From Politico.com
http://www.politico.com/...
President-elect Barack Obama added sweep and meat to his economic agenda on Saturday, pledging the largest new investment in roads and bridges since President Dwight D. Eisenhower built the Interstate system in the late 1950s, and tying his key initiatives – education, energy, health care –back to jobs in a package that has the makings of a smaller and modern version of FDR's New Deal marriage of job creation with infrastructure upgrades.
The president-elect also said for the first time that he will “launch the most sweeping effort to modernize and upgrade school buildings that this country has ever seen.”
“We will repair broken schools, make them energy-efficient, and put new computers in our classrooms,” he said in the address.
The president-elect is bringing new elements of his domestic agenda into his economic recovery plan, committing to a path toward giving every American access to an electronic medical record as part of an “economic recovery plan ... that won’t just save jobs, it will save lives.”
This is what a president should be! Obama is visionary and insightful...isn't it nice to have a president not divorced from reality? A president who sees the problems and is not afraid to take swift action to stem the tide of apathy and indecision, such as we have endured for the past 8 years.
Spending money here at home improving our infrastructure and putting Americans back to work is exactly what we need. Now the problem with stimulus packages in general is that they take time before these type projects get rolling, as a result, the revenue doesn't get delivered into the economy with lightening expediency. This why it is imperative that Obama follow through on his plan to cut taxes on working class and middle Americans.
This morning, Obama began to spell out his plan in the immediacy, offering "five key parts" of his economic plan:
“When Congress reconvenes in January, I look forward to working with them to pass a plan immediately,” Obama says in the address. “We need to act with the urgency this moment demands to save or create at least two and a half million jobs so that the nearly two million Americans who’ve lost them know that they have a future. And that’s exactly what I intend to do as president of the United States.”
It's not a quick fix, and some of it may not work, but we have to try all ideas. Inaction will only breed depression, both emotionally and economically. The programs that don't work, we replace. Obama is not complacent. He's proactive rather than reactive. Calm in the storm so that clear minds prevail.
—ENERGY: “[W]e will launch a massive effort to make public buildings more energy-efficient. Our government now pays the highest energy bill in the world. We need to change that. We need to upgrade our federal buildings by replacing old heating systems and installing efficient light bulbs. That won’t just save you, the American taxpayer, billions of dollars each year. It will put people back to work.
—ROADS AND BRIDGES: “[W]e will create millions of jobs by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s. We’ll invest your precious tax dollars in new and smarter ways, and we’ll set a simple rule – use it or lose it. If a state doesn’t act quickly to invest in roads and bridges in their communities, they’ll lose the money.”
—SCHOOLS: “[M]y economic recovery plan will launch the most sweeping effort to modernize and upgrade school buildings that this country has ever seen. We will repair broken schools, make them energy-efficient, and put new computers in our classrooms. Because to help our children compete in a 21st century economy, we need to send them to 21st century schools.”
—BROADBAND: “As we renew our schools and highways, we’ll also renew our information superhighway. It is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption. Here, in the country that invented the Internet, every child should have the chance to get online, and they’ll get that chance when I’m president – because that’s how we’ll strengthen America’s competitiveness in the world.”
(Incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had talked about expanding broadband access, but this is the first time the transition has formally proposed it.)
—ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS: “In addition to connecting our libraries and schools to the Internet, we must also ensure that our hospitals are connected to each other through the Internet. That is why the economic recovery plan I’m proposing will help modernize our health care system – and that won’t just save jobs, it will save lives. We will make sure that every doctor’s office and hospital in this country is using cutting edge technology and electronic medical records so that we can cut red tape, prevent medical mistakes, and help save billions of dollars each year.”
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