A growing bipartisan consensus concludes that there is a need to bolster America’s ability to compete economically by investing in scientific research and development as well as in our domestic manufacturing and our supply chain. For example, Republicans and Democrats largely agree on $52 billion in federal funding for various investments encouraging domestic manufacturing of computer semiconductor chips. There is also significant bipartisan consensus that these efforts are needed to compete economically, particularly with China.

Beyond that, significant disagreements remain between Democrats and Republicans and between the House and the Senate on how much to invest in other aspects of the competitiveness problem. Most believe it will be very difficult to overcome these obstacles in 2022.