Third World America - Arianna Huffington [109]
4 America is rich with resources: Thomas Friedman, “Advice from Grandma,” 21 Nov. 2009, www.nytimes.com.
5 “You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps”: Frederick Lewis Schuman and George D. Brodsky, Design For Power: The Struggle For the World (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1942), 200.
6 Instead, we have to reconnect with: Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President on the ‘Education to Innovate’ Campaign,” 23 Nov. 2009, www.whitehouse.gov.
7 Among those working to make this happen: Fix Congress First!, www.fixcongressfirst.org.
8 “We must,” says Lessig: Lawrence Lessig, “Why I’m Calling for a Constitutional Amendment,” 27 Jan. 2010, www.fixcongressfirst.org.
9 As the Fix Congress First! founders put it: Fix Congress First!, www.fixcongressfirst.org.
10 In March 2010, on his seventy-first birthday: Ted Kaufman, “The Rule of Law and Wall Street,” 15 Mar. 2010, www.kaufman.senate.gov.
11 “Sunlight,” Justice Louis Brandeis famously said: Louis D. Brandeis, Other People’s Money—and How Bankers Use It (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1914), 92.
12 A great early iteration of this: John Brewer, “Sunlight on Health Care Summit,” 25 Feb. 2010, www.huffingtonpost.com.
13 He describes Government 2.0 as: Tim O’Reilly, “Gov 2.0: It’s All About the Platform,” 4 Sep. 2009, techcrunch.com.
14 Many of the most interesting experiments: Betsy Kraat, “Mayor Cory Booker Serves as Keynote Speaker for Social Media Conference,” 31 Mar. 2010, www.njand.com.
15 We are reminded on a daily basis: Tim O’ Reilly, “Gov 2.0: The Promise of Innovation,” 10 Aug. 2009, www.forbes.com.
16 Teacher effectiveness is the single most: William L. Sanders and June C. Rivers, “Cumulative and Residual Effects of Teachers on Future Student Academic Achievement,” University of Tennessee Value-Added Research and Assessment Center, Nov. 1996, www.mccsc.edu.
17 And cash-strapped states inevitably: Pauline Vu, “Do State Tests Make the Grade?” 17 Jan. 2008, www.stateline.org.
18 In January 2010, during his State of the Union: Barack Obama, State of the Union Address, 27 Jan. 2010, www.whitehouse.gov.
19 But we need to move beyond the lofty rhetoric: Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Alternative Measures of Labor Underutilization,” Table A-15, 7 May 2010, www.bls.gov.
20 Since August 2008, more than 150,000 state and local jobs: “How Not to Write a Jobs Bill,” 11 Feb. 2010, www.nytimes.com.
21 states’ combined budget gap for fiscal 2010: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “An Update on State Budget Cuts,” 19 Apr. 2010, www.cbpp.org.
22 which would, in turn, lead to the loss of another 900,000 jobs next year: Ibid.
23 This is why the Economic Policy Institute (EPI): Economic Policy Institute, “American Jobs Plan: A Five-Point Plan to Stem the U.S. Jobs Crisis,” Dec. 2009, www.epi.org.
24 “The federal government could provide jobs by …”: Paul Krugman, “The Jobs Imperative,” 29 Nov. 2009, www.nytimes.com.
25 In fact, the EPI estimates that one million jobs: Economic Policy Institute, “American Jobs Plan: A Five-Point Plan to Stem the U.S. Jobs Crisis,” Dec. 2009, www.epi.org.
26 This approach is also favored by Princeton’s Alan Blinder: Alan Blinder, “How Washington Can Create Jobs,” 15 Nov. 2009, www.wsj.com.
27 One way to finance the massive rebuilding: Josh Voorhees, “White House Budget Seeks $4B for Transportation Infrastructure Bank,” 1 Feb. 2010, www.nytimes.com.
28 Modeled after the European Investment Bank: “About the EIB,” European Investment Bank, www.eib.org.
29 An investment of $25 billion in government funds: Testimony of Rosa L. DeLauro on the National Infrastructure Development Bank Act, Ways and Means Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures, 13 May 2010, www.waysandmeans.house.gov.
30 That won’t cover the $2.2 trillion needed: American Society of Civil Engineers, 2009 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, www.infrastructurereportcard.org.
31 Washington needs to get its act together: United States Senate, 110th Cong., 1st Sess., S. 1926, introduced 1 Aug. 2007, www.gpo.gov.
32 To take just one example, as