Sooey! Technology pork barrel

Electronic News, Sept 28, 1992 by Jack Robertson

WASHINGTON--Whoopie! The politicos are set to turn on the funding spigots for technology but it will likely be money down the drain.

The Senate Fiscal 1993 Defense Appropriations bill lumped Sematech, scores of dual use technology programs, and defense industry conversion into a single $2 billion kitty, with no strings attached. It's a lobbyist's dream come true.

Every political pet project, special interest scheme, campaign contributor's chit, back-scratching deal will be first in line with dibs on the $2 billion war-chest. The Defense Department with the advice of a newly-created bureaucracy, the Defense Conversion Commission, would dole out the money as desired--although the Senators were explicit that a good chunk should go for local programs to retrain surplus defense workers and help military contractors move into the commercial market.

That should assure a steady flow of funds into Congressional districts, with constituents reminded of their political benefactors.

Bundling Sematech and $187 million in other industrial technology programs into the grab-bag, however, only creates an Alaskan Huskies dog fight for the spoils. These seed bed programs to build a competitive foundation for U.S. industry deserve their traditional line item budgets. Suddenly cut adrift to scramble for funding in an Oklahoma Land Rush for the Defense Conversion bonanza, the competitiveness programs lose stability, momentum and, possibly, their very existence.

Now it is possible that the seed bed technologies could end up with more money in the funding free-for-all. But few of the research projects have large political constituencies--certainly not as powerful as special interest groups energized by the lure of $2 billion in an openended checkbook.

Sematech has shown some political muscle in its six-year lobbying to get more than a half billion dollars in federal funding. But cut loose from its traditional Pentagon budget line item, Sematech might not fare as well. After all, its sponsoring Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has already said it wants to scale back its level of support over the next five years. If given a free hand by the Senate Appropriations measure, DARPA could start phasing down its funding for Sematech right away.

The semiconductor consortium had hoped for now it had fended off that DARPA phase-down on funding. The industry had lobbied three Congressional budget committees to restore $100 million Sematech funding as a line item in the Fiscal 1993 defense budget--and only needed the Senate Defense Appropriations panel to go along to make it through another year.

The Senate scheme must still be upheld in a conference committee to reconcile appropriation bill differences with the House, which kept the $287 million technology projects as separate line items. The House does include $1 billion in openended defense conversion retraining and contractor assistance, which should provide ample pork barrels without having to throw well-structured competitiveness projects into the political melee.

Congress, of course, has been chastised for years for trying to micro manage the defense budget. Now the Senators have swung to the opposite extreme--theoretically giving bureaucrats free reins to dispense billions into broad, vague areas not even defined. But the Congressional Daddy Warbucks, especially those on the powerful budget panels controlling DOD purse strings, have full power to let their wishes be known on favored outlays.

The Senate concoction is no help to the nation's eroding technology base, no matter how the legislators try to glorify their giveaway. U.S. competitiveness should be forged around a focused national technology plan--to meet identifiable goals on a well-devised strategy. What we have here is a Rugby scrum for money, with the nation's life-essential technologies possibly buried in the mayhem.

The country already has a bevy of thoughtful technology road maps: Micro Tech 2000, the five-year plans of Sematech and Semiconductor Research Corp., the Aerospace Industries Association initiative, and the proposal of Motorola's Bob Galvin and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to put workstations in every U.S. classroom. We just need to follow these road maps--not roar off like desert dune buggies in a money melee.

The Presidential candidates are not much better as they vie with each other to propose government-funded "manufacturing research centers." The count of such centers has racheted up to 150 by now.

Once again we don't need an array of disjointed research pork barrels with attending government bureaucracy--all under the guise of helping industry. Put the same amount of money to work directly in industry on programs linked to an orchestrated national technology plan.

But politicos, unable and unwilling to devise any concerted national initiative, find it far easier simply to throw money willy-nilly at the problem. It hasn't worked in the past and the Money Tree will fail us again here. But if it wins a few votes for embattled incumbents in a tough election year, that's all that counts.