Loading issue research
Expand human agency and shared prosperity through evidence-led skills, durable R&D capacity, universal connectivity, and accountable deployment that shares technological gains.
Verification Status
AI-researched, unverifiedLast Reviewed
Jul 12, 2026
Cited Sources
4
What is failing, what we would change, and the conclusion we are willing to defend.
The party's 2024 plank treated technology as a route to prosperity and jobs. The Conscience Compact gives that claim a governing test: R&D, skills, and connectivity serve progress when they expand human agency, distribute gains, and keep resulting power answerable. Technology supplies one family of tools. Workforce institutions, public research, infrastructure, and correction determine whether people can use those tools together.
Automation and rapid technological change have exposed gaps in skills, opportunity, and prosperity. The COVID-19 pandemic made those gaps undeniable. Past federal responses were well-intentioned and incomplete: the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stabilized the economy after the Great Recession without laying enough groundwork for future innovation; the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act modernized roads and bridges while leaving more work for 21st-century competitiveness.
Put STEM at the heart of education from elementary school through higher education and workforce development: tangible skills for fields like cybersecurity, AI, and biotech, with demonstrated skills carrying weight alongside degrees.
Substantially increase research and development investment so America leads emerging technologies and captures a larger share of their value.
Bring 21st-century connectivity (high-speed internet and digital infrastructure) to every corner of the country, rural and urban alike, as essential infrastructure.
(2026 addition) Lock in the R&D funding floor Congress has already defended on a bipartisan basis: don't let it get re-litigated from scratch by whichever administration holds the executive branch next. This isn't a hypothetical floor: in 2025, a budget proposed cutting NSF by roughly half, NIH by more than 40%, and NASA by nearly a quarter. A Republican-controlled Congress rejected it. NSF's final cut: 3.4%. That's the bipartisan consensus this plank is asking Congress to keep defending. On broadband, favor a technology-neutral build-out (fiber, fixed-wireless, or satellite, whichever gets a household connected fastest) over a fiber-only mandate, but keep reporting requirements on where the money goes. Speed and accountability aren't in tension.
(2026 addition) Rebalance the STEM push explicitly toward skilled trades (electricians, HVAC technicians, plumbers) in addition to software and coding. This platform's own AI-11 research documents measured entry-level employment declines specifically in the most AI-exposed occupations, which disproportionately overlap with the entry-level coding roles this proposal has historically emphasized, while the trades face a well-documented labor shortage and are structurally far less exposed to near-term AI displacement. A STEM strategy that doesn't distinguish between these two very different near-term risk profiles would go beyond underselling the trades: it would contradict this platform's own labor-market evidence. Add new trades-training funding alongside existing coding and software investment, without pulling resources out of it. A rebalancing budget proposal that quietly became a cut would be violating this proposal's own explicit terms.
Expand human agency and shared prosperity through evidence-led skills, durable R&D capacity, universal connectivity, and accountable deployment that shares technological gains.
Turn frustration into useful pressure.
If this position misses evidence or a lived consequence, challenge it. If it holds up, help test it locally and connect it to the issues around it.