White House Hosts African American Policy in Action Leadership Conference

White House Releases New Policy Report Outlining the Obama Administration Achievements in the African American Community

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Wednesday, November 8, the White House held an African American Policy in Action Leadership Conference, bringing community leaders from across the country together with a broad range of White House and Cabinet officials for an in-depth series of interactive workshops and substantive conversations on the Administration’s efforts and achievements in the African American community.  Participants including community leaders, professors, faith leaders, civil rights leaders, and elected officials, have the opportunity to interact with Administration officials on pressing issues that directly impact African Americans. Discussion topics include strengthening the economy through the American Jobs Act, job training, access to capital for growing businesses, reforming our nation’s education system, protecting civil rights, community development initiatives, and strategies targeting poverty.

At the conference, the White House released a new policy report outlining how the President's policies directly impact the African American community. A copy of the policy report is available HERE or on  www.whitehouse.gov/africanamericans.

When President Obama took office, the economy was shedding nearly 800,000 jobs each month and millions of families were unable to make ends meet. African Americans were hit especially hard by the recession, struggling with significant economic losses, including near-record high levels of unemployment and low incomes compared to the national average. Since day one, the President has fought to restore the strength to the middle class, protect the interests of the low-income families, and allow those hardest hit by the economy to have access to the American Dream.

Portions of the conference are open to pre-credentialed media. The conference is live streamed on Whitehouse.gov/live.

AFRICAN AMERICAN POLICY IN ACTION LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE--AGENDA
Date: November 9th, 2011
Time: 9:00-4:30PM ET

Agenda

9:00-9:15AM     Welcome:  Michael Strautmanis, Deputy Assistant to President Obama and Heather Foster, Director of African American Outreach

9:15-9:30AM     Opening Remarks:   Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Obama

9:30-10:30AM            Panel Session One: Economic Security, Job Creation, and the African American Community
Panelists
Danielle Gray, Deputy Director, National Economic Council
Rebecca Blank Acting Deputy, Department of Commerce
Seth Harris, Deputy Secretary, Department of Labor
Don Graves, President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness
Undersecretary Martha Kanter, Department of Education

10:50-12:00PM           Panel Session Two: The President’s Domestic policy agenda and the African American community
Panelists
Melody Barnes, Domestic Policy Council
Secretary Tom Vilsack, Department of Agriculture
Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Health and Human Services
Acting Deputy Secretary, Estelle Richman, Housing and Urban Development
Administrator Lisa Jackson, Environmental Protection Agency
                                               
12:00-12:45PM           Working lunch with Attorney General Eric Holder

1:30-3:30PM               Afternoon Breakout sessions  
Track one:     Education Reform and Job Training            
Track two:     Economic Growth, Jobs Creation, and Business Development
Track three:  Anti-Poverty Strategies
Track four:    Prevention and Health Disparities (Let’s Move)
Track five:     Fatherhood, Prevention, and Reentry Issues
Track six:       Housing and Urban Affairs

3:45-4:15PM               Report and Action Steps: Jon Carson, Director, White House Office of Public Engagement

4:15-4:30PM               Closing Remarks by Gene Sperling, Director of the National Economic Council and Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Obama

FACT SHEET: THE PRESIDENT’S AGENDA AND THE AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY

The President has fought consistently for policies that create opportunity for all Americans and, as result, has lifted millions out of poverty and invested in long-term reforms to grow the middle class.   This new report  highlights how the Obama Administration’s reforms and investments to reward work, improve education and increase college access and affordability, keep Americans in their homes, increase access to health care, and investments in small businesses have made a significant impact in African American Communities:

