(As Prepared for Delivery)
San Jose, CA
Thursday, June 24, 2004
Thank you. It’s great to be here in San Jose.
And I want to thank Lee Iacocca for that generous introduction and for his powerful endorsement of our plans to build a stronger America. Like FDR, he knows the test of leadership is not whether it’s Republican or Democratic, but whether it will move this country forward. I’m proud to have his counsel and his support. You know, there are few men more respected not just in corporate America, but in all of America, than Lee Iacocca.
He is living proof of the power of a great American idea — higher education that’s open to all. The son of working class immigrants, he delivered groceries so he could go to Lehigh and then went on to get a masters degree at Princeton. Education was the key to his future.
And he used that knowledge to become one of America’s most successful can-do leaders.
When he saw that cars were unaffordable for the average American, he tried the novel idea of asking folks to pay only $56 down, followed by monthly payments. Today that’s just business, but in the 1950s it was a breakthrough. One that led to the purchase of 75,000,000 more cars.
When he saw an oil crisis that was sending gas prices through the roof, he came up with the lightweight, front-wheel drive K-car that pulled Chrysler out of its seventies slump.
And when foreign automakers were out-competing Americans in the 1980s, Lee Iacocca sent profits soaring after he introduced a spacious, family vehicle that no other automaker wanted to take a chance on: the minivan.
This is a man who took over Chrysler when it was deep in the red, with poor management, outdated products, and sinking sales. And in just a few short years, he turned the company around, bringing record profits, new jobs, new leadership, and a revived reputation. Sounds a little bit like what we’re going to do come November, doesn’t it?
Lee Iacocca’s story is remarkable, but not unique. For the genius of the American people has always driven the story of American progress. We are a country of innovators and optimists. We’re the can-do people. Just when it seems we’ve reached a plateau or come across a problem too difficult to solve, there is someone, somewhere in America who asks "what if?" And a discovery is made that transforms our lives. Entire new industries emerge. Not just new jobs, but whole new professions are created. For yet another time, a new economy is born and America is stronger.
At the dawn of the 21st century, the possibilities are limitless. But they won’t just happen. We have to invest more in our people and their ideas. And America must lead, not follow, other countries in the great discoveries that bring greater prosperity.
Today Americans are concerned about jobs moving overseas. Nevertheless, we can’t build a wall between America and the world; indeed as we create new products, we want to send them and sell them to the rest of the world. But at the same time, there’s no reason in the world that American workers should be forced to use their hard earned money to reward a company that moves overseas. We can and must end the tax breaks that force American workers to subsidize the export of their own jobs. It doesn’t make sense. Above all, the best way to keep jobs in America is to invest in America — in the industries that are already generating high-wage jobs and helping us lead higher-quality lives.
So today, I’m going to lay out my plan to build an economy for our future. The focus is not just on the next election, but on the next generation. It’s a plan to let America be America again by tapping the ingenuity and innovation that are at the heart of our history and our character as a people.
Today, ideas and commerce move across the globe with greater ease than our grandparents traveled across town. We’ve gone from computers that won’t fit through your door to computers that fit in the palm of your hand — like the ones my staff play with when my speeches go to long. Information that once filled stacks of library shelves now barely uses up a microchip.
This technological revolution is the foundation of a 21st century economy. But it’s up to us to build on that foundation so that we can create and expand 21st century jobs. We won’t get very far with a government that wants to stifle or ignore the creativity and entrepreneurship that will produce the next big idea: we need to encourage it and invest in it.
We won’t get very far with a leadership that lets America fall to 10th in the world when it comes to adopting broadband Internet access. We need a leadership that says if Bangalore in India can be completely wired, then so should all of America.
And we won’t get very far with a government that starves science and technology and slashes future budgets for research. Imagine if folks thought it wasn’t important to fund the small project that led to the creation of the Internet? Imagine if they thought it wasn’t important to fund the DNA research that led to biotechnology breakthroughs that today and everyday save thousands of lives?
Luckily, we don’t have to imagine that kind of past. But now we have to choose a future: one where we fall behind because of neglect and hostility at the highest levels of leadership. Or one where America leads the world by ceaselessly investing in new ideas and the creativity of people working to make them real. To have the right kind of future, here specifically is what we have to do:
First, we can create a business environment that will strengthen the American economy and fuel high-tech job growth. We can do this by breaking down the barriers to investing in the most innovative firms. Many of today’s technology giants started out as a thought in a graduate student’s head and grew out of garages and basements where the spark of an idea ignited a new industry. Start-ups drive technology job creation. They usually have big ideas but small capital and a tough time finding someone to take a chance on them. Yet, over the past 30 years, the venture capital-backed startups have grown our economy and generated over 8 million American jobs.
