and oil
an uncertain economy. Here force offers the best cost is one of those big projects
are some questions that IT
professionals should be asking and candidates should
be answering: Where’s the best place to
Where is the best place apply government dollars
to apply government dollars
to get the biggest technol- for the biggest IT return?
ogy return? There is no easy
answer. Local governments
often seem enamored of and experience trade-off that needs doing. Political
creating tax breaks to lure with providing for workers discussion about increased
companies to their area. caught on the wrong end of drilling or handing out
Universities and think tanks the equation? This is prob- plaques at a solar-panel
look for basic research fund- ably the hottest live-wire plant does not fit into the
ing. Venture capitalists seek issue in technology. Again, category of big responses to
tax breaks so they can keep there is no magic answer, big problems.
more profits from their win- but allowing companies Those are some of the
ning bets and write off more unfettered freedom to shift questions I think are worth
of their losing bets. jobs offshore without bear- asking the candidates in this
I don’t have perfect guid- ing some responsibility for year’s elections. I’m inter-ance on this, but providing U.S. workers left jobless is ested in hearing some of
a means for recent college just plain wrong. your answers and additional
graduates to pursue their What’s the big idea? The questions. ´
ideas for startup companies biggest advances in technol-without the risk of losing ogy have often come as a Editorial Director Eric
their ownership to investors result of the nation’s lead- Lundquist can be reached at
seems a good place to start. ers taking on a great chal- elundquist@eweek.com.
