American Dreams by Marco Rubio Page B

that will produce American jobs.
    One of the problems has been that the government insists on attempting to dictate which research projects have commercial potential. But if there’s one thing we learned from the Obama administration’s failed taxpayer subsidies of companies like Solyndra, it’s that the government is a lousy venture capitalist. The cutting-edge research being done at the national labs is too valuable to be left to the bureaucrats. Some research has commercial applications; some doesn’t. The job of determining which is which is better left to the market. I have joined with Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware to propose legislation that will make it easier for our labs to work together with private businesses to bring groundbreaking research to fruition in the marketplace. It’s one more way we can defy the naysayers and maintain America’s innovative edge—and the jobs that go with it—in the twenty-first century.

    Beyond taxes and regulations, another challenge to American investment and innovation is our lack of progress in ensuring access to markets and consumers.
    In the digital age, this competition for access begins on the Internet. Whether it’s selling jeans on Amazon, showcasing your products on Facebook or creating a start-up with Kickstarter, the Web has transformed the way we do business. And this revolution will not slow down. As much of our lives as we already spend online today, Web traffic is expected to be thirteen times higher by 2017.
    The Internet is a political success story as well as an economic one. The Web has not only helped democratic movements across the globe to organize, it has given the world a window on the actions of dictators and tyrants to suppress freedom. Ensuring free and open access to the Internet is not just an economic necessity. It is central to human freedom. Not surprisingly, that openness and access is threatened today. Forty-two countries restrict their own people’s access to the Internet. Many of these countries now want to take their repression global by taking control of how the Internet is governed.
    But the reason the Web is a singular success story in the history of human organization is that it has avoided such government control. It is currently overseen by a diverse group of independent boards, user groups, businesses, nonprofit organizations and others—in other words, it hasn’t been controlled so much as managed. Free from government interference, the Internet has been hailed as the greatest “deregulatory” success of all time.
    But this sort of freedom is the exception rather than the norm. The story of mankind is sadly one where powerful nations try to force their way of life on weaker nations and peoples, or control the means of commerce and trade, primarily land, the seas and the skies. Even today, for totalitarian governments like Russia and China, Internet freedom is increasingly intolerable. These nations say they would like to see the Internet subject to international control, by which they mean the United Nations. But no committee of bureaucrats sitting in Turtle Bay could attempt to control a global network of trillions of Web pages without doing cataclysmic damage. And no international organization that allows Cuba on its “Human Rights Council” should be given the opportunity to try.
    That is why opposing this sort of takeover and preserving Internet freedom must be a top national priority. Internet freedom isn’t just about being able to surf your favorite Web pages; it is about being able to sell your products and services to people all over the world online. In this new century, the harder it is to do that, the harder it will be to grow our economy and create jobs.
    In 2012, I sponsored bipartisan legislation supporting an Internet free of government control. It passed both the Senate and the House without a dissenting vote. This was a good start, but ongoing