REMARKS AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY SANDY K. BARUAH ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF COMMERCE FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT - EXCELLENCE IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AWARDS PRESENTATION TO KCSOURCELINK - KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 2007

AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY

Introduced by Homer Erekson, Dean, The Bloch School, University of Missouri, Kansas City

Thank you, Dean Erekson, for that kind introduction, and my thanks to the University of Missouri for hosting today’s celebration. It’s a pleasure to be in Kansas City today representing President George W. Bush.

I am pleased to be here with Congressman Emanuel Cleaver. Congressman, I appreciate you taking time from your very busy schedule to be here today, and for your commitment to public service – including serving as the mayor of this great American city.

I appreciate all the elected officials that are here today, including Mayor Funkhouser and Mayor Reardon. I appreciate your commitment to building a strong economic future for this region and for your hospitality today.

I would also like to acknowledge the critical partners of KCSourceLink: the Small Business Administration, the Kauffman Foundation, and the Bloch School of Business. Great entities on their own – even stronger together.

What we all know here today is that KCSourceLink is a national leader in economic development. Soon a lot of other folks will know this because today I am proud to announce that KCSourceLink is the winner of the Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration “Excellence in Economic Development Award” for 2007.

Each year, EDA bestows the “Excellence in Economic Development Award” on the best and brightest examples of economic development strategy and results. Award winners are selected by a distinguished and independent panel of economic development leaders, noted academics and government officials from across America. Believe me, the competition for these awards is intense as the bar for creative and innovative economic development initiatives gets raised every year.

As the 21st Century takes shape, more and more folks realize that we are truly living in a world-wide market-place. While America is the leader today and has immense competitive advantages, we cannot take our leadership for granted. Maintaining our competitive edge will not simply just happen.

And at the end of the day, our ability to innovate is our only possible sustainable competitive advantage. It’s not location. It’s not cost of doing business. It’s not currency rates or even the technology development of the moment. All these factors will continually shift in a dynamic world-wide economy – but if we maintain our edge in our ability to innovate, America will continue to lead the world in growth and opportunity.

So, how do we maintain – and strengthen – our edge in innovation? Through collaboration – regional collaboration. We must acknowledge what we all learned on the playgrounds of our youth, that we are stronger when we stand together than when we stand alone.

We need to look beyond traditional political jurisdictions – the city boundary, the county line, even the division between States – and work together. Because the competitiveness of America’s companies is in large part tied to the competitiveness of the economic regions in which they do business.

And no where is that concept more important than right here in the Kansas City region. We have two major cities. Multiple counties. And two states. But we have one economic region. In this one economic region, public, private, non-profit, and educational institutions must be working in concert in order to maximize this region’s competitive advantages. KCSourceLink helps build this region’s competitiveness.

The work of KCSourceLink is so strong, it’s gone national. Thanks to the support of the Kauffman Foundation, America’s premier foundation supporting private enterprise, KCSourceLink has grown into USSourceLink.

And that’s not all, KCSourceLink will be expanding yet again with VETLink. Thanks to the leadership of Congressman Cleaver in the House of Representatives, the tools available to entrepreneurs through KCSourceLink will now be available to our heroic veterans whom we owe so much.

KCSourceLink’s focus on strong private sector participation in building regional competitiveness is critical. While governments at all levels can be important players in economic development, let’s not forget that it is the private sector that is the most important element of any successful economic development strategy. Unless the private sector is ready, willing and able to invest in a community – economic growth simply will not occur regardless how much government spends.

This is a strategy from which other parts of the country can learn, and part of our job as the Federal agency charged with advancing economic development is to share successful strategies with economic development practitioners across the nation.

For this reason, we will share KCSourceLink’s story with the rest of the nation through EDA’s magazine, Economic Development America, which features an extensive profile of KCSourceLink in our Summer issue, due out later this month.

Through this effort, thousands of economic development practitioners across the nation will learn of the success achieved here at KCSourceLink, and of the award I have the honor of presenting today.

As we celebrate the success of KCSourceLink, and think of the regional context in which the Kansas City region – and other economic regions across America – operate, it is important to understand what’s happening at the national level. After all, it is difficult for a region to grow without a strong national economy, and our national economy can’t be strong without growing regional economies.

Our national economy is strong. Thanks to American workers, businesses, and entrepreneurs, America has experienced 47 straight months of job growth, with 136,000 new American jobs created each month since the beginning of the year. The unemployment level remains at a low 4.6%, which many economists say is lower than the full employment level.

The economy has created about 2 million jobs over the past year. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s over 8 million new American jobs since August 2003, more jobs than all the other major industrialized countries – combined.

The American economy grew at 3.4% in the second quarter of 2007, providing for nearly 6 straight years of uninterrupted economic growth, showing that ours is a very resilient, diversified, and flexible economy.

Home ownership is at an all time high – and more minorities own their own home than ever before.

American exports have increased over 12% from last year – and exports are now growing at a faster pace than imports – a key indicator of American competitiveness in the Global marketplace. And with 95% of potential customers for American businesses located outside the boarders of America, it is critical that we position our workers, businesses and entrepreneurs to take advantage of the significant opportunities in emerging markets around the globe – and KCSourceLink is helping in this very important goal.

And despite returning over $1 trillion to American taxpayers through the President’s tax relief, tax revenues are up nearly 35% since the tax cuts were fully implemented in 2003, and the deficit has declined by $165 billion in the last two years, and this country will beat President Bush’s 2004 pledge to cut the deficit in half by 2009 by 3 years.

So, it is clear that the American economy is resilient and our economic foundation is strong.

This is important not just for the nation, but for the Kansas City region as well – because a growing national economy provides the folks here in Kansas City a better opportunity to realize economic growth right here at home. It takes both smart national policies and innovative regional initiatives to ensure that the American dream reaches all parts of our great nation – and we are celebrating both here today.

Again, I would like to thank all of you for being here today at this important ceremony. And now, the moment we’ve been waiting for, the presentation of the award.

Congressman Cleaver will now join me in presenting the 2007 EDA Excellence in Economic Development Award for Regional Competitiveness to Maria Meyers.

It is now my distinct pleasure to present on behalf of President George W. Bush the 2007 EDA Excellence in Economic Development Award for Regional Competitiveness to KCSourcelink.

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