Issue Position: Building a 21st Century Economy

Issue Position

Since its foundation, our country has been built on a desire to leave more for the next generation. Our parents, and their parents before them, poured their hearts into inventing, producing, and building in a collective effort to create opportunities for their children and grandchildren.

Those generations were fulfilling and protecting the promise of America, the promise that -- with hard work -- anyone can make a better life for his or her family.

But now, that promise is in jeopardy. We have lost a decade during which the American Dream drifted out of reach for millions of American families. In the last 10 years, we have had no new net job gains. Middle class family income declined while health care costs soared 97%, and college tuition spiked 50%. To fill the void, Colorado families went into debt, which is why over the last 10 years household debt has increased 77% in the U.S.

And despite the threat to the American Dream, we have consistently failed to put politics aside and make the tough choices we need to make to put our country back on the road toward prosperity. Our national debt has ballooned to the point that standard economic growth alone will not generate the revenue we need to allow us to escape from the current fiscal trap. And we have very little of value to show from all that spending. Our education system is going in the wrong direction, we have continued to support a failed energy policy that is making us more and more dependent on foreign oil, and we are falling behind the rest of the developed world in renewable energy job creation.

Now is the time to focus on how we move forward, how we can emerge from this economic crisis stronger and more secure, and how we can ensure that our children do not bear the weight of our reluctance to make tough choices.

I have no doubt that we can and that we will emerge stronger, but only if we adapt to meet a changing world. Our economic recovery depends on our ability to stop looking backwards at the old ways of doing business and start looking at what it will take to make American business competitive in a 21st Century economy that will be built on entrepreneurship, innovation and education.

In Colorado, we are uniquely positioned to take advantage of the next wave of job growth in the 21st Century. In the next decade, the vast majority of new jobs will be in renewable energy, biotechology, and the scientific and technical sectors. Colorado has long been recognized as a national leader in the new energy economy. Our state is also 1st in the nation in private aerospace employment, 4th in the nation in the number of scientists and engineers per capita, and we can expect to more than double our jobs in medicine in the state by 2018. We are poised and ready to lead the world in economic growth.

Pulling the Economy Back from the Brink

In the beginning of 2009 our country was on the brink of an unprecedented economic collapse -- U.S. real GDP was contracting at an annual rate of more than 6 percent, employment was falling by about 700,000 jobs per month, and the lack of credit flow was suffocating Colorado's small businesses.

Fortunately, we took action and averted an economic disaster. We cut taxes to historic lows for Colorado families. And, we saved thousands of jobs through critical investments in local education, health care, transportation, and clean energy. We also repeatedly passed emergency relief to help families and small businesses struggling to survive in a savage economy.

The Building Blocks to a 21st Century Economy

Though we pulled our economy back from the brink, our most important priority must be the construction of a strong economic foundation that secures a solid future for the next generation. Our future is dependent our ability to invest our energy into securing those building blocks -- a strong public education system, a fiscally sound federal government, and a solid investment into private innovation -- that will create jobs and economic growth over the long term.

Transforming our Public Education System

Throughout our history, public schools have allowed America to make good on her promise to the next generation, and have been the key to building the most vibrant economy in the world.

But now, our public schools are falling short. We rank 20th among industrialized nations for high school graduation rates. Forty years ago we were first. And we have fallen from second to twelfth in the number of college graduate relative to other countries.

At the same time, our economy is changing so that, overwhelmingly, the jobs we are creating require education beyond high school. During the last wave of job growth, we created about 5 million jobs that required a four-year degree, and about 2 or 3 million jobs that required some post-high school education. On the other hand, we lost jobs requiring a high school diploma or less.

The facts make it clear that our livelihoods and our country's global competitiveness depend on a transformation of our public education system to one that truly prepares our children to compete in a 21st Century economy that thrives on innovation and higher education.

We can get there, but we aren't going to get there by doing things the same way that they have been done before.

When I was Superintendent of Denver Public Schools we made progress because we weren't afraid to try new approaches. We closed failing schools and opened new ones. We changed the teacher compensation system so that it rewarded teachers who improve their students' performance and provided incentives for teachers to go the neediest schools. And we launched a new way to measure student growth that measures the progress of actual students year over year throughout their career -- rather than the meaningless measurement of one year's class against the next.

There is still more work to do in Denver, and in the rest of the country. In Congress, our job should be to spur innovation, and support and expand what works at the local level.

Creating Jobs by Supporting Private Innovation

In the 21st Century, the jobs are going to be created in private industries that put a premium on innovation-from the new energy economy, to digital media, to new discoveries in bioscience. Our economy-our society -- depend on our ability to incentivise the growth of these industries and to create global competitors for these new jobs.

Supporting the Small Business Backbone to Our Economy

In Colorado, small businesses account for 97.8% of the state's employers and are estimated to have created over 80% of the job growth over the last decade. As a former businessman, I understand that small businesses are the backbone of our economy, and that our economic recovery depends on their having the credit they need to grow.

