We can change

We have changed.

"Let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age. Let's set high standards for our schools and give them the resources they need to succeed. Let's recruit a new army of teachers, and give them better pay and more support in exchange for more accountability. Let's make college more affordable, and let's invest in scientific research, and let's lay down broadband lines through the heart of inner cities and rural towns all across America."

-- Barack Obama Presidential Announcement Speech in Springfield, IL
February 10 ,2007

The Obama-Biden Technology Plan
change.gov

Barack Obama and Joe Biden understand the immense transformative power of technology and innovation and how they can improve the lives of Americans. They will work to ensure the full and free exchange of information through an open Internet and use technology to create a more transparent and connected democracy. They will encourage the deployment of modern communications infrastructure to improve America's competitiveness and employ technology to solve our nation's most pressing problems -- including improving clean energy, healthcare costs, and public safety.

Ensure the Full and Free Exchange of Ideas through an Open Internet and Diverse Media Outlets

• Protect the Openness of the Internet: Support the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet.
• Encourage Diversity in Media Ownership: Encourage diversity in the ownership of broadcast media, promote the development of new media outlets for expression of diverse viewpoints, and clarify the public interest obligations of broadcasters who occupy the nation's spectrum.
• Protect Our Children While Preserving the First Amendment: Give parents the tools and information they need to control what their children see on television and the Internet in ways fully consistent with the First Amendment. Support tough penalties, increase enforcement resources and forensic tools for law enforcement, and encourage collaboration between law enforcement and the private sector to identify and prosecute people who try to exploit children online.
• Safeguard our Right to Privacy: Strengthen privacy protections for the digital age and harness the power of technology to hold government and business accountable for violations of personal privacy.

Create a Transparent and Connected Democracy

• Open Up Government to its Citizens: Use cutting-edge technologies to create a new level of transparency, accountability, and participation for America's citizens.
• Bring Government into the 21st Century: Use technology to reform government and improve the exchange of information between the federal government and citizens while ensuring the security of our networks. Appoint the nation's first Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to ensure the safety of our networks and lead an interagency effort, working with chief technology and chief information officers of each of the federal agencies, to ensure that they use best-in-class technologies and share best practices.

Deploy a Modern Communications Infrastructure

Deploy Next-Generation Broadband: Work towards true broadband in every community in America through a combination of reform of the Universal Service Fund, better use of the nation's wireless spectrum, promotion of next-generation facilities, technologies and applications, and new tax and loan incentives. America should lead the world in broadband penetration and Internet access.

Improve America's Competitiveness

• Promote American Businesses Abroad: Support a trade policy that ensures our goods and services are treated fairly in foreign markets. Fight for fair treatment of our companies abroad.
• Invest in the Sciences: Double federal funding for basic research over ten years, changing the posture of our federal government to one that embraces science and technology.
• Invest in University-Based Research: Expand research initiatives at American colleges and universities. Provide new research grants to the most outstanding early-career researchers in the country.
• Make the R&D Tax Credit Permanent: Invest in a skilled research and development workforce and technology infrastructure. Make the Research and Development tax credit permanent so that firms can rely on it when making decisions to invest in domestic R&D over multi-year timeframes.
• Ensure Competitive Markets: Foster a business and regulatory landscape in which entrepreneurs and small businesses can thrive, start-ups can launch, and all enterprises can compete effectively while investors and consumers are protected against bad actors that cross the line. Reinvigorate antitrust enforcement to ensure that capitalism works for consumers.
• Protect American Intellectual Property Abroad: Work to ensure intellectual property is protected in foreign markets, and promote greater cooperation on international standards that allow our technologies to compete everywhere.
• Protect American Intellectual Property at Home: Update and reform our copyright and patent systems to promote civic discourse, innovation, and investment while ensuring that intellectual property owners are fairly treated.
• Reform the Patent System: Ensure that our patent laws protect legitimate rights while not stifling innovation and collaboration. Give the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) the resources to improve patent quality and open up the patent process to citizen review to help foster an environment that encourages innovation. Reduce uncertainty and wasteful litigation that is currently a significant drag on innovation.
• Restore Scientific Integrity to the White House: Restore the basic principle that government decisions should be based on the best-available, scientifically-valid evidence and not on ideological predispositions.

Prepare All our Children for the 21st Century Economy

• Make Math and Science Education a National Priority: Recruit math and science degree graduates to the teaching profession and support efforts to help these teachers learn from professionals in the field. Work to ensure that all children have access to a strong science curriculum at all grade levels.
• Improve and Prioritize Science Assessments: Work with governors and educators to ensure that state assessments measure higher order thinking skills including inference, logic and data analysis, not just rote memorization of facts.
• Address the Dropout Crisis: Provide funding to school districts to invest in intervention strategies in middle school -- strategies such as personal academic plans, teaching teams, parent involvement, mentoring, intensive reading and math instruction, and extended learning time.
• Pinpoint College Aid for Math and Science Students: Launch an online database to give potential future scientists access to information about financial aid opportunities available in science and technology fields through the federal government and public or private resources.
• Increase Science and Math Graduates: Improve science and math education in K through 12 to prepare more students for these studies in college. Work to increase our number of science and engineering graduates and encourage undergraduates studying math and science to pursue graduate studies. Increase the representation of minorities and women in the science and technology pipeline, tapping the diversity of America to meet the increasing demand for a skilled workforce.

