Crossposted from The People's View
Last night I read a usual spin from a front page article at DailyKos titled "Winning the future is a great slogan" that pretty much does the usual purist undermining of the President's effort to challenge and change the status quo. However, just like the RW, the purist Left critics never let down from throwing bricks at the President. The diary is not even deserving of a click so I won't link to it since the author thinks writing a controversial article enriches his pocket book but I will highlight from the diary an example of the bullshit that is often thrown by a Front Pager at DailyKos. (Shrug).
Knocking down the President's Winning the Future through Innovation strategy, the Front Pager said the following:
It's got Reaganesqe optimism, that's for sure. In fact, its an extra big Thanksgiving Day helping of optimism.
[I will go in detail further below to point out that Winning the Future is not about a Reaganesqe optimism. It is about challenging ourselves to embrace a different model to achieving economic expansion via innovation.]
Brimming with enough optimism to encroach on summer sunlight, the president's budget is being sold as a plan to "out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world, tapping the creativity and imagination of our people." As of today, we are losing on all three fronts and the creativity and imagination of our people is mainly used on entertainment and financial products.
[Our country had stop thinking and a strategy to push innovation so that we don't fall further behind should be something we should praise as Democrats rather than try to undermine it unless of course some have a different agenda fronting as Democrats in a so called Liberal site. Well, I will point out the five specific winning the future strategies further below so that we as Democrats are informed about what this Administration is really trying to do to increase business expansion and job creation opportunities through innovation.]
...continuing with the non-stop sensationalized outrage and mind you there is yet not one things good said about the Winning the Future strategy in the article, it goes further with the usual dishonest narrative.
The president's budget slogan reflects a White House that is in full reelect mode, and the budget is one as well. But strictly on the merits of sloaganeering, it seems a rather hollow way to avoid talking about the twin proverbial 800-lb. silverbacks in the political room: the crisis in unemployment/underemployment and the housing crisis.
//snip
So, in what basically amounts to a throwing up of the hands, the president has designed a political strategy whose goal is to convince the American people to...ahem...hope.
//snip
But all of the things that allowed us to do these things in the past, like strong unions, industrial policy, inexpensive education, heavy regulation, and taxation that redistributed wealth downward will not be found in this budget because those things aren't on the table in any branch of government. What is on the table is a future, a future where everything will work out. We will win! Hooray for optimism!
[How shallow can that argument be and add the 800-lb misrepresentation of fact as if the President's "Winning The Future" plan does not address creating jobs. Further, considering what the WI 14 had to say about the President's support for the WI Unions and their dedication , despite the fact that the President's huge Education Investment in the History of this country and despite the effort to overhaul the tax code and regulations, the intentional effort to discrediting this Administration through lies and deceit has become heinous, it is disgusting.
To say the least, the whole article is a hogwash design to stir the pot as usual as some Front Pagers do but specifically this article indeed seem like a "let me get paid" diary short in substance and a typical gossip column made for the "let's bitch on Obama lovers".]
...and then we have comments like this (see below) that got 33 kudos and counting...
Discusted beyond belief I will be voting for Kucinich or any other progressive who runs in 2012 for Pres. I don't care, I can't to it.
...which really tells me Left Purists have really lost their mind with little memories of the 2000 election and 8 years of Bushism. Well, I am glad that they are a fraction of the Democratic "base" that wants the government to act out their aggression.
However, I did a little research about the President's "Winning the Future" plan and was impressed by the extent of the effort to reassess how we do things today, how we could do it better tomorrow and how we can challenge ourselves by encouraging American innovation.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One of the five strategies addressed by the President to impact American Innovation is through PATENT REFORM. I will discuss the challenges at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and what the Administration is doing to promote innovation for a better tomorrow. I will also note the other 4 strategies for reference to read at your leisure below which are all key to "spark the creativity and imagination of our people".
"Until I get a patent, I have a very limited ability to defend myself in the marketplace against copy activity,"
~Entrepreneur Aldo DiBelardino
"It represents innovations trapped in this agency that otherwise could be creating jobs."
~David Kappos, Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
An idea shared by an average American was the highlight of last week's edition of White House White Board presentation by Austan Goolsbee, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, that explained the President's plan to reform the current inefficient and daunting patent approval process so that American ideas are turned into companies to produce jobs of the future.
