Tom Tancredo, Al Gore, and the internet

"I've been a conservative all my life, since long before Al Gore even invented the internet," Tancredo quipped.

I guess we were supposed to yuk it up over that so-called quip.  But I'm a bit confused as to which part Tom Tancredo intended me to chuckle at.  It had to be either the part about his being a "conservative," or the time span of that conservatism (i.e., all his life).  Reason: The part about Al Gore inventing the internet isn't funny; it's essentially true. 

In 1991, Senator Al Gore cosponsored the legislation that funded the creation of the internet.  Gore saw its importance, surmised it could be a big part of our future, and understood it would happen more quickly and effectively with government sponsorship (aka, "government spending").  So he took the initiative, and sponsored "An Act to provide for a coordinated Federal program to ensure continued United States leadership in high-performance computing, and for other purposes."  Subsequently, after his legislation became law, Gore was a leading proponent of privatizing the internet—another good idea. 

If Tom Tancredo had been a member of Congress in 1991, my guess is he would have voted against Al Gore's legislation, after labeling it "more government spending we can't afford," or maybe just "pork."  But he wasn't yet in Congress in 1991; at that time, he was heading up a regional office of the Education Department—firing 2/3 of its staff, presumably under the assumption that "government spending" is always a waste of money.  [Oversimplifications like that are indiscriminate, and block government from investing in our future.  I think Gore's sponsorship of the creation of the internet is one of many good examples of good, growth-friendly investments by the federal government.  It would be nice to hear more investment ideas from our politicians, wouldn't it?  I wonder if Tom Tancredo has any of those—or if he's pretty much just a cost-cutter.] 

Anyway, help me out here: which part of Tancredo's "quip" was the part I'm supposed to think is funny? 

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End note:  Those  interested in a more detailed history of the Al Gore internet story should read this article by Richard Wiggins. 

Comments

[steve.]

Um, the internet was around LONG before 1991.

[aem5]

I cut out a newspaper article in the late 80s and stuck it on the wall in my cubicle. It was about Al Gore funding some internet thing. People thought it was crazy for a US Senator to be involved in an insignificant piffle like the internet.

Everyone I knew that was involved in long-haul communications thought the internet was the spawn of the devil. They thought it would kill their long-haul leased line gravy train (Death to Dedicated Networks or Defense Data Network?). And it did too.

Congressman Phil D. Swing and Senator Hiram W. Johnson took the initiative in the creation of Hoover dam. Capisce?

[Grodge]

The part that is funny to me is that Tom Tancredo is taken seriously enough to be quoted at all.

[Gil]

I agree that a lot of conservative/libertarian values seem better at conserving existing wealth than have the ability to actually create new wealth.

[Bob]

I don't know much about Tancredo. I'm wondering, though, if there is more to the story about the RIF he instigated. I'm against arbitrary headcount reductions in ANY organizations - private or public.

However, I am a card carrying advocate of whacking any bureaucrat in dysfunctional organizations. And, the Education Department is a good place to start. With a budget (correct me if I'm wrong) of around $50 billion there has to be major waste. Let's keep in mind that it is the States that provide education - there is no Federal school system that I am aware of.

The federal government should take a limited role in education. IMO, it's folly to thing that faceless bureaucrats in WDC can do much to improve thousands of local districts. Just allow me to send my kids to any district I want and I'll take it from there.

I could go on and on about this.

[Steve]

For a history of what we now call the internet, see http://tinyurl.com/ayw69 . Al Gore's name appears first in 1988.

[bmili]

Um, Steve, other than your disagreement over Tancredo's immigration policy, what's the beef with him? I don't find cutting down on the Department of Education troubling at all. Milton Friedman widely cites the ineffectivenss of the education system since it has become public. Not really sure where you are going on this post other than to try to whack a small dog that doesn't have much voice (Tancredo).

[bmili]

"I think Gore's sponsorship of the creation of the internet is one of many good examples of good, growth-friendly investments by the federal government. It would be nice to hear more investment ideas from our politicians, wouldn't it?"

What is your definition of investment? To a politician that means subsidies. Subsidies tend to cause more harm than good i.e.- ethanol. The vast majority of innovations throughout the past century have come from the private sector (the lone exceptions may be defense/space programs). Didn't FDR try to sell Social Security taxes as investments? Please elaborate.

[A Tanatar]

bmili, subsidies are probably as far from "investment" as it gets.

[rufus]

I've got news for you, chilluns. Ethanol, and biodiesel are going to save our bacon, starting pretty danged soon.

[LPC]

At best Al Gore can be credited with is recognizing the internet's potential. Creating the internet? Hogwash.

The internet was a government creation, but make no mistake, the private sector made it what it is today.

The Federal Government is the least innovative entity in the economy.

[Steve]

Elaboration on investments by government:

I'm in Paul Romer's camp: the government does have a role to play when it comes to investing in the future -- not by picking winners, but by fostering the innovation process, and by providing a safe, secure, experimentation-friendly environment. The GI Bill is one of the best examples, but not the only one by any means.

The point is that not every dollar spent by government is wasted, and not every program needs to pay for itself in the current fiscal year -- but we wouldn't know that if we lazily allowed the one-dimensional cost-cutters to monopolize the debate. (They are plentiful in business, too, not just government.)

Also, some programs are government's duty, not the private sector's; specifically, defense, justice, education, and infrastructure, according to Adam Smith. For example, effective investment in intelligence, diplomacy, and military force potential (ie, in national security) prevents war; by contrast, "saving money" or "increasing the surplus" by reducing investment in national security fails to prevent war -- and that ends up costing a lot more in the long run, as we have been seeing.

