Dear Air American:

In early 2007, John Podesta and I began putting together a
comprehensive agency-by-agency transition project by scores of leading
progressive advocates and experts for whoever became the 44th
president. This was based on our assumption that we'd actually _have_
a new president interested in such a book

The rest, as they say, is history. Barack Obama chose John to be the
head of his official Transition last summer and then his Center for
American Progress Action finished the volume with me; we're publishing _Change
for America this week; and of course next week a sympathetic 44th president will
be sworn in.

We hope that you'll take a look at the post below that summarizes and
synthesizes the project into a list of “10 Big Goals” for
the new president and also consider getting a copy of the 650-page book
.
Thanks so much for listening to Air America
and for being part of the new "Progressive Patriotism."

Mark Green
President
Air America Media

*10 Big Goals for Obama's First 1460 Days*

Based on his 2008 campaign and 2009 exigencies, President Obama's
mandate includes two huge and imminent priorities -- an unprecedented
"stimulus" to revive the economy and a plan that gets us out of Iraq.

And then?

Eighteen months ago, John Podesta, head of the Center for American
Progress Action Fund, and I agreed to collaborate on a volume that
gathered together the best progressive scholars, advocates, and
experts to specifically describe agency-by-agency what a progressive
44th president could do on Day One, Year One, Term One. Then, of
course, John had to recuse himself in August after he was tapped to
run Obama's official transition -- and this month CAPAF and my New
Democracy published the results -- progressive leaders pooling their
best ideas and practices into a program we call: "Progressive
Patriotism."

As Obama prepares to take his oath, expectations are sky-high. Rightly
so. The planets appear to be in alignment for a possible political
realignment: Obama won by triple Bush's last margin; conservative
stock is at Lehman Bros. levels, after a preventive war of choice, a
deregulated economic meltdown and the conservative compassion of
Katrina; Democrats now enjoy a 10 percentage point edge in voter
registration, which is likely to grow given minority, youth and
suburban professional trends; Democrats appear more united than
anytime in recent memory, with no obvious DLC-Moveon fights over wars
or deficits; and there's an authentic crisis that trumps pious
platitudes about the free market and "family values."

Now, rather than stale left-right debates, there's a new mainstream
for more progressive values, as surely represented by the shift of 13
U.S. Senate seats and 54 House seats over two congressional elections.
This may not be 1932 but it's a bigger attitudinal shift than the one
in 1980 to Reagan and "Reagan Democrats," when National Review
publisher Bill Rusher prematurely gloated that "liberalism is dead."

Anticipating this shift, our Citizens Transition Project developed
scores of workable solutions built on four cornerstones: more
democracy, diplomacy, economic opportunity and green collar jobs.
Since ad hoc policy-making can peter out unless the public sees
changes being thematically interconnected -- like the "New Deal" -- we
linked proposals to these core values of Progressive Patriotism.

Especially after what Jared Bernstein called the failure of Yo-Yo
Conservatism ("You're on Your Own"), what could be more pro-American
than the idea of progress?

Hence these 10 Big Goals by 2012 or 2016. For if you don't know where
you're headed, you'll never get there.

Some stipulations: given space constraints, ideas are merely asserted
-- for more development, one can go to the chapters by the authors
themselves in _Change for America_

If proposals sound familiar, it's perhaps because a) they've been
rising for years and become a consensus agenda, and b) so many of the
authors have been recruited into the Transition and/or new
Administration (Podesta, Carol Browner, Greg Craig, Elena Kagan, Dawn
Johnsen, Josh Steiner, Van Jones, Jack Lew, Jeanne Lambrew,
Christopher Edley, Jr....).

Nor do we think it useful for Democrats to fret whether it would be
better for the new President to be more incremental than bold. One
reply is-- the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Frankly,
where's the political will or majority now to stop an Obama
initiative? And where is it written this moment will last? The only
two other progressive windows of opportunity this past century-- 1933
and 1965 -- ended, respectively, with the continuing Depression and
WWII, and Watts and the Vietnam War. Going slow risks some
unanticipated event that'll snuff out the current rational
exuberance. Combining Obama's 65% popularity, congressional
majorities, a supportive public, a winning program -- as well as
crisis demanding that Washington rise to the occasion -- why not throw
long? Again and again?