That is why I have introduced a package of measures meant to increase lending and cut taxes for Colorado small businesses, including:

* Raising the Limits on Small Business Loans. I have worked hard to increase the limits on SBA loans for both brick and mortar infrastructure and operating capital to small businesses. I have cosponsored legislation that would increase the size of SBA loans and make them more flexible. The legislation has been included in the Senate small business jobs package. I also have introduced legislation raising to $10 million the limits on certain loans to small businesses that are a significant source of job creation.

* Expanding the Reach of Small Business Loans: I introduced legislation that would enable Small Business Lending Companies (SBLCs) to target loans to low- and moderate-income communities.

* Cutting Taxes for Small Businesses: I have pushed to cut key taxes to help small businesses free up the crucial capital they need to hire new employees. I helped pass an increase in the write-off for capital expenditures, helped pass a tax cut for businesses that hire unemployed new workers, and I've introduced a 35% tax credit for entrepreneurs starting small businesses in rural areas.

* Encouraging Small Business Development in Rural Areas: I introduced legislation that would create a tax credit for entrepreneurs who invest in rural communities. The credit would enable rural sole proprietors with five or fewer employees to claim a federal tax credit equal to 35 percent of an investment made in the business. This would offset up to $10,000 in tax liability.

* Creating a Loan Clearinghouse for Small Businesses: I support the creation of an SBA loan clearinghouse that would create a process enabling a small business' loan application to be considered by a broader array of lenders.

* Expediting Patents for Small Businesses: I introduced legislation that would add $10 million to the Patent and Trademark Office to expedite patent applications for small businesses, individual inventors and non-profits. This funding would enable the Patent Office to expedite small business applications until Congress completes its work on more long-term reforms.

Encouraging Private Development and Investment into the Clean Energy Economy

We all know there is enormous economic potential in the growth of the new energy economy, but-as a country-we have been failing to take advantage of it. While we have been busy leading the world in exporting aircraft, China has become the world's leading exporter of solar panels. It is time for us to really commit to expanding and developing our renewable energy resources, through:

* Making renewable tax incentives permanent: I support making the ITC and PTC for renewable energy permanent. I also support reinstating the per gallon tax credit for biodiesel.

* Passage of a Federal Renewable Electricity Standard: In Colorado, we know that a renewable electricity standard creates jobs. In 2007 alone, the renewable energy industry generated $10.3 billion in sales and provided thousands of jobs in Colorado, accounting for more than 4% of the gross state product.

* Passage of an Energy Bill: Done right, an energy bill will create millions of new clean energy jobs and puts America back in control of its own energy future.

* Supporting Responsibly Developed Natural Gas: I strongly support the responsible development of natural gas, which is twice as clean as coal, and holds great promise as a source of clean energy and job creation here in Colorado. That's why I voted against stripping Colorado's small and independent natural gas companies of tax incentives that are vital for their survival, and why I led a bipartisan push for clean burning natural gas incentives in the final energy bill. Natural gas can play a critical role in our new energy future, and it holds great potential for Colorado's economy.

Getting Our Fiscal House in Order

Our $13 trillion debt is a national crisis- it is an Achilles heel to our economy, a threat to our security, and a burden on the next generation.

I was at a house party earlier this year with my daughter Caroline and I said "I don't want to leave this burden for my daughters." Afterwards, when we were leaving, Caroline told me, "Just so you know Dad, I'm not paying for that." And she's right. She shouldn't have to.

In the face of these challenges, we have a serious decision to make. We can do things the old way, continue to do that which is politically popular, and ignore our fiscal problems. Or, we can decide that this is the year that we stop pushing the tough decisions off onto the next generation, and that we start making a serious and bipartisan effort to fix this fiscal mess.

We must take responsibility for leaving this country in sound fiscal shape for our children. I am working to lead the movement in Congress for fiscal reform and I have introduced and supported measures that would save hundreds of billions of dollars including:

* Putting all our spending on the table: It is time to take politics out of the process and build a federal budget that is sustainable and that will make our country more competitive in the long term. To do this effectively we must be willing to put all our spending on the table to be considered a nonpartisan debt commission with teeth to propose cuts as necessary.

* Capping Government Spending: I have introduced and voted for measures that would cap overall spending by Congress and cap the deficit at 3% of GDP. I also support requiring Congress to find a way to pay for any new spending or tax cuts it passes.

* Getting Our Money Back: I introduced an amendment that passed as part of Wall Street Reform that starts winding down the bank bailout fund created in response to the financial crisis, recaptures what we can for taxpayers, prevents banks from tapping into our Treasury going forward, and requires unused bail-out and unobligated stimulus funds to be used to start paying down the debt.

* Cutting Wasteful Spending. I support integrating transparency and accountability into the earmark process-so that we know where earmark requests are coming from. I have also repeatedly voted to eliminate unecessary programs.

* Controlling Health Care Costs. The biggest single driver of out-of-control federal spending are the long-term exploding health care costs, which are driving up the costs of Medicare and Medicaid. That is why one of my priorities, throughout the lengthy debate over a health care reform bill, was to improve the bill by introducing amendments to increase the efficiency of our overall system, hold down costs, and cut federal spending. I introduced a fail-safe amendment that would require the new health care law to meet its budget projections or be changed. That amendment did not pass, but I will continue to fight to make sure that health care reform meets its cost saving obligations.

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