Government can, should, and does invest in our future -- although most of its "investments" are much different from those we are used to in private sector business. How might we place an asset value on effective national security, or on the dollar's role as the world's preferred reserve currency, or on lower interest rates enjoyed by the world's strongest economy? I have no idea how; I also know they are assets we tend to take for granted -- assets not to be found anywhere in the gloomy models purporting to quantify the present value of future liabilities (...the apparent logic: we can't quantify them, so why even admit they exist, especially when it would undermine a political message?).

Save me from the one-dimensional cost-cutters, please.

[Bob]

Okay, Steve. I'm with you on the one dimensional cost cutters. However, I'm inherently suspicoius and widely skeptical that government agencies such as the Dept. of Eduation provide any value whatsoever other than administration of things like Pell Grants and student loans.

Government does provide education but at the local level through the States and districts. Please tell me how burdensome burreaucrats in WDC do anything more than come up with reports and
policies.

[Steve]

Bob:

I didn't intend to defend the Education Dept. For all I know, every dollar we've ever spent on it could have been better spent on a supercollider, or returned to the taxpayers. In my limited observations, even local education bureaucracies tend to look more like low productivity jobs programs, or cesspools of corruption, than efficient producers of a well-educated populace. Maybe Tancredo the cost-cutter should have fired 100% of the staff in '91, in other words. I'm just glad he wasn't in congress to vote against the bill that helped scale up the internet.

[Aaron]

The funny part of the line, is the word "invent."

Gore did not invent the internet. Help fund its early days? Sure.

Would you think it reasonable for a congressman who passed the first law paying for the polio vaccine to be widely used to claim credit for "inventing the polio vaccine?"

[Big Daddy Matty]

Aaron: The problem is, Gore never claimed to have "invented" the internet. That supposed claim is a misquote, the result of a worldwide version of the telephone game, not unlike Sally Field's "You like me!" or Humphrey Bogart's "Play it again, Sam." None of those things were ever said by the parties to whom they have been attributed.

What Gore did say was that he "took the initiative in creating the internet." While that statement is not technically true given that the internet already existed, Gore's intended point, that he had been the driving agent behind legislation that funded significant advances toward what we know today as the internet, is difficult to argue against.

[Tom Hanna]

The TCP/IP protocol suite came from work done by DARPA in the early 1970s and arguably "is" the internet. (Depending, I suppose, what the definition of the word "is" is.) Al Gore was still struggling with the basic tenets of gun safety at the time.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/alwithgun.jpg

The Internet Configuration Control Board was formed in 1979.

There are lots of good reasons to laugh at Tom Tancredo, but it's not necessary to give Al Gore credit for inventing, creating, initiating or fathering the internet to do so.

[Bob]

Steve, Lord knows we need more statesman and innovative thinking in
all of government instead of bloviating boobs who care more about the next election and the pork they can dole out.

Heck, I'd be happy to find 3 or 4.

'Nuff said.

[mark]

By my calculations, total computer time worldwide for internet activity consumes about 20 megawatts per hour, adding about 250 million tons of CO2 to the atmosphere each year. Wonder if Al Gore saw that one coming?

[Kevin]

Eh, Mark beat me to it -- I wonder how much the Internet contributes to Global Warming? Especially since the Internet and its capabilities for global organizations is a key growth driver for China and India, whose growth leads to massive greenhouse emissions. Way to go Gore, it's like starting a war and then selling arms to both side. (Hey. THAT's a good idea....)

Anyway, Gore could have claimed to help promote and fund and popularize the Internet as a viable commercial medium -- or he could have claimed to have had a vision of what the Internet could become -- but no, he literally did say something that was simply WAY too close to saying he "invented the Internet" -- no matter how much Snopes.com wants to defend and rationalize the words he used. (Well, maybe it depends on what the definition of "is" is?) But any politician who'd say things like that is fair game.

[Aaron]

Thanks for the quotation and information! Again, using the word "create" is still pretty strong, but much better than "invent."

While I pretty much like a lot of Steve's ideas, and agree that government spending can definitely help economic growth, I also reserve some healthy skepticism for "picking winners." (Which is why some of Steve's prizes seem a smarter way than just handing around buckets of money.)

[mark]

Kevin,
I was just joking. The internet has added so much productivity to society it far outweighs the power consumption. I consider govt spending to be neutral when it comes to the money. Collectively, taxpayers receive back the money they pay in taxes when the govt spends the money. Govt spending does take away real resources (such as labor and materials). The question is whether the spending will add sufficiently to productivity to overcome the resources taken away by the spending.

[Chris]

The Internet was alive and kicking when I was an undergraduate at Carnegie Mellon in 1986. At the time, it was still called the "Arpanet," and the web browser hadn't been invented. But, you could still email people at other institutions, up- and down-load files to their computers and even log in to their machines.

It's true that the Federal Government, largely through the NSF and DoD, funded major early segments of it. But, it was evolutionary, dating back into the 1960s. Gore played a minor role, which is why everybody laughs at his hubris in claiming credit for the entire thing. It's a little like Mike Didka claiming credit for football.

I took the initiative in creating the pop-top beer can. Beginning in the late 1960's I bought lots and lots of beer in cans and complained about having to punch holes in the top with a 'church key' until some otherwise useless engineer or somebody got around to putting pop-tops on the cans.
Thus, I took the initiative in creating pop-top beer cans by 'investing' heavily in the technology.

I took the initiative in creating the pop-top beer can. Beginning in the late 1960's I bought lots and lots of beer in cans and complained about having to punch holes in the top with a 'church key' until some otherwise useless engineer or somebody got around to putting pop-tops on the cans.
Thus, I took the initiative in creating pop-top beer cans by 'investing' heavily in the technology.