Washington – President Biden pointed to signs of economic growth during his State of the Union address Thursday, months ahead of his reelection bid. President Biden spoke of his vision for the future and the need to defend democracy, educate the workforce and ensure high speed internet access.
Despite the success mentioned, the current economic picture is threatened by various policies around the world that take aim at the U.S.’s highly successful digital export sector, which helps balance the trade deficit and drove 30 percent of the S&P growth last year, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has recently backed off on its Congressional mandate to advocate for U.S. trade interests by signaling to trading partners they are dropping some digital trade issues. Meanwhile, Congress is considering several bills that would further harm economic growth and consumers while overdue federal privacy legislation remains stalled.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association has been advocating for baseline federal privacy rules online for two decades and for policies that enable a competitive U.S. tech industry for more than 50 years.
The following can be attributed to CCIA President & CEO Matt Schruers:
“We appreciate President Biden’s remarks on U.S. economic success and job growth under his leadership, and the digital sector has been a major contributor to the nation’s prosperity. To sustain this success, the Administration should consider re-examining some policies taking aim at U.S. companies that will have economic consequences for years to come.”
“President Biden also called on Congress to pass bipartisan privacy legislation. Congress has the opportunity to ensure consumers have greater protection and businesses greater certainty across the board if they proceed with federal guidelines for how data is to be used and collected. At a time when responsible online services are updating policies to collect less data, laws that would require the collection of more personal data for companies to prove compliance would hinder more than help the situation we are trying to solve.”