Prepare Adults for a Changing Economy

• Lifelong Retraining: Reauthorize the Workforce Investment Act, and increase resources for community colleges and lifelong learning initiatives to ensure our citizens can continue to gain new skills throughout their lifetimes. Modernize and expand the existing system of trade adjustment assistance to include service sector workers hurt by changing trade patterns. Create flexible education accounts that workers can use to retrain.
• Build a Reliable Safety Net: Through their proposals on portable health care and retirement savings accounts and expanding unemployment insurance, Obama and Biden will work for programs that will help Americans facing job transitions in a fierce global economy.

Employ Science, Technology and Innovation to Solve Our Nation's Most Pressing Problems

21st-century technology and telecommunications have flattened communications and labor markets and have contributed to a period of unprecedented innovation, making us more productive, connected global citizens. By maximizing the power of technology, we can strengthen the quality and affordability of our health care, advance climate-friendly energy development and deployment, improve education throughout the country, and ensure that America remains the world's leader in technology. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will:

• Lower Health Care Costs by Investing in Electronic Information Technology Systems: Use health information technology to lower the cost of health care. Invest $10 billion a year over the next five years to move the U.S. health care system to broad adoption of standards-based electronic health information systems, including electronic health records.
• Invest in Climate-Friendly Energy Development and Deployment: Invest $150 billion over the next ten years to enable American engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs to advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure, accelerate the commercialization of plug-in hybrids, promote development of commercial-scale renewable energy, and begin the transition to a new digital electricity grid. This investment will transform the economy and create 5 million new jobs.
• Modernize Public Safety Networks: Spur the development and deployment of new technologies to promote interoperability, broadband access, and more effective communications among first responders and emergency response systems.
• Advance the Biomedical Research Field: Support investments in biomedical research, as well as medical education and training in health-related fields. Fund biomedical research, and make it more efficient by improving coordination both within government and across government/private/non-profit partnerships.
• Advance Stem Cell Research: Support increased stem cell research. Allow greater federal government funding on a wider array of stem cell lines.

Remarks of President-Elect Barack Obama Labor, Transportation, USTR, SBA Announcements

Congresswoman Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor

Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk as United States Trade Representative. Karen Mills as Administrator of the Small Business Administration

former Congressman Ray LaHood as Secretary of Transportation

___________________________________________________________

Remarks of President-Elect Barack Obama
Labor, Transportation, USTR, SBA Announcements
Friday, December 19, 2008
Chicago, Illinois

Good afternoon.

Before we begin, I’d like to say a few words about the necessary step taken today to help avoid a collapse in our auto industry that would have devastating consequences for our economy and our workers. With the short-term assistance provided by this package, the auto companies must bring all their stakeholders together – including labor, dealers, creditors and suppliers – to make the hard choices necessary to achieve long-term viability. The auto companies must not squander this chance to reform bad management practices and begin the long-term restructuring that is absolutely necessary to save this critical industry and the millions of American jobs that depend on it, while also creating the fuel-efficient cars of the future.

Whenever I have been asked how I measure the strength of the American economy, my answer is simple: jobs and wages. I know we will be headed in the right direction again when we are creating jobs, instead of losing them, and when Americans are gaining ground in terms of their incomes, instead of treading water or falling behind. In recent weeks, I’ve announced members of my economic team who will help us make progress in these areas.

Today, I’m announcing several other appointees who will play an integral role in our efforts to turn our economy around: Congresswoman Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor; former Congressman Ray LaHood as Secretary of Transportation; Karen Mills as Administrator of the Small Business Administration; and Mayor Ron Kirk as United States Trade Representative.

Together with the appointees I’ve already announced, these leaders will help craft a 21st Century Economic Recovery Plan, with the goal of creating two and a half million new jobs and strengthening our economy for the future.

If jobs and incomes are our yardsticks, then the success of the American worker is key to the success of the American economy. For the past eight years, the Department of Labor has not lived up to its role either as an advocate for hardworking families or as an arbiter of fairness in relations between labor and management. That will change when Hilda Solis is Secretary of Labor. Under her leadership, I am confident that the Department of Labor will once again stand up for working families.

Hilda has always been an advocate for everyday people. When she received an award several years ago, she said, “Fighting for what is just is not always popular, but it is necessary.” And that is exactly what she has done throughout her career, blazing new trails every step of the way. Whether it’s creating green jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced or expanding access to affordable health care or raising the minimum wage in California, Hilda has been a champion of our middle class. And I know that Hilda will show the same kind of leadership as Secretary of Labor that she showed in California and on the Education and Labor Committee by protecting workers’ rights – from organizing to collective bargaining, from keeping our workplaces safe to making our unions strong.

Standing up for our workers means putting them back to work and fueling economic growth. Our economy boomed in the 20th Century when President Eisenhower remade the American landscape by building the interstate highway system. Now we need to remake our transportation system for the 21st Century. Doing so will not only help us meet our energy challenge by building more efficient cars, buses, and subways or make Americans safer by rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges – it will create millions of new jobs in the process.