We need to open the floodgates of entrepreneurship and venture capital by eliminating capital gains taxes for new, long-term investments in small businesses. The jobs of tomorrow depend on discoveries today — so we also need to extend the Research and Development tax credit. We should welcome broad-based stock ownership as a way to help companies grow and give their employees a stake in their success. And we need to cut the federal deficit in half and get Washington’s budget in order so small business owners can feel confident planning theirs.
Second, we need to seize the possibilities of the Broadband Revolution and make Internet access available to all of America’s families. We need to make sure we don’t settle for slipping to 10th place in the world when it comes to adapting Broadband. This means connecting every corner of our country to a network that’s up to 100 times faster than today’s. Installing this network can grow our economy by $500 billion and bring us 1,200,000 new, high-wage jobs.
To make it happen, we will offer tax incentives to extend broadband access to rural areas and inner-cities. We will expand the available spectrum to make more room for broadband wireless services and advanced WiMAX services. And after more and more households transfer to digital television, we will sell spectrum space to private companies and use the money to invest in science and technology and pay for every dime of the plan I am discussing today.
But expanding broadband access is about more than just making sure every American can call up their favorite website, like www.johnkerry.com. It’s about a little boy in Detroit or a little girl from rural Florida who can access the same research for their science project as a child from the wealthiest suburb in the country. It’s about a grandmother from the plains of Iowa who can’t walk too well but is able to order her groceries and her medicine online.
And it’s about providing our first responders with a secure, wireless network that will arm them with the best communications network so they can better protect America. I want to ensure that every first responder in the country has broadband by the end of 2006. I want them to be part of a wireless network that can detect the first whiff of danger from a chemical plant and instantaneously alert every official in the city. A network that will pinpoint the location of co-worker who’s trapped under rubble. A network that will allow hospitals to prepare for incoming patients by watching streaming video feeds live from the ambulance. For the safety and security of the American people, this is a network we need in every single city in America, and when I am President, that is a network we will build.
In the last century, across a continent that stretched from sea to shining sea, there were entire islands of darkness. The Rural Electric Administration changed that. Today, visionary national leadership can build a bridge across the digital divide and bring the promise of broadband technology to every home in America.
And as we work to expand the broadband breakthrough today, we need to invest in the breakthroughs of the next decade. That’s why the third part of my plan focuses on research that will feed the innovations and industries of the future.
Today, amazing discoveries are being made in America.
At New Mexico’s Sandia National Laboratories, a biosensor is being developed that will allow us to check cargo coming into our ports for deadly biological agents before the container is ever opened.
At Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University, researchers have developed a virtual algebra tutor that has helped inner-city kids in under-served schools raise their scores an entire letter grade.
And recently in rural Virginia, telemedicine allowed a cardiologist 75 miles from the hospital to view an ultrasound and diagnose a congenital heart defect that required immediate medication, saving a young child’s life.
Everywhere we turn, our country’s best and brightest are discovering new ways to improve the lives of their fellow Americans. Their passion is science; their cause is discovery; their gift to us is a stronger America. Some say we cannot afford to fund their curiosity. I say, "how can we afford not to?"
If I am President, we will invest more in areas of research that are likely to create the industries and jobs of the future -- areas like advanced manufacturing, clean energy, and nanotechnology that have the potential to improve lives and save them. And because we do not know where the next great breakthrough will come from, I will support the curiosity-driven, high-risk research that has given us such "accidental" discoveries as the MRI.
Finally, I will be a president for science who listens to the advice of scientists so I can make the best decisions. Their reports and evaluations will be open so that you can make informed decisions as well. This is your future and I will let science guide us, not ideology. And to encourage the scientists of tomorrow, we will work to improve our children’s math and science education and expand America’s science and engineering workforce.
It is time for an America stronger in science to lead the world in a 21st century age of discovery. This is an aspiration as new as the next innovation and as old as the American Constitution, which tells us that America is America when we "promote the progress of science and useful arts."
And for centuries, our Presidents have done just that. >From George Washington’s patent system to Franklin Roosevelt’s great national laboratories. Dwight Eisenhower expanded science education in our schools. John Kennedy set our sights on the moon while Bill Clinton helped lead us to a map of the entire human genome.
Abraham Lincoln, who opened the National Academy of Sciences, said that part of government’s mission is to add "the fuel of interest to the fire of genius in the discovery of new and useful things."
This nation is destined to think big and dream big. And it’s time America had a president who once again will look toward a future of discovery with hope and confidence.
Today, I’ve offered an economic agenda focused on high-tech, high-wage job growth. It is an optimistic agenda for prosperity. It recognizes that the promise of the Information Age was not a bubble; it is a breakthrough that will continue to lift our economy and our lives.
And if America is willing to provide the fuel, then the fires of genius will continue to light our way. We just need to believe in ourselves — and in opening up the paths of progress, America will be America again.
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