President Obama should be guided by the well known ethic, "Make no
small plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood." Often wrongly
attributed to Winston Churchill, this observation originated with
Daniel Hudson Burnham, the noted Chicago architect who designed the
1893 World Exposition and before that helped rebuild the Windy City
after its disastrous 1871 fire. So history repeats itself, as another
Chicagoan makes big plans to rebuild after Bush's consuming disasters.

*1. Reduce poverty a third by 2016.* With poverty increasing by five
million in the Bush years - and with only Great Britain having less
upward income mobility than the U.S - the country needs to reduce the
37 million indigent (nearly equal to the State of California) by a
third by 2016.

So the 44th president should strive to: increase the bi-partisan
Earned Income Tax Credit; raise and index the minimum wage and move
toward a "living wage"; better link inner-city residents to good jobs
in the regional economy; create a national program to help
ex-offenders successfully integrate into society; seek a temporary
increase in food stamp benefits as part of any stimulus package (since
$1 in benefits generates $1.84 in economic activity); make a national
commitment to pre-K for all as part of an overall system of
developmental care for children; establish a national version of the
very successful Harlem Children's Zone, an after-school program that
stays with children through their education; and make a renewed effort
at bi-partisan, comprehensive immigration reform so one in 20
undocumented workers get out of the shadows by paying taxes and fines
and learning English on the path to citizenship.

2. Enhance Democracy to stop special interest vetoes.* Pro-democracy
reforms often take a back seat - in campaigns and governance - to
bread-and-butter, life-and-death issues such as economy, war and
health. But process is policy, especially if a flawed democracy allows
big commercial interests in the legislative and administrative arenas
to stymie change.

So the new administration should push for: universal voter regulation
(adding up to 50 million to the rolls); matching public funding of
congressional elections; protective measures for electronic voting;
criminalization of voter suppression techniques; national standards in
a Fair Elections Now Act; instant run-off voting; a requirement that
all agencies catalogue and post all information in a timely and
feasible way; a comprehensive national broadband strategy so all
Americans have access to an affordable network of at least 100
megabits per second; national standards to give state redistricting
responsibilities to a neutral body - and ideally establish a
"Democracy Czar" within the White House to make sure that all such
often-ignored reforms are this time advanced and enacted.

3. Get economic growth rates back to at least 3% of the Kennedy and
Clinton years. *The world now understands how Bush's tax cutting,
deregulation, laissez faire approach has led to slow growth, no growth
or near economic collapse. From Enron to e Coli Bacteria to imported
Chinese toys and drugs to the subprime mortgage crisis, it turns out
that laissez wasn't fair.

So even beyond the consensus for a super-sized "stimulus" plan, the
new president should do everything feasible to bolster the squeezed
middle-class and those seeking to enter it by: pushing for tax reform
that increases top rates back to 38 percent while reducing rates on
families suffering real income losses this decade; proposing an
Innovation Agenda involving Research Fellowships and employment-based
permanent immigration visas; including enforceable labor and trade
standards in all future trade agreements; experimenting with wage-loss
insurance; developing a long-term national surface transportation
policy emphasizing light-rail and a national infrastructure bank;
expanding one-stop job centers especially given rapidly rising
unemployment as places to both obtain training and get placement in
available positions; creating a 90 day moratorium on home
foreclosures; and restoring enforcement of securities, anti-merger and
labor laws at the SEC, Justice Department and Labor Department.

4. Move to a clean, green low-carbon economy.* With a scientific
unanimity that an increase of even 2? C above pre-industrial
levels would be a global disaster, it's surely inadequate for a
country with 3 percent of human oil reserves using 25 percent of all
energy to focus on drilling and production. Yet while man-made global
warming was burning the planet in the past eight years, two oil men in
the White House simply fiddled away.

