White House proposes crowdfunding exemption

Seems like some very reasonable proposals that have the potential to make a huge impact.<p><i>support long-term unemployed workers who create their own jobs by starting their own companies</i><p><i>nationwide, interoperable wireless network for public safety</i><p><i>new science labs and Internet-ready classrooms</i><p><i>BusinessUSA within 90 days...one-stop online platform will provide access to information about the full range of government programs and services businesses need to compete globally</i><p>I'm happy to pay my taxes, personally I don't think there is a much better use of my money than improving the lives of the people in this country, or any country for that matter (once my basic needs are met, of course). Putting people to work is just an awesome side effect of improving our infrastructure and schools. If there is wasteful spending in the government, identify it, and get rid of it. There's no need to maintain some religious faith against ever raising taxes for anybody though. I mean look at today's tax rates compared to the early 80s: <a href="http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/fed_individual_rate_history-20110323.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/fed_individual_rate_histo...</a> [PDF]<p>It will be interesting to see if the Republicans are willing to compromise on increasing revenue, and the Democrats on entitlement programs, in order to meet the goal Obama has set for the deficit reductions, which is what will ultimately determine if The American Jobs Act will come to fruition.

Its exciting to watch this proposal start to come to fruition. I worked in the government, and attended an Access to Capital Summit in the Dept of Treasury back in March, where I saw this proposal take bloom.<p>At the Summit, Jessica Jackley of Profounder and Kiva vocally voiced concern for the Reg A and Reg D restrictions on "accredited investors". Sec Geithner was in the room as well. A month afterwards, the idea had organically permeated other conversations in the White House, and meetings in the OSTP would often bring up the issue. Now it seems its finally made its way into legislative proposal.<p>Comes to show I think, that even though government is slow, byzantine, and sometimes impossible to access, often all it takes to get something done is to just show up and say something really provocative. Someone may listen!

How can you spend "$25 billion in K-12 school infrastructure" and "$1 billion to support NextGen air traffic modernization" "all without adding a dime to the deficit"? I think the programs should go ahead deficit or no, but it does seem like something's being left out.

Kudos to KickStarter and the two projects for getting a mention on Whitehouse.gov

I wish the president had used this opportunity to support real patent reform. That could've been a huge step toward supporting startups and job creation.

In a way, I kind of wished they had linked to something a little more relevant with the Kickstarter link. There was some strong talk about transportation infrastructure and technology leading that in the president's speech tonight<p>I realize it's reaching, but I think maybe using the revolights project page to suggestively highlight transportation/infrastructure is an important theme as a part of the Jobs Bill.<p><a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/revolights/revolights-join-the-revolution?ref=spotlight" rel="nofollow">http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/revolights/revolights-jo...</a>

If I am interpreting this correctly, they want to deregulate small-scale angel investing up to $1m? So long as the risk is largely distributed?<p>This sounds like a good plan, at least on the surface!

The regulations regarding funding for private firms stems from a time when it was much harder to do qualification. With the changes in technology and the emerging reputation economy, the risks of such investing have diminished. Especially if it's capped, opening up investment to the average person would cause an explosion in innovation and job creation that would offset the harm cause by fraud. I'm extremely excited by this!

That is some crazy PR for kickstarter. Wow!

I wish they had something for alien founders creating jobs.

Trillions for banksters, millions for the entrepreneurs. It's a start I suppose.

From the outside looking in, I really don't understand why Obama's approval ratings are at an all time low. I wish the UK were as elegantly pragmatic as this.