Press
PPI’s SOTU Memo to Obama: Ten Big Ideas to Get America Moving Again
01.21.2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JANUARY 21, 2011
PRESS CONTACT: Steven Chlapecka – schlapecka@ppionline.org, T: 202.525.3931
PPI’s SOTU Memo to Obama:
Ten Big Ideas to Get America Moving Again
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Progressive Policy Institute today released a “Memo to President Barack Obama” outlining 10 big ideas for sparking a national economic resurgence.
“PPI’s message is simple: it’s time to get America moving again,” reads the memo. “It’s time to champion big ideas that can move us past the partisan deadlock, and towards a more prosperous future.
“The President has a real opportunity to rise above partisan rancor and rally the country behind a bold plan for rebooting the economy,” said PPI President Will Marshall. “‘Getting America Moving Again’ offers a pragmatic alternative to the false economic choices posed by the left and the right. ”
Specifically, PPI urges the president to:
1. Create a Regulatory Improvement Commission to prune obsolete and ineffective regulations and stimulate economic innovation and entrepreneurship.
2. Seed a National Infrastructure Bank to tap private capital to rebuild America.
3. Establish a results-oriented Surface Transportation Trust Fund to provide $5 billion in targeted seed money for high-speed rail projects.
4. Start restoring fiscal discipline in Washington by trimming the $1.1 trillion in outdated tax expenditures, capping domestic spending (including defense), eliminating supplemental defense budgets, and slowing mandatory expenditures by reducing benefits for affluent retirees.
5. Set a target for a new balanced energy portfolio: one third renewables, one third nuclear, one third fossil fuels, achievable by 2040.
6. Start a Pentagon Energy Security Innovation Fund that helps small businesses develop the next generation of green energy products.
7. Radically transform public education by growing charter schools, ending teacher tenure as we know it, spurring a network of “Innovation Zones”, and creating a “Digital Teacher Corps”.
8. Provide One Million Homeowner Vouchers to kickstart the housing market and make homeownership a reality for low-income families.
9. Align Innovation and Immigration by providing a citizenship path for foreign students with advanced technical degrees and illegal immigrants’ children who are interested in national service.
10. Create a Fair Elections federal election financing system that allows candidates to match federal dollars to small contributions.
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For more information, please contact Steven Chlapecka at schlapecka@ppionline.org, 202.525.3931 (office), 202.556.1752 (cell).
