New Obama Plan Would Redistribute Computing Power

By Brian Briggs filed Thursday, April 29 3:00 AM ET

Washington D. C. - The Obama administration introduced a plan to Congress called the Computer Resource Allocation Plan, which would track utilization of computing power by citizens then reallocate that computing power based on needs.

Obama talked about the plan today at a White House press conference. “If America wants to stay competitive in the global marketplace, its citizens must have access to proper technology. Our numbers show that nearly 1 million children do not have the computing power they need. Over 25 million laptop and desktop computers are severely underutilized.”

As an example a grandmother in Peoria has an Intel i7 system with 8GB of memory, but only uses it to email and play sudoku on Miniclip. However, a 39-year-old writer in Ann Arbor, Michigan has an ancient desktop system, which frequently hits 100% on CPU utilization. Under the Obama plan the grandmother’s computer would be swapped for the writer’s computer by the Computer Resource Allocation Police force headed by Obama’s technology czar.

As part of the plan each private computer in the United States will have to install a piece of software which will monitor the resources of the machine. This data will be sent to the government and analyzed. Every April 15 citizens will be notified if they can keep their computers, or if they will be reallocated.

Both Republican and Democratic legislators have voiced concerns about the plan as well as lobbying groups like the National Computer Association. NCA Chief Clyde Boringham said, “They can take my computer when they pry it from my cold hands, which shouldn’t be too hard because I have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome something awful.”

Unsurprisingly, those with underpowered computers have come out in support of the plan. Blake Tinsley from Boston said, “I can’t get the frame rates I need to be competitive in Call of Duty 4, so I’m hoping I qualify for a swap.”

The plan would only apply to personal computers, and not to computers inside the workplace, so that overpowered machine that sits on the CEO’s desk is safe from Obama.