She joined us in january. She has a really rich of history of campaign work, working inor electoral politics and policyja and research and she was the perfect person to take over from pillar. Im delighted to call you up. Thank you. [applause] thank you, donna. Im really lucky, i guess depending on your perspective maybe really unlucky who is the person to gets to present results of an effort which donna said was conceived of and carried out by a large team of people, many who are here today, many so of whom i think are up all night getting our website and other assets going. I really appreciate your work and second donnas thanks to all of you. Today i would like to do three things. First im going to talk about what our research revealed. Second i offer preliminary thoughts about what it suggests. Third, i will talk a little bit where we might go from here. But to start, lets look at a short video we put together, if i can operate this. Have you ever wondered what does america look like
To iraq, his last memories as he dove onto of his soldiers to cover them from a rocket propelled grenade was that you would never see his wife or his child again. While he would survive, his last words proved to be prophetic. The blast cost him his site. But despite his injuries has pursued his education and is planning to start a new business. Though he may never actually see his firstborn daughter, he and his wife, heather, have added two more children to their growing family. In a sense, veterans like sergeant pepper and many others have sacrifice one life to the country and service. In an instant, their hopes and dreams for the future were shattered. But with a love of their countrymen and the support of the family and their community, they rediscover their purpose in life to learn to accept or overcome the obstacles their injuries have imposed. These walls remind us that a sacrifice might only have of our nation is most often shared with a loved one who cares for our injured heroe
Much of its operation takes place out of public view and it is creating, as we have seen, a democracy that is far from reflective. There is good news, too. In this case, it comes from voters themselves. At the same time we are amassing a database of elected officials , we undertook a copper has a a look Opinion Research project. We wanted to understand whether and to what extent americans perceive this problem, how they think about it, and whether or not they care. As part of that multiphase research project, in august, we surveyed voters at home. By phone. There were key findings. First, americans understand there is a problem with the demographics of political leaders. A majority of the voters we polled are concerned about the lack of women and people of color in office there at perhaps even more to the point, most of them said the phrase that best him describes our current representatives is an old boys club. Most of them think, however, that the best and the brightest is the phrase
To competeis it like for these federal dollars for contract echo what is the process like as well . Guest these are not contracts per se. Host grants. Guest these are grants by research initiators. And as you know, after the funding wrapup in the 1990 through 2000 decade, funding has been decreasing. The competition for those dollars is very intense among investigators. Only the very best Research Projects are funded. And often, not at the level we would like to see. Im not so concerned about our investigators per se. Concerned with the Research Capacity of this nation. We have built a wonderful Research Engine since 1950, 1960 host of adjustment as a leader in the world in terms of research and development and our since 1950, 1960. It has made us a leader in the world in terms of research and development in our economy. And over the last 10 years we are slipping. We are slipping because we dont spend the percentage on research of our gross product that most of our competitors do. I th
If your child has a brain tumor you want him to go to childrens hospital. If your sister is suffering from Breast Cancer you want her in a good hospital. People come from all over the world to get their health care here. We do have health care focused we have been able to put together with a republican governor and democratic are pursuant consumers, Health Care Reform ,hat said lets cover people keep equality, and address costs. We need some waivers from the federal government has looked for. We know what we want. We should have gotten a waiver for those standards. More broadly we have to change the economic model of health care. , what iske maryland the risk of care onto hospitals. They raised their prices paid every time you pay higher insurance premiums it is because the enabling of the republicans and democrats working together, becoming a monopoly and the government allowing this to take lace. As voters we are not going to get different results if we keep going down the same path.