• Tax Relief for Virtually All Working Americans. The President secured the Making Work Pay tax credit in 2009 and 2010 and a payroll tax cut in 2011 that amounted to a 2 percent raise for working Americans through 2011. In addition, the President secured historic expansions in refundable tax credits Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit for low-income families. The American Jobs Act will extend and expand tax relief for every American family next year.  The American Jobs Act will extend and expand tax relief for virtually every American family next year, including nearly 20 million African American workers.
• Subsidized Jobs for Low-Income Adults and Youth. Through the Recovery Act, 367,000 low-income youth received summer employment and over 260,000 adults and youth were placed in subsidized jobs. The American Jobs Act builds on the success of these programs by supporting summer jobs and pathways to work for unemployed Americans and youths. 
• Support for African American-Owned Small Businesses. Since the beginning of the Administration, the President has enacted 17 tax cuts for small businesses, including billions of dollars in tax credits, write-offs, and deductions for Americans who start new businesses, hire the unemployed, and provide health insurance for their employees. In addition, through the Small Business Jobs Act and other measures, the President has taken steps to expand American American-owned small businesses’ access to credit –through programs like the Community Development Financial Institutions and the New Markets Tax Credit, which provided over $4 billion in capital to predominantly African American communities. The American Jobs Act would cut payroll taxes in half for every American small business, including more than 100,000 African American owned firms.
• Reform K-12 and Early Education through Innovative, New Programs. President Obama created Race to the Top with a historic $4.35 billion investment. As a result of the initiative, over 40 states have raised standards, improved assessments, and invested in teachers to ensure that all of our children receive a high-quality education. A similar Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge has been developed to raise the quality of and increase access to critical programs that ensure our kids are entering school ready to learn. In addition to these historic investments, the President has also fought against Republican budget cuts to critical programs like Head Start. The American Jobs Act provides $30 billion for States to hire new teachers, rehire those laid off, and prevent as many as 280,000 teachers whose jobs are at risk next year from being laid off.
• Increase College Access and Affordability. Since the beginning of the Administration, the President has dramatically increased Pell Grant funding to support an additional 200,000 African American students, created the American Opportunity Tax Credit to ease college costs, and championed bold and comprehensive reform of student loans that will save taxpayers $68 billion over the next decade. Together, these represent the largest investment in higher education since the G.I. Bill. The President also secured $850 million in additional funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and $150 million for Predominantly Black Institutions.
• Keep Americans in Their Homes During a Housing and Economic Crisis. The Administration’s programs, both through their direct and indirect impact on the market, have helped more than 4 million families permanently modify their mortgages so they can stay in their homes. Through the Recovery Act, the President provided $1.5 billion for the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program to prevent homelessness for 1 million Americans. The American Jobs Act builds on the success of these programs with the new “Project Rebuild,” which will invest in the communities hardest hit by the housing downturn.
• Create Economically-Sustainable Neighborhoods. The Administration has secured $40 million for Promise Neighborhoods and $126 million to Choice Neighborhoods that provide a continuum of services to combat the challenges facing communities most in need. The new Strong Cities, Strong Communities is helping strengthen cities and regions by increasing the capacity of local governments to execute their economic growth plans, while also delivering federal assistance tailored to the local government’s needs.
• Expand Health Care Access for Families and Workers. Within a month of taking office, the President signed the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act into law, expanding health coverage to more than 4 million children who would otherwise go uninsured. And the historic Affordable Care Act, when fully implemented, will expand health coverage to about 34 million Americans, including as many as 7 million African Americans.
• Protect Civil Rights and Promote Criminal Justice. The President has signed major legislation like the Fair Sentencing Act and the Claims Resolution Act, and worked to expand and enforce hate crimes prosecutions, reduce unfairness in sentencing, and counter employment discrimination.

Read the full policy report HERE or go to www.whitehouse.gov/africanamericans.

We Can't Wait: President Obama to Sign Executive Order to Cut Waste and Promote Efficient Spending; White House to Announce 2011 SAVE Award Finalists

WASHINGTON, DC – This morning, President Obama will sign an Executive Order that will cut waste and promote more efficient spending across the federal government.  With this Order, the President is directing agencies to reduce spending on travel; limit the number of information technology devices (e.g. cell phones, smartphones, tablets, laptops) that can be issued to individual employees; stop unnecessarily printing documents that can be posted online; shrink the executive fleet of the federal government; and stop using taxpayer dollars to buy swag -- the plaques, clothing, and other unnecessary promotional items that agencies purchase. Overall spending in the areas covered by the Executive Order will be reduced by 20 percent, saving billions.

