The exceptions that prove the rule are Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.  Franklin is well known as the inventor of the Franklin stove and Jefferson for the swivel chair, among other innovations.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal relies on 19th-century technology to propel the country into the 21st century.  She is an advocate of windmills to generate power and rail traffic to carry us across this continent.

Windmills to drive any of the industries of the 21st century are completely inadequate for modern manufacturing machinery since precise timing is controlled by the 60-hertz cycle of electrical generation, which is not possible from wind power.  High-speed rail is a mid-twentieth-century technology that is completely out of date.  But such is the mindset of so called progressive politicians.

Engineers and scientists would propose (and have proposed) the development of entirely new but proven technologies that some would call "orphaned technology."   It is "orphaned" only because it has no enlightened political advocate.

Take for instance Molten Salt Thorium Reactors.  These reactors use only a small amount of uranium as a catalyst and are proliferation-resistant, since thorium is not suitable for nuclear weapons.  This type of reactor is zero emission technology.

Another technology that has been overlooked in the U.S. is MagLev Rail.  This type of rail system is more than twice as fast as high-speed rail (more than 300 mph) because it relies on magnetic levitation.  But only Japan and Germany (our old enemies) are involved in this type of technology.

Then there is Stirling Hybrid Vehicle Technology where a Stirling Cycle engine is employed in a series hybrid design by Texas A&M University in San Antonio in an ultra-low emission vehicle drivetrain that is more than twice as efficient as internal combustion vehicles and more than three times the range of ordinary cars and trucks on the road today. 

SWATH Hull (Small Water-Plane Area Twin Hull) ship designs are much more efficient at pushing through the ocean waves than mono hull vessels employed by most fleets of the maritime industry today.

The areo-spike is rocket technology that is much more efficient for launch vehicles than the rocket technology in use today.

As for air travel, the scramjet is also overlooked technology that would revolutionize air travel by cutting flight time from New York to Tokyo to ninety minutes, traveling at hypersonic speeds.

How did these technologies come about?  Private industry developed them, not politicians.  Anyone who believes that politicians have the answers to the problems of the world will be sorely disappointed.