Facts from the video below:
There are currently a backlog of 700,000 patent applications waiting to be reviewed.
The average patent in 2011 takes about three years to get and some even longer.
Check out this video by The Innovation Alliance on Innovation and Job Creation to understand why a strong patent system is important.
The Argument
1) If it is taking more than 3 years to patent an idea, to open these applications for review, how will America be taking advantage of these ideas to create the kind of jobs we need to compete in the world not to mention that businesses with patent have a higher chance of securing financing which allows business expansion and job creation opportunity for the country.
2) There are a lot of applications waiting to be reviewed while there is very little resources to process the patent review. This makes the current system to be prone for mistakes. Mistaken patent will cause a lot of hardship to businesses tangled up in the legal system costing business owners millions and slowing innovation, business expansion and consequentially affecting the potential creation of jobs.
3) According to the Department of Commerce, 3/4th of venture capital investors believe that having patents is important in making their willingness to make funding decisions. The patent processing backlog will certainly make it difficult for inventors to find financing to start their business while waiting for their patent which is a lost opportunity for innovation, expansion and job creation. In fact, according to the Department of Commerce, it estimates the lost opportunity cost to the U.S. Economy in billions.
Listen to the testimonial by Entrepreneur Aldo DiBelardino about the difficulty to obtain a patent and some of the lack of resource at USPTO that is causing a slowing down of innovation that contributes to a slow economic expansion.
Actions Taken and Planned
In August 2009, the Administration sworn in David Kappos as Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. While between January 2009 and the end of 2010 the backlog of patent application have been reduced from 764,000 to 708,535, Director Kappos emphasis that resources are the key challenges the Office faces to effectively administer patent applications. The current USPTO's commitment is to cut the backlog in half over the next five years.
Further, with the Administration's plan to cut the average patent delay by 40% reducing the average delay for a patent application from 38 months to 20 months within three years, creating a fast track procedure to elevate important ideas or inventions to be approved and moved forward quickly within 12 months, Director Kappos says, "he needs more money to hire 1,200 additional patent examiners and upgrade the agency's computer systems."
Understanding the challenges the USPTO is under and the President's innovation push to foster economic growth, the Administration's FY 2012 budget has proposed resources for the Patent Office in the amount of $2.7 billion in 2012 which is a 34% increase from 2010 levels.
In addition, the Administration proposes to reform the patent system to accelerate innovation and provide greater certainty to businesses. The Budget proposes to give the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) full access to its fee collections [which currently can't do] and strengthens USPTO’s efforts to improve the speed and quality of patent examinations through a temporary fee surcharge that will better align application fees with processing costs.
In addition to Patent Reform initiative, the White House has outlined four high priority strategies to impact“American Innovation” in the following areas:
1) Startup America initiative - a set of entrepreneur-focused policy initiatives to "(1) increasing access to capital for high-growth startups; (2) increasing access to high-quality mentors for entrepreneurs; (3) accelerating the commercialization of federally funded R&D; and (4) improving the regulatory environment for high-growth firms."
2) Clean Energy initiative "by investing in innovative clean energy technologies and doubling the share of electricity from clean energy sources by 2035."
3) wireless initiative by setting "the goal of enabling businesses to provide high-speed wireless services to at least 98 percent of all Americans within five years."
4) Education initiative by improving "the participation and performance of America’s students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)."
Looking closer at the details of the programs proposed and the commitment the White House has showed and laid out within the budget, one can't mistaken the effort as "a feeling better about tomorrow" plan but a huge commitment for investment and economic expansion through innovation to change the trajectory of this country's future.
When one concludes about the Administration's plan to "Winning the Future" in such a shallow way...
What "Win the Future" is about is feeling better about tomorrow because today sucks so bad. Which, I suppose, is better than saying "today sucks and there is nothing I can do about it." But perhaps by trying to turn the public's attention to a better tomorrow, the White House is admitting what people in the middle class are feeling: Times are tough RIGHT NOW and there is nothing anyone in Washington will do about it.
...it confirms that that kind of rhetoric did come from the Professional Putragists Front Pager who is really committed to electing more and better Democrats.../shrug.