This Executive Order builds on the progress that has already been made through the Campaign to Cut Waste.  At President Obama’s direction this Administration has taken up an unprecedented effort to downsize the Federal real estate footprint, and is on track to save $3.5 billion in Federal real estate costs by the end of Fiscal Year 2012. The Administration has cracked down on waste in contracting, cutting contracting spending for the first time in more than a dozen years and slashing spending on “no bid contracts” by $5 billion.

The Executive Order will set bold but achievable goals that are informed by the results of the work of the Campaign to Cut Waste, launched by President Obama and Vice President Biden earlier this year. In September, the Vice President convened the first Cabinet Campaign to Cut Waste meeting and asked the Cabinet to identify wasteful and inefficient spending on travel, executive fleet, publications, office equipment, and other areas. Several of the spending reductions identified by agencies in response to the Vice President’s request are highlighted below. The President’s directive today builds on that work.

In addition to today’s Executive Order signing, the White House will announce this year’s SAVE (Securing Americans Value and Efficiency) Award finalists. The SAVE Award was launched in 2009 to seek ideas from frontline federal employees to make government more effective and efficient and to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely. This year, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) received nearly 20,000 ideas from across the country. To honor these finalists, OMB Director Jack Lew, OMB Deputy Director of Heather Higginbottom, and Federal Chief Performance Officer  and OMB’s Deputy Director for Management Jeff Zients will host a video teleconference with the SAVE Award finalists which will be live-streamed at www.WhiteHouse.gov/Save-Award at 11 AM. With the announcement of the four finalists, voting will now begin to select the SAVE Award winner. Anyone can vote for his or her favorite idea on www.WhiteHouse.gov/Save-Award. The winner of this year’s SAVE Award will come to the White House to present their idea to the President.

The four finalists are: Matthew Ritsko, a NASA employee from Maryland, who suggested the creation of a tool “lending library” to avoid duplicative purchases of expensive tools; Eileen Hearty, a Housing and Urban Development (HUD) employee from Colorado, who suggested that it’s unnecessary to travel to inspect superior-rated properties each and every year; Kevin Korzenieski, a Treasury employee in D.C. who suggested that we stop purchasing U.S. Code books for all new attorneys given the availability of the information online; and Faith Stanfield, a Social Security Administration (SSA) employee from Ohio, who suggested SSA stop printing and mailing OASIS magazine – which currently is distributed to nearly 90,000 SSA employees -- and simply make it available online.

“From the day I took office, I’ve said we’re going to comb the federal budget, line by line, to eliminate as much wasteful spending as possible.  That’s what the Campaign to Cut Waste is all about. We can’t wait for Congress to act – we can’t wait for them to get our fiscal house in order and make the investments necessary to keep America great. That’s why today, I’m signing an Executive Order that will build on our efforts to cut waste and promote more efficient spending across the government – we’re cutting what we don’t need so that we can invest in what we do need,” said President Obama.

“In September, I asked all Cabinet secretaries to report on wasteful and inefficient spending at their agencies.  Certain spending – like purchasing promotional water bottles, paying for unused cell phones, and booking unnecessary travel – is unacceptable.  Today’s executive order will stop wasteful spending and make sure we use taxpayer dollars efficiently and responsibly,” said Vice President Biden.

Within 45 days, agencies will develop plans to reduce combined costs in the following areas to 20 percent below Fiscal Year 2010 levels by Fiscal Year 2013.

1) Reduce Spending on Travel and Conferences: The Executive Order directs agencies to decrease travel and conference-related spending.  Increasingly, travel will be limited to circumstances where the activity can only be performed away from the employee’s primary office (e.g., a diplomatic mission or enforcement inspection).  Employees will continue attending local meetings and conferences in person but expand their use of teleconferencing or videoconferencing technology to participate in meetings or conferences that would normally require travel.  If agencies are hosting or sponsoring conferences, they will use conference space controlled by the federal government wherever possible. Each agency will designate a senior-level official to be responsible for reducing travel costs. Examples of steps currently being taken are:

• The IRS plans to utilize teleconferencing and webinars when possible, as an alternative to travelling to conferences and training sessions.  This and other efforts will result in 27% less spending on travel in Fiscal Year 2012.
• The Department of Energy is reducing travel costs by reducing the number of conferences, utilizing video teleconferencing, and issuing non-refundable airline tickets when travel does not require changes.  This initiative will save $15.7 million in Fiscal Year 2012.
• NASA is reducing travel costs by approximately $17 million in Fiscal Year 2012 by reducing the number of attendees at meetings and conferences, encouraging rental car sharing, and reducing foreign travel.

