{"id":15800,"date":"2016-03-05T09:09:43","date_gmt":"2016-03-05T17:09:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.46.6.243\/?p=15800"},"modified":"2016-03-05T09:09:43","modified_gmt":"2016-03-05T17:09:43","slug":"president-obamas-weekly-address-the-american-spirit-of-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/?p=15800","title":{"rendered":"President Obama&#8217;s Weekly Address: The American Spirit of Innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;Hi, everybody.  One of the things that makes America so strong is our spirit of innovation.  Our drive to invent and harness new technologies to tackle our greatest challenges.  It\u2019s how we won the race to invent the lightbulb and the Internet; it\u2019s why we were first to the Moon and Mars.  It\u2019s why I keep models of American inventions like the telegraph in the Oval Office.  It\u2019s a daily reminder of the genius that\u2019s embedded in our DNA; the way we\u2019ve always shaped the future through our ideas and discoveries.  That\u2019s truer than ever today, with the constant stream of new apps and tools and data that are still changing the way we live \u2013 from getting a ride to paying our bills to developing smarter ways to combat climate change. <\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/OXyYA0WEK9I\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why, next week, I\u2019ll travel to Austin, Texas, to visit South by Southwest.  It\u2019s an annual gathering of some of our most creative thinkers, coders, makers, and entrepreneurs from across the country.  And while I\u2019m there, I\u2019m going to ask everyone for ideas and technologies that can help update our government and our democracy to be as modern and dynamic as America itself. <\/p>\n<p>This has been a goal of mine since before I was President.  On my campaign in 2008, we saw how technology could bring people together and help them engage as citizens in their own communities.  So when I came to the White House, I wanted apply that experience to the federal government.  It hasn\u2019t always been easy.  And we\u2019ve had some bumps along the way. <\/p>\n<p>But we\u2019ve also made good progress.  Over the past few years, for example, we\u2019ve done something that government never has.  We asked some of the sharpest minds from companies in Silicon Valley and across the country to come help us modernize the federal government for the way we live today.  And they came ready to serve, tackling some of our biggest challenges \u2013 like high-tech special ops units.<\/p>\n<p>These teams are partnering with the government\u2019s existing policy and technical experts to re-imagine the way we do business and deliver services that work better and cost less.  Already, we\u2019ve made it easier for students to find the college that\u2019s right for them.  For immigrants to track the green card and naturalization process online.  For veterans to access their medical records. And yes, after an initial false start, we\u2019ve made it much easier for tens of millions of Americans to compare and buy health insurance and the peace of mind that goes with it. <\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s what this is all about \u2013 making sure our government of the people and by the people works better for the people in the 21st century.  It\u2019s about Americans working together to make a real difference in people\u2019s lives.  Because the easiest thing to do is to blame government for our problems.  Some people have made a career out of that.  But our founders trusted us with the keys to this system of self-government because it\u2019s the best tool we\u2019ve got to settle our differences and solve our collective challenges.  And it\u2019s only as good as we make it. <\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why I\u2019m going to Austin and South by Southwest \u2013 to keep asking everyone from all walks of life, working inside or outside of government, to help us make this democracy even stronger.  And I hope you join us. <\/p>\n<p>Thanks everybody, have a great weekend.<\/p>\n<p>###<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC&#8230;Hi, everybody. One of the things that makes America so strong is our spirit of innovation. Our drive to invent and harness new technologies to tackle our greatest challenges. It\u2019s how we won the race to invent the lightbulb and the Internet; it\u2019s why we were first to the Moon and Mars. It\u2019s why [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Fullscreen-capture-352016-90806-AM.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}