The age-old question of whether the glass is half empty or half full does not have a simple answer this year when it comes to the federal tech policy agenda.
On the half-empty side, in 2013 we experienced a 16-day shutdown of the federal government, a near miss of the most recent debt-ceiling deadline and the fewest bills ever signed into law during a Congressional session. Congress’ approval rating is below 10 percent and the president is not fairing much better. With the center of both parties struggling for a voice and the mid-term elections looming in 2014, there is some concern that dysfunction and paralysis could continue.
Yet just today, Congress passed a bi-partisan budget agreement – the first budget in four years. Some major issues that have not even been debated in years, several of which are key legislative objectives for our industry, have been taken up for serious consideration.
Immigration reform passed the Senate and seems to have picked up some GOP support in the House at year’s end. A serious bi-partisan conversation has begun in Congress on comprehensive tax reform and committees are now drafting reform packages. The National Defense Authorization Act has passed in the House and is widely expected to pass in the Senate this week and be signed into law. We expect that some cybersecurity reforms may be included. Several other cybersecurity proposals have been introduced and progress is being made with respect to the president’s executive order. Most recently, important legislation to curb abusive patent litigation tactics passed in the House and will soon be debated in the Senate. One could argue that all of this tips the scale toward glass-half-full.
At a minimum, it’s fair to say that 2013 laid the foundation for major policy reforms. The question will be whether such reforms are realized in 2014 or beyond.
First of all, the budget agreement passed today does limit the impact of sequestration, perhaps ending the brinksmanship around fiscal issues in the near-term. There is also some optimism that the budget resolution clears a pathway to passing spending bills, something that has been extremely elusive over the past decade. Such developments could set a more positive tone for 2014. Of course, there could be some bumpy roads ahead on the debt ceiling, but there continues to be hope around finishing a bill on patent litigation in early 2014 and carrying on the work around tax reform and immigration.
This is all hopeful news for CompTIA and TechVoice. With elections in November 2014, we can choose to be with the glass-half-full contingent by pushing hard in the first half of the year – before politics takes over – to achieve passage of policies that benefit technology, innovation and growth.
