WASHINGTON - There's a huge clog in the American economy, one that is blocking a pipeline to innovation that has always set this country apart and fostered prosperity.
The obstruction is at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which has a backlog of more than 1 million applications for patents. They are gathering dust in an agency where a short-staffed workforce of patent examiners does the work using old and moldy information technology. It is not uncommon for decisions on application to take three years.
The agency got a new chief two months ago -- former IBM executive David Kappos -- and he is not mincing words about the situation, calling it "insane, unacceptable" in a recent interview with the Washington Post.
Kappos is changing procedures to help speed up the examining process, but he says the agency needs help from Congress to get it out of a $200 million deficit.
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Concerned about the needs of aging lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently announced the creation of the nation's first "national resource center" to help communities deal with this growing population.
With a $250,000 annual budget, the center will provide information, assistance and resources for gay organizations and mainstream aging groups to help them develop and provide "culturally sensitive supports and services," as the Oct. 21 HHS press release put it.
As many as 1.5 million to 4 million gay Americans are now age 60 or over, Health and Human Services says, and agencies "may be unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the needs of this group of individuals."
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The House Committee on Rules is one of the most powerful in the House of Representatives, and one of the most insulated from press and public sight.
It is in the panel's cramped hearing room, in an off-the-beaten path corner of the Capitol, that a dozen or so lawmakers decide which amendments to which bills will make it to the floor for debate, and how much time there will be to debate them.
The committee is traditionally disproportionately stacked in favor of the majority; nine Democrats and four Republicans make up the current panel. It often meets with little more than an hour's notice, and seating is so limited that reporters have to make requests to attend ahead of time. As a result, its proceedings get little public scrutiny.
Republicans -- who ran an equally inaccessible and partisan committee when they ruled the House -- now want to let a little sunshine in. Noting that the Rules committee is one of the last on Capitol Hill without TV cameras permanently installed, Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., and 60 co-sponsors are on a crusade to change that. The room is wired and ready for C-SPAN cameras, they said.
Current Rules chairman Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., says cameras are always welcome, though she's lukewarm to the idea of permanent ones, which her spokesman said would be a waste of money.
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The Obama administration is predicting a major increase in international visitors to the United States -- but not until 2013.
In the meantime, foreign travel is expected to be down, according to U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke. For 2009, just 53 million travelers from abroad are projected, an 8 percent decline from 2008.
The global economic slump is being blamed. But Locke looks for 63 million foreign visitors in 2013 -- and, by extension, a healthier world economy.
(E-mail Lisa Hoffman at hoffmanl(at)shns.com.)
Washington Calling
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