To assist the Competitiveness Policy Council in drawing up this report, four of the Council's eight subcouncils were asked to provide their assessment of recent federal initiatives and to make any new recommendations that seemed appropriate. The participating subcouncils were Critical Technologies, Public Infrastructure, Trade Policy, and Training. This document consists of the report of the council as a whole followed by the four individual subcouncil reports. The major federal initiatives with competitiveness implications that were found to be on track were as follows: the budget package passed by Congress to stem the growth of the budget deficit, pursuit of the council's recommendations to improve apprenticeship and school-to-work programs, a new technology policy that increases the budget for the Advanced Technology Program, pursuit of a "global growth strategy" and promotion of exports, the "reinventing government" initiative that is a next step in restoring fiscal discipline, and efforts to reform the health care system. The council made specific recommendations for improving the quality and quantity of public investment. The council favored increasing the gasoline tax to fund additional infrastructure programs and urged a moratorium on future site-specific demonstration projects pending establishment of an evaluation process. It recommended a program to help workers adversely affected by policies to benefit the economy as a whole. The council urged that the public debate be refocused on the competitiveness agenda and that Congress make permanent the research and experimentation tax credit. (Appendixes include 13 endnotes and the four reports prepared by the subcouncils.) (YLB)