Barack Obama's Message to America

While I cannot get the channel that played this tonight (it's American and doesn't come in for me), I did watch the video on Youtube.

Here is a run-down of his policies (editorializing is my own, everything else is directly quoted):

He begins by mentioning the current economic crisis that is a result of the past 8 years' failed economic policies. Immediately he promises to restore the wealth of US economy and its middle class.

Obama's rescue plan for middle class:

• cut taxes for families making LESS than $200k
• tax credit for hiring new employees in the US
• eliminate tax breaks for companies shipping jobs overseas
• freeze foreclosures for 90 days
• low-cost loans for small businesses

What laws he has in mind, I do not know, but he feels that companies should be held legally accountable for promises made to their employees. If a company spends its employees' retirement funds and then files bankruptcy, leaving those workers without their retirement -- that company should have to pay! (YES!)

Health care reform

• improve information technology to improve the healthcare that is provided
• required coverage for preventive care and pre-existing conditions (most insurance companies will exclude coverage for pre-existing conditions with some outrageous exception like the second Tuesday of the third week of the 15th month of the year.)
• lower health care costs for families by $2,500/year (my own insurance cost just about that much out of my own pay, my employer chipped in the other half. However, many employers do not offer health care coverage so those employees have to pay the FULL amount. I have been unable to find a policy that would cost me as an independent buyer what my employer-sponsored plan cost both my employer and myself.)
  

Obama's Plan for Energy Independence

• will invest $15billion/year in energy efficiency & renewables --- wind, solar, and bio-fuels --- this will create 5 million clean energy jobs over the next 10 years
• help auto companies retool for fuel efficient cars
• tax credit to help people afford fuel efficient cars
• tap the US' natural gas reserves to further reduce dependence on foreign oil (yet mcCain says all we need to do is dig more oil wells)
• expand domestic oil production
• call on all Americans to conserve in a new era of responsibility
• invest in clean coal technology

Federal Spending

• Plans to cut government spending beyond expenditures
• Promises to go through the federal budget, line-by-line, eliminating programs that do not work & make the ones we do need work better & cost less

Obama's Plan for Education Reform
Opening his plan with the statement that we have a moral obligation to provide EVERY CHILD a world-class education, he lists these plans:

• Invest in early childhood education
• Recruit new teachers and pay them higher salaries (new teacher salaries are at or below the national poverty level)
• Demand higher standards & more accountability
• Tax credit to cover tuition @ public colleges/universities in exchange for serving their communities or their country

Obama's plans to Defend our Liberty

• Change policy in Iraq (currently spending $10b /month in Iraq) yet Iraq has a $79b surplus
• Rebuild the military
• Renew tough direct diplomacy to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons
• Curb Russian aggression
• Refocus efforts on finishing the fight against Al Qaeda & the Taliban in Afghanistan

If you'd like to watch the video yourself, here it is:


I am simply so impressed by Barack Obama. He is insightful, incredibly intelligent, unafraid to think and act "outside of the box." He is decisive and optimistic. He's honest. He plainly states again and again that we are not going to get out of this economic crisis overnight. Warren Buffett approves Obama's economic plan. I think that he is the hope for tomorrow.