Science & Tech Quote by Ron Kind

Ron Kind’s line reads like a campaign speech engineered for the era when “global marketplace” became both promise and threat. The repetition of “Technology is driving...” isn’t poetic so much as strategic: it turns an abstract force into a locomotive, something that can’t be argued with, only boarded. By placing innovation and creativity under the same mechanical banner, Kind collapses two different cultural values into one bipartisan-safe premise: whatever you think the future should look like, technology is the engine.

The specific intent is policy permission. This is how a politician justifies investments in broadband, STEM education, workforce retraining, and public-private partnerships without getting dragged into ideological trench warfare. It’s a preemptive rebuttal to two audiences at once: to business, a nod that government “gets” competitiveness; to workers, a reassurance that their livelihoods can be defended, not by protectionism, but by skill acquisition.

The subtext is less optimistic than the diction suggests. “Determine our workers’ ability to compete” quietly shifts responsibility downward. Structural changes - offshoring, automation, weakened labor power - fade into the background as “use of technology” becomes the decisive variable. It’s a soft form of tough-love politics: the economy is changing; adaptation is mandatory; the only debate is whether we fund the adaptation.

Contextually, this fits the post-1990s, post-NAFTA political consensus where technological progress is treated as inevitable and morally neutral. The quote works because it offers urgency without villainy: no enemy, just a clock, and a toolkit.