Congressman Lipinski Counters Obama's Sputnik Speech
U.S. Representative Daniel Lipinski dissects the president's State of the Union R&D challenge in historical context
March 2, 2011
“This is our generation’s Sputnik moment,” declared President Barack Obama, his voice flooding a hushed House Chamber with what was soon to become the most popular sound byte of his 2011 State of the Union address.
Democratic Congressman Daniel Lipinski was sitting in the audience when he heard the president’s pitch for renewed investment in research and development, the kind that “unleashed a wave of innovations that created new industries and millions of new jobs” in the 1960s. As a member of the House Committee on Science and Technology and chairman of the Subcommittee on Research and Science Education, Lipinski should have been thrilled by the comparison. But at a Feb. 24 Chicago Harris lecture, he instead pointed out a flaw in the president’s inspirational plea: to wit, pragmatic policymaking.
“There’s not enough political will to move forward like we did at that time,” he said, explaining the historical context of the infamous 1957 Soviet Union satellite launch.
Lipinski explained that America's first Sputnik moment was borne primarily out of fear that the Soviets were able to launch the first satellite into orbit before the U.S. For some it was a matter of patriotism, he said. Others worried over its national security implications. “It was not only a scientific challenge,” Lipinski added, “it was a military challenge. And we were being left behind.”
The country united around this fear. R&D spending quadrupled in the 1960s and 1970s, reaching 2.2 percent of GDP compared to today’s 1.1 percent. “The hype was out of control,” he added.
If the U.S. were to make the same investment today, according to Lipinski, it would cost some $174 billion at a time when increasing discretionary spending (and the national deficit) has become politically unpopular.
Lipinski represents Illinois' 3rd Congressional District, which includes parts of south and southwest Chicago and its suburbs. A former political science professor at the University of Tennessee and the University of Notre Dame, he was first elected to Congress in 2005 and serves on other House committees that tackle issues like infrastructure, transportation, and small business.
But his science expertise—he received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Northwestern University and a master’s in engineering-economic systems from Stanford—was most evident as he spoke to the Chicago Harris's Science, Technology, and Policy mini-course.
Led by economist Jim Sallee and physicist Rocky Kolb, the winter quarter series consists mostly of guest speakers that introduce students to an array of science policy topics, including climate change, cyber security, nuclear policy, and bio-ethics.
Wearing the same red tie that he wore to the State of the Union address, Lipinski said that the country lacks the single focus that the first Sputnik era possessed. “What is our challenge?” he asked the room of students, citing a laundry list of problems like clean energy, education, health care, deficit, and unemployment, among others the president mentioned during his speech. “There really isn’t just one.”
-Steven Yaccino
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