2) Cut Duplicative and Unnecessary Employee Information Technology Devices: Some federal employees are issued more devices (e.g. cell phones, smartphones, laptops, tablet personal computers) than they need to fulfill their duties.   In other cases, IT devices are purchased but go unused.  The Executive Order directs each agency to limit the number of devices issued to employees and establish new policies to ensure they are not paying for IT equipment that isn’t being used. Examples of steps currently being taken are:

• The Department of Homeland Security previously spent millions of dollars each year by paying for unused cell phones and air cards. The agency now conducts annual audits of use and has saved $10.5 million to date.
• The Department of Commerce saved $1.8 million to date and will save a total of  $3 million this year by disconnecting 2,648 wireless lines showing no usage for the past three months – including those assigned to retirees and former staff -- as well as by optimizing rate plans.

3) End Unnecessary Printing and Put It Online: In the digital age, it is frequently unnecessary to spend money on printed documents in addition to making information available online for the public. The Executive Order directs agencies to provide written information electronically and limit the production of hard copy documents.  Examples of steps currently being taken are:

• The Department of the Treasury plans to reduce spending on printing by increasing the number of paperless transactions it conducts with the public.  In total, Treasury expects this initiative will reduce printing costs by up to 24 percent in Fiscal Year 2012.  Treasury’s initiative to increase the number of paperless transactions it conducts with the public is expected to save more than $500 million and 12 million pounds of paper over its first five years alone. 
• Last year, Trudy Givens won the President’s SAVE Award for her suggestion that we stop printing and shipping excess Federal Registers to Federal Government Offices, which costs millions of dollars per year, when the content is available online. As a result, the Obama Administration cut the number of copies that Federal agencies receive by 85 percent within the past year, and continues to cut back even more.

4) Limit Motor Vehicles: The Federal Government spends $9 million per year on vehicles just to shepherd itself around Washington DC.  The Executive Order limits executive transportation across the federal government and directs agencies to improve the performance of the Federal fleet. Examples of steps currently being taken are:

• The Department of Commerce is reducing the number of fleet drivers to one for all senior departmental officials, including the Secretary.  Reductions in drivers and vehicles are expected to generate $100,000 in annual savings.

5) Stop Swag – or Government Promotional Handouts: The Executive Order directs agencies to stop wasting taxpayer money on non-essential items used for promotional purposes, such as clothing, mugs, and non-work related gadgets.

• For instance, several months ago the Department of the Treasury issued a directive to all of its bureaus to avoid purchasing any goods that could be considered frivolous or unnecessary, and to ensure that all purchases have a clear nexus with the Department’s mission and operations.

Readout of Vice President Biden’s Meeting with Kurdistan Regional Government Prime Minister Barham Salih

Vice President Biden met today at the White House with Kurdistan Regional Government Prime Minister Barham Salih. They discussed a range of regional, political and security matters, including the enduring strategic relationship between the United States and Iraq. Vice President Biden praised the dynamism of Iraq’s Kurdish region and the historic friendship and partnership between the Kurdish and American people.

President Obama Signs District of Columbia Disaster Declaration

The President today declared a major disaster exists in the District of Columbia and ordered Federal aid to supplement the District of Columbia recovery efforts in the area affected by an earthquake during the period of August 23-28, 2011.

Federal funding is available to District of Columbia and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work and the repair or replacement of facilities damaged by the earthquake in the District of Columbia.

Federal funding is also available on a cost-sharing basis for hazard mitigation measures in the District of Columbia.

W. Craig Fugate, Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Department of Homeland Security, named Kim R. Kadesch as the Federal Coordinating Officer for federal recovery operations in the affected area. 

FEMA said additional designations may be made at a later date if requested by the District of Columbia and warranted by the results of further damage assessments.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION MEDIA SHOULD CONTACT:  FEMA NEWS DESK AT (202) 646-3272 OR FEMA-NEWS-DESK@DHS.GOV