Obama’s Visit and a Vision of the Future

Contrary to the United States, the speech to the National Congress in Brazil, although important, is a routine procedure. The executive branch gives it a bureaucratic emphasis, making the Congress disinterested and giving it little relevance.

In the United States, the president’s address to the nation, known as the State of the Union, is profound and solemn in nature. It is highly anticipated by politicians and the press. The speech analyzes the country’s political, economic, social and foreign policy situation of the past year, and also introduces strategic plans and proposals for the coming year.

The expected outcome of President Barack Obama’s visit to Brazil has been a topic of relevant analysis. It brings new possibilities for cooperation and understanding between the two countries in areas that were ignored in the past eight years. During the days before the arrival of the American president, it is important to study Obama’s message. We should highlight political models for the future and call attention to the similarity in the agendas of the two countries.

Obama, with a big dose of reality, conveyed to the world that the planet has changed. In order for the United States to confront the challenges of economic growth and job creation, the country will have to utilize its own resources, and therefore reinvent itself in four areas, namely: innovation to expand competition; improving education; energy and infrastructure; and reduction of the public deficits, especially by downsizing the governmental structure.

The internal economic crises and the fast transformations in the international arena imposed changes to the country. In the interim and long-term, the country has to recover its influence in the world. According to Obama, success in the future is not a gift, but something that has to be achieved.

The first step to success in the future would be to invest in innovation in the private sector and also in strategic governmental areas. The research and development program being executed now has not been challenged since 1957, when the USSR put the Sputnik satellite into Earth’s orbit. The financial resources requested of Congress for investments in biomedical research, information technology and especially in clean energy technology are going to make the use of renewable energy a reality and improve the productivity of nuclear plants.

With more financial incentives given to research and the elimination of subsidies to the petroleum industry, it is expected that the strong dependency on petroleum will decrease, and the United States will be transformed into the first country to have 1 million electrical vehicles.

The second challenge is to make education better. In the next 10 years, almost half of the jobs in the United States will require a level of education that goes beyond a college degree. More incentives will be given to improve the quality of math and science studies, therefore attracting a greater number of, and better-qualified professors.

The third priority for the future is infrastructure. The program “Reconstruction for the 21st century,” the PAC of the United States, will be broadened to include the reconstruction of roads and bridges following economic determinants, rather than political manipulation. The goal is to make 80 percent of Americans gain access to high-speed trains in 25 years. In communications, the private sector will be able to extend the next broadband wireless generation to 98 percent of Americans in the next five years.

The Washington government is aware that to help the American companies, they will have to eliminate the “U.S. costs,” which are obstacles that reduce their competitiveness in the export market. To broaden sales abroad and to generate more jobs, the goal is to double exports by 2014. To reduce the barriers to growth and investment, the government in Washington is reviewing regulations and simplifying the internal bureaucracy. In the private sector, unnecessary rules will be eliminated, and in the defense-trade area, rules will be created to protect jobs.

The last and most critical item regarding this vision to the future is the public debt. From 2011, Washington will cut public spending in the next five years and reduce the national debt to $400 billion during the next decade. The cuts will affect several sectors, such as the salary of federal employees in the next two years and the spending on defense security, which will be reduced to about $40 billion.

In the background, the American government is proposing a change in the industrial paradigm. The goal is to reduce the use of fossil fuel (80 percent of electricity in 2035 will be generated by clean energy sources, such as wind, solar and nuclear energy and also clean coal and natural gas), and the utilization of electric cars will have an impact on the petroleum and ethanol demand in the next decades. These policies will profoundly affect the economy of the United States and will have global repercussions, including in Brazil.

President Obama’s visit will create new possibilities in the development of a new agenda between Brazil and the U.S. The United States government’s vision of the future in areas such as energy, research, development and education is a priority for the two countries and coincides with our own vision.

In the next four years the example of the determination and audacity of Obama’s government should serve as an inspiration to Brazilian politics and objectives, so they can be executed with the sole goal of the national interest. If we cannot reinvent ourselves, the political cost will be high, and the country’s future will be compromised.