John Kerry Addresses American Competitiveness

BOSTON -- In remarks today to business leaders at the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Senator John Kerry addressed America's ability to compete in the global economy. In his remarks, Senator Kerry emphasized that the current approach is only making the U.S. more beholden to countries like China and Saudi Arabia without giving American businesses any advantage in the global race to success. Kerry laid out a national strategy that offers Americans building blocks -- skills in science and math, affordable college education and a national research and development strategy -- while removing road blocks to competitiveness like soaring energy and high health care costs.

Senator Kerry’s remarks as prepared for delivery follow:

In the last weeks America has experienced the consequences of the failure to heed warning signs of impending or potential disaster. The nation has been painfully reminded of the price we pay - all of us - in lives and in dollars - for waiting too long to address critical challenges that are right before our eyes if we bother to look.

Sometimes these warning signs are so big and bright and alarming that they just can’t be ignored. I’ll never forget as a teenager standing in a field in October of 1957 watching the first man made spacecraft streak across the night sky. The conquest, of course, was Soviet - and while not everyone got to see that unmanned craft pass overhead at 18,000 miles per hour that night - before long every American knew the name Sputnik. We knew we weren’t competing hard enough. We knew we had been caught unprepared. And we knew that failure to maintain our supremacy in science and technology was not simply a blow to our pride and prosperity; it was a blow to our strength and security as a nation in a dangerous world.

Read the entire speech here - http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=688