Few understand our infrastructure challenge better than the outstanding public servant I am asking to lead the Department of Transportation – Ray LaHood. As a Congressman from Illinois, Ray served six years on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, leading efforts to modernize our aviation system by renewing our aging airports and ensuring that air traffic controllers were using cutting edge technology. Throughout his career, Ray has fought to improve mass transit and invest in our highways. But he has not only helped rebuild our landscape, he has helped beautify it by creating opportunities for bikers and runners to enjoy our great outdoors. When I began this appointment process, I said I was committed to finding the best person for the job, regardless of party. Ray’s appointment reflects that bipartisan spirit – a spirit we need to reclaim in this country to make progress for the American people.

To strengthen our economy, we must also strengthen the small businesses that are its backbone. I can think of no one better to lead this effort as Administrator of the Small Business Administration than Karen Mills. With Karen at the helm, America’s small businesses will have a partner in Washington, helping them create jobs and spur growth in communities across this country. A venture capitalist who invests in small businesses, Karen understands the challenges faced by both small business owners and the workers they employ. With a background in the private sector and experience helping Maine’s governor promote growth across the state, I am confident that Karen will lead an SBA that will not only help small business owners realize their dreams, but help our nation rebuild our economy.

We also know that the success of American businesses, small and large, depends on their ability to sell their products across the globe. That is why we must engage in strong, robust trade and open doors for American products. In our global economy, we must compete and win if we are going to strengthen our middle class and forge bonds with other nations that can contribute to peace and stability around the world. But I also believe that any trade agreement we sign must be written not just with the interests of big corporations in mind, but with the interests of our whole nation and our workers at heart.

Ron Kirk understands this better than just about anyone. As Mayor of Dallas, Ron helped steer one of the world’s largest economies. He has seen the promise of trade, but also its pitfalls. And he knows there is nothing inconsistent about standing up for free trade and standing up for American workers. During his tenure as Mayor, Ron brought different groups together to create jobs, invest in the community, and spur economic growth. As a leader, negotiator, and principled proponent of trade, Ron will help make sure that any agreements I sign as President protect the rights of all workers, promote the interests of all Americans, and preserve the planet we all share.

With these outstanding appointees, I have filled out our economic team, and done so at an earlier point than any President in history, because we face challenges unlike any we have faced in generations.

Daunting as the challenges we are inheriting may be, I’m convinced that our team and the American people are prepared to meet them. It will take longer than any of us would like – years, and not months. It will get worse before it gets better. But it will get better – if we’re willing to act boldly and swiftly. And that is what we will do when I am President of the United States.

100 years of Taxes - 1909 to 2009: The Peoples Open Source Tax Code at Work 2009 through 2109, an open source development proposal for Cincinnati.

Those who profess to favor freedom, yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."

– Frederick Douglass, African-American abolitionist

Cincinnati Change plans to create a financial instrument capable of financing a revolutionary health care prototype infrastructure for Ohio, based on established technology. It will be capable of supporting people nationwide with best practice health care and open source economic development tied to a comprehensive housing program that Erases the Digital Divide by embedding technology into homes that reduces their long term operating cost and improve the lives of residents.

We are a government of citizens in the midst of historic change. Over the next 4 years, the 44th president will be able to set policy for the next 100 years, like another President did, 100 years ago.

In Cincinnati, we will raise funds to create the vehicle to buy 20,000 troubled and/or foreclosed mortgages in Southern Ohio as part of our solution to erase the Development Divide. This will be done in conjunction with property owned by investors who are willing to work with Cincinnati Change and its partners, negotiating the restructuring existing debt will have the option of exercising subscription rights to new debt.

We plan to issue new debt instruments that will be used to put people to work. We will use our open Web 2.0 study of the current tax code to maximize a program that puts people to work in Southern Ohio. We will concentrate principally in infrastructure with a focus on MSD [through 2029], health care, education, technology, energy and reconstruction in Southern Ohio through tax increment financing and other revisions to the tax code through Open Source Solutions to Erasing the Development Divide and American financial crisis.

Cincinnati Change will appeal to all levels of government and use in its application US government programs that can be executed by the public/private alliance Cincinnati Change is assembling.

To implement this, our attorneys will be required to develop, under OMB A-76 Authority, an order that will support export growth based on a 4 year plan to service people around the world starting with the Cincinnati Empowerment Zone with its 50,000 residents and 68,000 employees working for over 3,000 employers.

Our offerings will be centered around digital services in support of economic development, career support, social [L.I.S.W.] services, human [The NET Video] and health care [OneCommunity] that supports a super set of International Standards Organization [ISO] 26000.

This Cincinnati Change Chairwoman, Wanda J Lloyd Daniels, will work with Unions while the AEC/GM team will be led by Fred Hargrove Sr. PE, MBA [who is also a licensed master plumber] and the contracted HUD and Tax Code programs will be directed Dr. Robert Day.

The workshop will be presented at the William Howard Taft National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Site) from 12 to 4 on this Thursday and Friday, Dec.11th and 12th, 2008.