What is China doing to promote innovation-led economic growth?

China is investing in essentially all the building blocks of innovation that the United States invested in to make ourselves global leaders in entrepreneurship and innovation. They're investing in research and development on clean energy, in advanced manufacturing. They're bringing in foreign scientists and foreign companies to build up their own sectors in these areas and really become a leader in clean energy and energy efficiency. And as an example, China had twice the installed capacity of renewable energy as the U.S. just last year, and they're making most of the solar panels in the world. They're really investing a lot to come out on top.

What can the United States do to remain a global innovation leader?

We need to go back to investing in exactly those kinds of building blocks of innovation that got us to where we are today. We are on top in innovation and research and entrepreneurship today as a country because of investments in infrastructure, in research and development, and in our manufacturing sector. Unfortunately, all of those things are suffering from a lack of government involvement and a lack of private-sector investment in the last few years. So we really need to get back on the bandwagon and start putting some money back into our research and development systems, our federal labs, and the companies that are really putting renewable energy and efficiency systems in the ground. If we don't do that, we do risk losing all of those companies and all those jobs to other countries—in particular, China.

How do the Republican Study Committee's budget cuts hurt our innovation?

The Republican Study Committee, which is made up of 176 members of the Republican caucus (so it's a big caucus in the House), came out with a set of recommendations that would, among other things, gut most of the programs that have gotten us to where we are as an innovation leader. For example, the Republican Study Committee cuts the Manufacturing Extension Partnership completely; that's a company that provides technical assistance for advanced manufacturing for companies across the United States, in clean energy and other technologies. They also completely cut the Economic Development Administration, which helps states and cities become more competitive in building new industries, like a clean energy industry. Finally, they cut the applied research arm of the Department of Energy, which is where all of tomorrow's technologies are being developed today. So what they're doing essentially is cutting down the roots of innovation that we need to build back up if we're going to be globally competitive.