Timely U.S. Chamber Campaign for Free Enterprise

The U.S. Chamber recently launched a national campaign to promote job creation and free enterprise. The Campaign for Free Enterprise sets an ambitious challenge: 20 million new jobs in ten years. Click to the site, join the mailing list, and be a part of this massive, optimistic effort to unleash private sector innovation.

Read more about it at Olympia Business Watch. 

Politics Daily has a bit on it today, with just a bit of the expected political spin. Time was when advocating for pro-growth, entrepreneurial policies didn't trigger partisan division. And it shouldn't now.

Clearly there's widespread concern with the state of the nation, undoubtedly tied to the continuing high jobless rate. Rasmussen Reports this morning has this:

Voter perception of the nation's current course holds steady this week, with 34% saying the United States is heading in the right direction, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey....The majority of voters (60%) continue to believe the nation is heading down the wrong track, down two points from last week.

The Forbes Digital Rules blog offers a sobering assessment of US competitiveness. After reminding us that entrepreneurship and innovation lifted America from the 1970s recession, Rich Karlgaard writes:

Will entrepreneurs and innovation bail us out again? They already are doing so. The caveat is that most of this entrepreneurship and innovation is occurring outside the United States. The population distribution guarantees this, but so does the fact that China, India, Brazil, Korea, Singapore and Israel have discovered entrepreneurial capitalism, each country in its own way.

For example:

Did you know that Brazil's aircraft maker Embraer has taken the airplane press by storm with its innovative light jets, the Phenom 100 and 300?

Are you aware that ...that Singapore is willing to pay U.S. research stars in biotechnology about $750,000 per year to move to Singapore?

The challenges get more intense.

If you want to get depressed about this, bet that the current American mess of monetary and fiscal policy will drive offshore some of the innovation we might have had.

That's why the U.S. Chamber campaign  - and, more modestly, WashACE - matters now more than ever.