The "Blueprint 2...The Gift and the..." -- Eric

Oh, that's that Jay-Z album...

My, my, my, where do we begin? Well, you gotta start somewhere, so let's start at the top:

Google for Government
Americans have the right to know how their tax dollars are spent, but that information has been hidden from public view for too long. That’s why Barack Obama and Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) passed a law to create a Google-like search engine to allow regular people to track federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and loans online. The Chicago Sun-Times wrote, “It would enable the public to see where federal money goes
and how it is spent. It’s a brilliant idea.”

I think the focus here would be a "portal" of sorts. You know, most people's (not mine of course) first voyage onto the big, expansive Internet was through a well known portal. That portal was AOL.

What this portal basically did was make it easier to find the information you were seeking, hand you your email, give you some stock tickers, and lots of smiley faces. Could you have survived on the net without it? Sure, but AOL made surfing the net an experience, and for a long time, they were very successful. As users became more savvy, they weened themselves off AOL.

Sure, as Tony has correctly stated, you CAN find all of this information, strewn all over the Internet, in various locations. Sometimes, it's uploaded to multiple locations all at the same time. Is it such a silly idea to have a http://portal.fedtaxdollars.gov (this link does not work by the way)? Yeah, Tony's right, all of you data-miners out there probably couldn't appreciate a portal! Such a waste...

Shine Light on Washington Lobbying:
Centralize Ethics and Lobbying Information for Voters: Obama will create a centralized Internet database of lobbying reports, ethics records, and campaign finance filings in a searchable, sortable and downloadable format.

Hold 21st Century Fireside Chats: Obama will bring democracy and policy directly to the people by requiring his Cabinet officials to have periodic national broadband town hall meetings to discuss issues before their agencies. Make White House Communications Public: Obama will amend executive orders to ensure that communications about regulatory policymaking between persons outside government and all White House staff are disclosed to the public.

I'll have to download "The Blueprint" myself, as I missed the part where Tony references having a town hall style meeting with "all of America". Anyway, my thoughts on this is that it is technically possible. It could be accomplished by randomly selecting people, that have previously registered to be a part of the online town hall meeting. This would mean that not "all of America" would get to log on, but only a selected few, geographically dispersed, of course (to cover the national broadband part). The recorded video presentation could then be made available for download much like a podcast, or any other type of downloadable .mp3 file is now.

As far as consulting untrained, uneducated, unprofessional Americans on American issues, screw that noise! Why should government have to listen to us, or take into consideration issues that affect us on a daily basis? I agree with Tony, that's just a crap idea!

*NOTE* The previous paragraph was intended to be sarcastic

Shine the Light on Federal Contracts, Tax Breaks and Earmarks
Create a Public “Contracts and Influence” Database: As president, Obama will create a “contracts and influence” database that will disclose how much federal contractors spend on lobbying, and what contracts they are getting and how well they complete them.
Expose Special Interest Tax Breaks to Public Scrutiny: Barack Obama will ensure that any tax breaks for corporate recipients – or tax earmarks – are also publicly available on the Internet in an easily searchable format.

End Abuse of No-Bid Contracts: Barack Obama will end abuse of no-bid contracts by requiring that nearly all contract orders over $25,000 be competitively awarded.

On the issue of government contractor relationships, I agree with Mr. Notwell 100%. He is dead on target with this one (or, maybe I'm a bit biased because I'm a small business owner, and I bid on government contracts myself...not sure yet).

I also agree that no bid contracts are key to the startup, and often times survival of small government contractors like myself. I mean, you have to see an RFP or RFQ to understand the magnitude of it all. To go after the big contracts, you'd better have a proposal writer on staff, and even then, they're charging between $5,000 to $12,000 to work on one bid. So yes, this would be a bad idea. My take on this is that you should not be able to hold a no bid contract for more than 3 years, or some other short term.

I don't have enough information about all the services that Halliburton provided to argue this one intelligently. I can say that working in a region, where the industry is government, there are only a few major players at the top. You'll always have Northrop Grumman, SAIC, Lockheed Martin, CACI, General Dynamics, and a few other I have yet to work for. For now, I'll let Tony keep his point.

Lower Costs by Modernizing the U.S. Health Care System
(1) Reducing Costs of Catastrophic Illnesses for Employers and Their Employees. Catastrophic health expenditures account for a high percentage of medical expenses for private insurers. The Obama plan would reimburse employer health plans for a portion of the catastrophic costs they incur above a threshold if they guarantee such savings are used to reduce the cost of workers’ premiums.

Admittedly, even for me, this is a little hard to read. The way I read it, sounds like we're talking about safer work sites and zones. In my mind, it means to give money back to business, who can guarantee they've improved the safety of their work sites. I know, I know, big government trying to look out for the little guy. Who needs OSHA? Why should the government encourage businesses, like say, mining companies, to ensure that the safety of the mines. It's all about "personal responsibility" baby. You knew mining is a dangerous job when you singed up, right?

And (I know you shouldn't start a sentence with "and", but...) why reward those companies that do make those improvements? The "why" is because it costs a lot more, insurance wise, to provide care for someone with a catastrophic illness, than it does for you to get treated for pink eye.

(3) Lowering Costs Through Investment in Electronic Health Information Technology Systems: Most medical records are still stored on paper, which makes it hard to coordinate care, measure quality or reduce medical errors and which costs twice as much as electronic claims. Obama will invest $10 billion a year over the next five years to move the U.S. health care system to broad adoption of standards-based electronic health information systems, including electronic health records, and will phase in requirements for full implementation

Again, I think we're too harsh on this idea. Why is it a far fetched idea to think that information could be formatted, standardized, and made more easily distributable. Wait, are we talking about protocols like say, HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) or XML (Extensible Markup Language) or EDI (Electronic Data Interchange)? I'll let you Google those, and get back to me later.

