One way to contribute is the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.  To donate, visit ClintonBushHaitiFund.org or text “QUAKE” to 20222 to charge a $10 donation that will be added to your cell phone bill.  To learn more about the situation in Haiti and what you can do to help, visit WhiteHouse.gov/HaitiEarthquake.

(source: whitehouse.gov)

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act invested heavily in education both as a way to provide jobs now and lay the foundation for long-term prosperity.

• The Act includes $5 billion for early learning programs, including Head Start, Early Head Start, child care, and programs for children with special needs.
• The Act also provides $77 billion for reforms to strengthen elementary and secondary education, including $48.6 billion to stabilize state education budgets (of which $8.8 billion may be used for other government services) and to encourage states to:
  • Make improvements in teacher effectiveness and ensure that all schools have highly-qualified teachers;
  • Make progress toward college and career-ready standards and rigorous assessments that will improve both teaching and learning;
  • Improve achievement in low-performing schools, through intensive support and effective interventions; and
  • Gather information to improve student learning, teacher performance, and college and career readiness through enhanced data systems.
• The Act provides $5 billion in competitive funds to spur innovation and chart ambitious reform to close the achievement gap.
• The Act includes over $30 billion to address college affordability and improve access to higher education.

Guiding Principles

Providing a high-quality education for all children is critical to America’s economic future. Our nation’s economic competitiveness and the path to the American Dream depend on providing every child with an education that will enable them to succeed in a global economy that is predicated on knowledge and innovation. President Obama is committed to providing every child access to a complete and competitive education, from cradle through career.

I know the idea of every child who enters a US school getting all “A”s and going on to get college degrees is absurd, but the problem is that America has become so satisfied with mediocrity that such an idea would be laughed at, when it SHOULD be praised. American test scores have fallen compared to other countries around the would and America hasn’t seemed to notice. A few of the US rankings compared to the other countries of the world are this;

• Ranked 14th overall for Science Scores,
• Ranked 18th for math scores
• Ranked 15th for reading scores
• Ranked 96th in Geographic aptitude test scores
• Ranked 21 in percentage of students who enrolled in secondary schools
• Ranked 39th in education spending (% of GDP)

Now ranking in the top 20 for (most) of the test cores isn’t really THAT bad, but America is a world leader in many aspects. If you where to look deeper into the rankings, you see several 2nd and 3rd world countries out ranking the US.

To solve the mystery of why our test scores are so low, you need to look at a few more of the statistics. What america DID excel in is this

The US ranked 5th in students who dislike school, and 2nd in students who thought school was boring (a total of 61%)

Its apparent that students today are unsatisfied with school, making them less interested in studies and homework. It is also apparent that we dont like spending much on our education system as well.

What we need:

We need to completely rethink our countries education program. We need schools to be like palaces, and the competition for the best teachers should be fierce. We need textbooks that where written yesterday, not decades ago to to fill our school’s shelves. We need every child to be able to go on to college regardless of their families income. We cant let a single student who has the desire to further their education, fall into the trap of the rat race and minimum wage jobs. We need students who do graduate from college to not have so much debt that they cant make ends meet.

If you look at many other countries, you’ll notice that many of them don’t give recess to elementary school students, they have much longer school years, or school years as long as ours, but with many shorter breaks as opposed to one big summer vacation. The idea of taking away such long breaks and eliminating recess sounds horrible, but a child develops most in their early years.

If we where to give elementary school students 30 minutes of recess a day, as opposed to an hour, that adds up to an extra 270 hours of schooling that each child would get throughout their elementary school career, giving them an amazing advantage. Many students start each school year, not remembering much of what they learned last year because of the long summer break they just had. If school was all year long, but we kept the same 180 days of school a year (giving them many shorter breaks as opposed to one big one), students would have more time to study and work on projects, and would have more time to retain what they learned, instead of forgetting it all over a summer long break full of video games and late nights.

Fact: The average American will drive 33.4 miles a day.

The Tesla roadster, has been known to drive up to 311 miles on a single charge, and can achieve a full charge in 3 1/2 hours. The misconception that driving an electric car will leave you stranded is a horrible one. You could commute for several days on a single charge, and spend pennies for an electric bill.

Not only has tesla been able to make their cars efficient, but they have also been able to make them attractive and, more importantly, POWERFUL. With a 0-60 time of 3.7 seconds, and a quarter mile time of 12.6 sec, the Roadster is anything but slow.

Thanks to Tesla’s innovations, and the government’s plan to support development of alternative fuel vehicles, many other companies have started to offer much higher quality electric cars, as well as alternative fuel vehicles.

Benefits of “going electric”:

• A $7,000 tax credit for consumers who buy early model plug-in vehicles.
• A fuel economy of $.01/mile
• An estimated annual cost of only $120.00 to power your car if you drive the average 12,000miles/yr.
• Cleaner Environment

But what about long road trips? The average american family is in possession of between 3 and 4 cars…take one of those. OR drive 250 miles, and take a 4 hours break and save yourself a HUGE bill.