So the new president will be creating a new White House National
Energy Council that directs his energy/environment agencies (EPA, DOE,
DOT, DOA, DOI) to develop a comprehensive energy plan that a) replaces
carbon-based energy with clean, renewable energy and b) promotes
policies for millions of green collar jobs. Consistent with that
effort, the 44th president should: alter the government's procurement
process by giving "energy points" to contract bidders who demonstrate
more efficiency and utilize more renewable energy; establish a
national Clean Energy Corps to help cities and neglected rural
communities retrofit and weatherize homes, business, school houses and
public buildings; require the EPA to promote "total appliance
efficiency"; increase auto fuel efficiency standards to European
levels of 43 mpg by 2020; pursue a joint R&D project with China to
develop new carbon capture-and-storage technologies for coal-fired
plants; and prepare legislation to create a carbon cap-and-trade bill
reducing fossil fuel use and generating $100 billion+ to mitigate
negative effects on low-income consumers.

*5. Reduce the costs - and expand the coverage - of health care. *Over
70 million Americans are either uninsured or under-insured, leading to
more illness, death and overtaxed emergency rooms. We have both the
most expensive and least effective health care system in the
industrialized world.

So the new administration should: expand coverage of S-CHIP (State
Children's Health Insurance Program) to cover all children in need;
create a Prevention & Wellness Trust Fund to provide more preventative
services for long term cost savings; order the FDA to focus on and
reduce obesity and tobacco use by adolescents; invest in health care
information technology to avoid medical errors and better spread
effective research; investigate the causes of racial disparities in
health care and mandate that HHS reduce them; provide better long-term
care through assisted living technology to allow home monitoring, as
well as more community health workers and home health aides; require
the Surgeon General to issue annually a publicly understandable report
on the nation's health; and eventually move to a universal healthcare
system that's citizen-based, not job-based.

6. Elevate science over politics in federal decision-making. *While
most presidents will weigh facts which lead to conclusions, Bush
deployed the reverse methodology of "Lysenkoism" - conclusions led to
"facts." Repeatedly, political appointees from affected industries
ignored data because of partisan or religious concerns, especially in
the area of climate change.

So the new administration should: issue an executive order to permit
federal funding for embryonic stem cell research on all ethically
derived stem cell lines; re-establish the White House Office of
Science and Technology; make the Research and Development tax credit
permanent; and appoint only qualified experts, not industry cronies,
to science-related positions.

7. Restore the rule of law and human rights as American values.
Constitutional scholar David Cole, challenging friends to name
constitutional rights that Bush-Cheney didn't try to sabotage,
concluded, "After the right to bear arms and not quarter soldiers, the
game will be over." Apparently, when W swore to "faithfully execute
the laws," he took it literally.

So a new president - who's a constitutional law professor to boot -
should: pay a "decent respect for the opinions of mankind" (Jefferson)
by closing the prison camp at Guantánamo and assigning to
federal civilian courts the task of trying terrorist suspects;
unequivocally ban the use of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment by any U.S. official or contractor; greatly restrict
presidential "Signing Statements" to obviously unconstitutional
provisions; renounce the blatant politicization of the Justice
Department as occurred during Gonzalez's tenure, appoint judges based
on merit, not only ideology; repeal the "Global Gag Rule" which
prohibits Non- Governmental Organizations that receive federal funding
from promoting or performing abortions in other countries; end the
"don't-ask-don't tell" policy for military services and ban
discrimination in the workplace due to sexual orientation; and create
either a congressional or presidential independent, bi-partisan
commission to investigate and expose alleged illegality over the past
eight years in order to deter future misconduct--a government that
can't impeach or prosecute such illegality for political reasons needs
to find some way to deter such corruption.

*8. Educate children better for the global economy. *In an
increasingly global economy based on information - and with production
techniques duplicatable anywhere - education is the new gold. Unless
our children are better educated and more innovative, they and we will
lose out in a world of open trade.

