Through the Recovery Act, my administration committed over $100 billion to support groundbreaking innovation with investments in energy, basic research, education and training, advanced vehicle technology, health IT and research, high speed rail, smart grid, and information technology. Of these funds, we made a $90 billion investment in clean energy that will produce as much as $150 billion in clean energy projects. In fact, the Recovery Act made the largest single investment in clean energy in American history.

We have invested highly in important research being done to improve the health and wellness of all Americans so that we can continue to unravel clues to treating or preventing some of life’s most daunting and debilitating diseases, develop powerful new medicines, and even define strategies that will prevent disease from occurring in the first place. We have also made critical investments in research and development to bolster our national security and defense. And my budget continues to support making permanent the R&D tax credit, which would allow businesses the ability to invest and grow their organizations.

See also:

Candidates: Where I stand on education

Obama, Romney spar over education funding

Bill Nye warns: Creation beliefs threaten U.S. science

Students’ science proficiency all over the map

Romney: The answer to spending constraints is not to cut back on crucial investments in America’s future, but rather to spend money more wisely. For instance, President Obama spent $90 billion in stimulus dollars in a failed attempt to promote his green energy agenda. That same spending could have funded the nation’s energy research programs at the level recommended in a recent Harvard University study for nearly 20 years.

Good public policy must also ensure that federal research is being amplified in the private sector, and that major breakthroughs are able to make the leap from the laboratory to the marketplace. Unfortunately, President Obama has pursued policies across a range of fields that will have the opposite effect. For instance, Obamacare imposes an excise tax on the revenue of medical device companies that is already driving jobs and investment overseas. Meanwhile, the FDA’s slow and opaque approval process is rated less than one-fourth as effective as its European counterpart by medical technology companies. Robust NIH funding will only have its desired effect if paired with sensible policies that facilitate medical innovation more broadly.

(c) 2012, the Los Angeles Times, with additional reporting from eSchool Media. Visit the Los Angeles Times online at www.latimes.com. Distributed by MCT Information Services.