He has made it clear, that after much amending and compromise with the republicans, this much is true about the reform;

• If you have health insurance through your employer and you like your plan, you can keep it.
• If you’re a small business owner, you’ll receive new tax credits that make it easier for you to provide coverage for employees if you choose to do so.
• If you have Medicare, the President’s plan guarantees that your benefits will not be cut, and the Medicare Trust Fund will be extended for more than 9 years.
• If you’re uninsured, you could receive a tax credit to help pay for coverage if needed — part of the largest middle class tax cut for health care in history.
• If you buy your own insurance, there will be new protections from insurance company abuses, and tax credits will make coverage more affordable.

The bill, also most importantly, guarantees that;

• You will never be denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions.
• You will never again be hit with arbitrary health insurance premium hikes.

The president also warns us, that if the bill does NOT pass, that the following will occour;

• Up to 17 million more people will be uninsured by 2019
• Insurers can continue their massive and arbitrary premium rate increases — such as Anthem Blue Cross raising rates for customers in California by nearly 40%, and rates in Illinois going up by as much as 60%.
• As many as 275,000 people could die prematurely over the next 10 years because they don’t have health insurance.
• The average family’s health care costs will nearly double by 2020, from $13,000 to $24,000.

This reform WILL NOT:

• Increase taxes dramatically… It has been estimated that this plan can be paid for almost entirely, by cutting costs and eliminating over spending within the current healthcare plan. It has also been estimated by congress that this plan will LOWER our countries deficit by up to $1trillion over the next two decades.
• Be free. This is NOT socialized medicine, as many believe. You will not be paying for somebody else’s healthcare, more then you already are.

Flier pdf files provided by the Obama Administration:

The President’s Proposal

The Cost of Inaction

What does Reform mean for you?

The Truth about Reform

Health Reform Poster

For more information, please visit www.whitehouse.gov

WASHINGTON — The Obama White House doesn’t “subscribe to the legitimacy” of the 100-day metric for presidential progress, but is mighty satisfied with the new president’s accomplishments.

“This isn’t Biblical,” a senior White House adviser said of the 100-day marker. “You don’t do 100 days and rest.”

Even so, this senior official, a long-time adviser to the president who spoke on the condition he not be quoted by name, said “you would be hard-pressed to find another administration that’s done so much in such a short period of time. It’s been a very productive 100 days.”

For most of the 45-minute session the White House adviser spent with a small group of reporters, the suggestion that Obama had been more productive than Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his first 100 days (the president whose scale of activity first generated 100-day assessments of subsequent presidencies) was left on the table. When asked if that was the proper interpretation, the adviser said Obama’s had been the most productive since FDR.

Here is the list of the accomplishments the White House actively touts, even as it disdains what it calls the “Hallmark Holiday” of the 100th day in office.

• Passing the “largest” economic stimulus bill in American history.
• Ordering the closing of Guantanamo Bay military detention facility and abolishing “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
• Setting a fixed timetable for withdrawing U.S. combat forces from Iraq.
• Ordering 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and enlisting, with modest new assistance, European allies in a new multi-layered strategy there and in Pakistan.
• “Returning science to its rightful place” by lifting the Bush restrictions on federally funded embryonic stem cell research.
• Signing laws to expand children’s health insurance (financed by a 61-cent per pack increase in the federal cigarette tax the adviser did not tout).
• Signing a law meant to improve the ability of women who allege pay discrimination to sue their employer.
• Diminishing the role of lobbyists in the White House
• “Forge a meaningful statement from the United Nations” criticizing North Korea’s launch of a ballistic missile.
• Lifting travel and remittance restrictions for Cuban Americans who seek to travel more frequently to the island and send more US currency to their immediate family.
• Engaging world leaders in Europe, Turkey, Latin American and the Caribbean with “strength and humility.”

“And this is just the beginning,” the adviser beamed. “The president is governing consistent with the way he campaigned as a candidate.”

And this adviser was well-equipped to describe, in lush and laudatory detail, how the president has adapted to the rigors of the job.

“He’s slipped into that chair (in the Oval Office), you know, as if he’s been there all his life,” the adviser said.

“It’s been kind of eerie. He’s a real ballast for everyone. I’ve been struck by the fluency with which he moves from one issue to another. I remember one day he was briefed on the North Korea missile launch situation, then there was a meeting on GM and Chrysler, then a briefing on the Afghanistan policy, and there was another meeting on GM and Chrysler. And then (White House Chief of Staff) Rahm Emanuel came into my office and said Fargo (North Dakota) was under water and, at that point, it became a West Wing (former NBC TV show) episode.”

The adviser said nothing has slowed the president down or dimmed his confidence. The roughest spot, not expectedly, was calling “a military family who has lost a loved one.”

In the main, this adviser said, he couldn’t be more proud of what’s transpired — even if day 100 is, as he said, no more or less important than day 97.

“It’s really been thrilling to watch him embrace this role as he has.”

By Major Garrett

– FOXNews.com