Taking the Measure

The Inaugural Address is hardly the place to for a new President to lay out a detailed business, economic, and technology plan, but it’s gratifying to see that Obama alluded to the need for innovation and affirmed our ability to do what’s necessary.

My favorite passages, from that perspective:

• “Homes have been lost, jobs shed, businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly, our schools fail too many, and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

• “…it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things—some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor—who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

• “Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished.

• “The state of the economy calls for action—bold and swift—and we will act, not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids, and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.

• “We will restore science to its rightful place and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost.

• “We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.

• “And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.

• “Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control—and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity—on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart, not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

• “With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat and roll back the specter of a warming planet."

You can find details on “The President's American Recovery And Reinvestment Plan” here. Read his agenda on energy and the environment here. And read his technology agenda here.