•April 29, 2020•
By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

The coronavirus crisis has exposed critical fault lines in our nation’s bedrock, which must be addressed. I identify three below, but there are others, such as fiscal sufficiency for Social Security and Medicare, both programs taking a hit from the virus and our spending to combat it.
First, we obviously need an American technology/industrial policy. In many areas, China is surpassing our once vaunted technological prowess. The rapid rollout of 5G technology around the world by Chinese behemoth Huawei, while American companies struggle to catch up, should be a wake-up call.
And since we have exported much of our manufacturing to Asia, we find our nation without either the supply or the ready capacity to produce the health care goods we need to help staunch the viral spread.
Business, government and research labs at our universities and elsewhere must collaborate on strategies and funding streams for basic and applied research, as well as for capacity building for the production of goods and services that we need internally and for sale worldwide.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.