So the new administration should: push expanded learning time for all
students especially in low-performing and high-poverty school; expand
Early Head Start because of the proven success of high-quality
pre-school for all; invest particularly in middle schools with high
concentrations of low-income students who, in a sense, start dropping
out of college in the 7th grade; enact a college tuition tax credit so
that middle-class families can write off up to $4,000 per child;
create a federal "Grow What Works" fund to identify and document the
best practices to be shared; pay more to teachers who assume added
responsibilities or work in challenging schools or in a shortage
subjects; and create a program that focuses on teacher recruitment,
and preparation and professional development since the difference
between a good and a bad teacher can be the equivalent of a full year
of school.

9. Fight terrorism by working more cooperatively with allies. *Terrorism
by non-state actors is a palpable threat to American interests that
cannot be diminished merely by invading countries or overreacting with
apocalyptic, belligerent language. Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups
have grown since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.

A new president should utilize the patient deployment of all
instruments of national power, emphasizing intelligence, information
operations and covert action. Specifically, the U.S. should: repeal
the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war and exit Iraq as quickly and as
safely as possible; undermine al Qaeda recruitment by developing a
counter-narrative for at-risk Muslim youth that impugns its reputation
and enhances ours; schedule a major address on terrorism by the new
President in a Muslim country; focus on regional diplomacy in the
Middle East by engaging other states (Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt) in
a conference to coordinate post-war Iraq policy; cooperate better with
other intelligence agencies to treat terrorism as in part a police
matter; and create a process of engagement between the U.S. and Iran
both to discuss common interests and warn Teheran of the consequences
of supporting terrorism and a nuclear weapons program.

10. Reduce nuclear proliferation.* Because the greatest threat to
America - economic threat and national security threat - is the
detonation of a nuclear device in a major American city, a top
priority for President Obama is to reduce that risk and to announce
the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.

So he specifically should: push to develop technologies allowing all
air and sea cargo to be inspected by 2012; compile an inventory of all
nuclear weapons and materials on earth to determine the best strategy
of securing them from terrorist acquisitions; consider unilaterally
announcing plans to reduce U.S. forces to 1000 weapons and extending
the warning time for the launch of U.S. ballistic missiles, urging
Russia to do the same; implement the agreement to end the North Korean
nuclear program; prevent the lapse of the U.S. Russian Strategic Arms
Reduction Treaty, or START; and maintain the interlocking network of
treaties, export controls and security pacts to discourage 183
non-nuclear states from starting a cycle of nuclear weapons
competition.

These 10 are top goals now and benchmarks for 2012 or 2016 to measure
the success of the new administration.

For America is on the brink of a possible new progressive era due to
Obama's big win, big skills, a big crisis, the big popularity of
reforms like expanded health care, pre-school programs and
green-collar jobs, and a big agenda that's "shovel-ready." But there's
one more element necessary for a real realignment to occur: citizens
and citizen action.

January 20 is not only about one man who'll alone save us from
conservative clutches -- or as one cheeky satirical website puts it,
"I thoughtObamawouldgetmelaid.com
(admission: this is my
adult son's website). No president can go much farther than his
constituency wants. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin put it well in _The
American Prospect_: "When you look at the periods of social change, in
each instance the president used leadership not only to get the public
involved in understanding what the problems were but to create a
fervent desire to address these problems in a meaningful way." Recall
here the oft-told story how Labor Secretary Francis Perkins was urging
a sympathetic FDR to adopt labor reforms, and the politician- in-chief
replied -- fine, now make me do it.

Fortunately, the decline of conservatism and advent of Barack Obama is
occurring at the same time that there's a new on-line technology
capable of harnessing citizen energy nearly cost-free to pressure for
a program of Progressive Patriotism, much as the internet, social
networks, and ardent bloggers helped lift Obama into office.

Then, if he and his base can credibly claim success by 2012 or 2016
in, say, 7 or more of these 10 goals -- especially health care and
democracy -- President Obama will be regarded as a 21st Century FDR
and credited with inspiring an era of positive progressive governance.