Now, if I didn't personally work on a government initiative to do just this, I would agree with Tony, and say "RUBBISH!!!" However, this conversion is going on right now, between a lot of government agencies. Here, read more:

http://www.opm.gov/egov/e-gov/EHRI/

Wages are Stagnant as Prices Rise
While wages remain flat, the costs of basic necessities are increasing. The cost of in-state college tuition has grown 35 percent over the past five years. Health care costs have risen four times faster than wages over the past six years. And the personal savings rate is now the lowest it’s been since the Great Depression.

I agree with Tony on the college tuition, but I disagree on tying this to talking points on tax increases on businesses. It's one of those things, where you want to talk about a guys Mom, but you include him in on the joke to take the edge off. Basically, somebody was reaching on their response on this one!

Tax Cuts for Wealthy Instead of Middle Class
The Bush tax cuts give those who earn over $1 million dollars a tax cut nearly 160 times greater than that received by middle-income Americans. At the same time, this administration has refused to tackle health care, education and housing in a manner that benefits the middle class.

Agree with Tony...let's move on shall we? (again...I am a business owner...but I'm not, myself, rich) The Bush tax cuts were a good idea. He just had bad timing when "he" decided to start the Iraq war. It's like getting married, buying a dog, having a baby, and buying a house all at the same time. You've got to prioritize!

Provide Middle Class Americans Tax Relief
Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families: Obama will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they need. Obama will create a new “Making Work Pay” tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family. The “Making Work Pay” tax credit will completely eliminate income taxes for 10 million Americans.

Simplify Tax Filings for Middle Class Americans: Obama will dramatically simplify tax filings so that millions of Americans will be able to do their taxes in less than five minutes. Obama will ensure that the IRS uses the information it already gets from banks and employers to give taxpayers the option of pre-filled tax forms to verify, sign and return. Experts estimate that the Obama proposal will save Americans up to 200 million total hours of work and aggravation and up to $2 billion in tax preparer fees.

OK, I'll have to bail on these two talking points as well. I mean, you have to do your taxes. Good Doctor, Lawyer, and Account are necessities. However, I've heard him say that this is for people who don't itemize.

Oh, and thanks for the shout out there Tony, as I've worked on the security of many banks! You're alright!

On the other hand, businesses file taxes quarterly...nah...can't argue it. It's not a great idea.

Technology, Innovation and Creating Jobs
Support Job Creation: Barack Obama believes we need to double federal funding for basic research and make the research and development tax credit permanent to help create high-paying, secure jobs. Obama will also make long-term investments in education, training, and workforce development so that Americans can leverage our strengths – our ingenuity and entrepreneurialism – to create new high-wage jobs and pros

I'm in for this one. This will be funded, directly, from the increased taxes on businesses. This is not a bad move at all. This is more than idealistic talk.

Address Predatory Credit Card Practices and Reform Bankruptcy Laws
Create a Credit Card Rating System to Improve Disclosure: Obama will create a credit card rating system, modeled on five-star systems used for other consumer products, to provide consumers an easily identifiable ranking of credit cards, based on the card’s features. Credit card companies will be required to display the rating on all application and contract materials, enabling consumers to quickly understand all of the major.....

Boy, I've been typing for a long time now... Anyway, this is not for those of us that are financially educated. This is for those Americans, who are constantly targeted, who may live in low income areas. Something like this, I don't know how you argue against. I don't see how this is a bad idea. This goal may seem frivolous, but even more so than that, I see the argument against it as frivolous.

I wish there was a site like this when I was in college, and signed up for that disc*ver card, or that H*BC card, to know that if I missed a single payment, my interest rate will go up 30%. I know, I should've taken responsibility, and pulled out that big magnifying glass, and read all that fine print. Actually, I did see the fine print, but I got lost in it after the second paragraphs. It may as well have been the constitution on there.

So you see "my friends", a lot of this plan is not unrealistic. A lot of it is doable, and given the build out of some necessary infrastructure (call me if you need an infrastructure architect), is very doable in a year or two.

I'm serious, the man has serious vision. Even if they are not always going to pan out, the vision and innovative ideas inspire me. Who would've ever thought we'd be walking around with 10,000 songs in our pockets? Wow, when was the last time you saw someone at the gym, with an actual portable CD player, with 45 second skip protection? I digress...

The point I'm making here is this is a vision of the future. A lot of these ideas, we have nothing to compare to today. However, we can look at the vision, and say, "...you know what, with a little glue here, and some duct tape there, we can make this work!" Or we can say, "...screw you guys, I'm going home" like the fat kid on South Park. Or, this sounds crazy, don't vote for this crazy guy, with his crazy idealistic talk. I'm just saying, yeah Obama's blueprint is not ALL right, but it's NOT MOSTLY wrong either.

I know where I grew up. I know how I grew up. I know people who don't understand money. I know people who don't have health care. I know people who have never thought about college because they don't know how to go and find out how to pay for it. I know people who've worked in an environment that may not have been the safest, and now they are on medical disability as a result of their injuries, and they're in jeopardy of losing their homes. I know people who are ashamed when they find out I'm a computer guy, and they don't know how to even turn one on. I know Tony...

...now, if I could only figure out how to duplicate this fancy formatting Tony did...artsie, fartsie, #*&^%!!!