The DeStefano campaign in Connecticut really has a historically important shot are redefining how Democrats approach economic innovation, competitiveness and growth. I hope that the campaign emphasizes the need to not just protect the economic status quo, but to make the tough choices that will ensure our children have good jobs.

Over the last twenty years, the Republican Party has become obsessed with the notion that an abundance of capital for investment is what generates growth. Thus, in their view, the lower the taxes on those INDIVIDUALS with the most surplus capital, the easier financing growth or innovation becomes. If you build a field of cheap capital, the innovation and growth will come.

Unfortunately, this obsession with cutting taxes at all costs has started to actually hurt business in several important ways.

First, we are crushing innovation because we don't have a federal government that is willing to collectively pick-up the initial research and development costs necessary for the growth of promising industries ranging from energy generation, to new propulsion systems, to medical information technology, to life sciences. The brain-trust in the Bush Administration has actually frozen NIH and cut back on NSF. Even if there was enough capital out there to drive the risk of borrowing to virtually zero, individual firms simply won't do it because shareholders want payoffs now.

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Second, tax-cutting and anti-government sentiment, and corporate favoritism (Medicare can't use its scale to drive down prescription costs) has made it impossible for American manufacturing to compete because of healthcare. Just this past month, Ontario became the car capital of North America, as U.S. car manufacturers increasingly shift operations there because of healthcare costs. You know that we are doing something wrong when General Motors (!) is shifting operations to a bastion of social democracy. One sixth of our GDP is healthcare; half of that is not actual healthcare delivery but cost-avoidance bureucracy. That means that some terribly bright people spend their most productive years doing pricey paper work. We are not going to be able to compete in the global economy if we sink almost a tenth of our GDP and some of our best minds on such a low-value added area. Not to mention that we can't export our private-sector medical paper- pushing innovation because...no other wealthy democracy has one!

As an MBA student, I get to hear what is on the minds of people who aspire to build the economy of the future both in the United States and in their home countries around the planet. Frankly, Americans don't really complain that they can't find capital for good ideas. Nobody is saying that the cost of borrowing is killing business. People ARE concerned that our current visa, skills policy, and "brand management" of America prevents us from getting the best talent. They are scared - as Bill Gates and Thomas Friedman have recently written - that the public school system is not generating enough top talent to sustain a growing economy. People in manufacturing are concerned about health care costs. Sure, folks want low-individual income rates, and many have rather conservative views about social spending. But these ares of government action are different: its about business.

And hence my conclsion that the backwards stem-cell policy coming from the federal government is not just about an empowered minority of social conservatives. It's about the fact that neither party has an actual program to boost our competitiveness and innovation. Republicans are about releasing capital from taxation. Democrats are mostly about using taxation for social investment in human capital. It's dissapointing that Governor Rell has been all over the map on the stat's limited biotech subsidy and has been so weak on stem cell. Not to mention that she should be pushing the state's insurance to innovate into new areas of risk management instead of pleading for keeping a few more jobs.

I hope that in the future the campaign will lay out its ideas for boosting competitiveness and innovation in Connecticut.