Elaine Chao – Conversion to State Capitalism

1) establishing an international highway/corridor system that incorporates an Information Technology System (ITS)

2) privatizing U.S. infrastructure assets (which opens the door to foreign ownership/management of U.S. roads, bridges, ports. . .)

3) charging for use — taxes, tolls, and fees

4) increasing use of eminent domain to build or widen corridors to accommodate toll highways, rail, and/or utility corridors, etc.

5) promoting intermodal/multimodal concepts

6) using public-private partnerships (government + business partnering helps overcome obstacles like public dissent)

7) promoting “smart highways/corridors” — which coincidentally requires the same technologies as a continent-wide surveillance/monitoring system would use:

• surveillance equipment (electronic readers, sensors, scanners, cameras…)

• technology for transmitting data (fiber optic cable networks, wireless communications, etc.)

• command and control centers along corridors to collect, process, and share data

TEXT: By the authority vested in me as president by the laws of the United States of America, end in order to ensure that the United States achieves the most beneficial economic use of its resources, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Definitions. For purposes of this order:

(a) “Privatization” means the disposition or transfer of an infrastructure asset, such as by sale or by long-term lease, from a State or local government to a private party.

(b) “infrastructure asset” means any asset financed in whole or in part by the Federal Government and needed for the functioning of the economy.

Examples of such assets include, but are not limited to: roads, tunnels, bridges, electricity supply facilities. mass transit, rail transportation, airports, ports. waterways, water supply facilities, recycling and wastewater treatment facilities, solid waste disposal facilities, housing, schools, prisons, and hospitals.

(e) “state and local governments” means the government of any state of the United States, the District of Columbia. any commonwealth. territory, or possession of the United States, and any country, municipality, city, town. township, local public authority, school district, special district, intrastate district, regional or interstate governmental entity, council of governments, and any agency or instrumentality of a local government, and any federally recognized Indian Tribe.

Sec. 2. Fundamental Principles. Executive departments and agencies shall be guided by the following objectives and principles:

(a) Adequate and well-maintained infrastructure is critical to economic growth. Consistent with the principles of federalism enumerated in Executive Order No. 12612, and in order to allow the private sector to Provide for infrastructure modernization and expansion, State and local governments should have greater freedom to privatize infrastructure assets.

(d) User fees are generally more efficient than general taxes as a means to support infrastructure assets. Privatization transactions should be structured so as not to result in unreasonable increases in charges to users.

Sec. 3. Privatization initiative. To the extent permitted by law, the head of each executive department and agency shall undertake the following actions:

(a) Review those procedures affecting the management and disposition of federally financed infrastructure assets owned by State and local governments and modify those procedures to encourage appropriate privatization of such assets consistent: with this order;

(b) Assist State and Local governments in their efforts to advance the objectives of this order; and

(c) Approve State and local governments’ requests to Privatize infrastructure assets, consistent with the criteria in section 4 of this order and, where necessary, grant exceptions to the disposition requirements of the “Uniform Administration Requirements for Grants and Cooperative Agreements to State and Local Governments” common rule, or other relevant rules or regulations for infrastructure assets;

With the advent of the dramatic rise of new emerging democracies in that part of the world, Elaine Chao established the first Peace Corps programs in the newly liberated Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union to help its peoples adapt to the new free enterprise economic system.

Peace Corps is a U. S. government agency that sends young Americans to volunteer in developing countries for two years. Traditionally, the majority of Peace Corps volunteers were often newly graduated from colleges, and worked in developing nations with subsistence economies by helping to build ditches, improve agricultural methods, elementary education and community hygiene.

For the new programs in the Baltic and the former Soviet republics, there was less need for such assistance. Instead, these countries requested more sophisticated aid in developing private sector entrepreneurial and small business capabilities. Secretary Chao realized that the new programs in this region needed to focus on different skills to help jump-start the fledging new economies to ensure the continued survival of these new democracies.

So, Peace Corps launched a new campaign to recruit more experienced volunteers with business, marketing, financial, accounting backgrounds who had at least five years of work experience in the private sector. A hotline set up for candidates interested in participating in this exciting new initiative during this historic period in world history, received over 1,000 calls the first day it was in operation. By fall, over 250 Peace Corps Volunteers were on their way to the Republic of Russia. And, other volunteers were soon to follow to Ukraine, Georgia and other newly established nations of the former Soviet Union.