Obama: This is a "make or break" moment for middle class
Updated at 3:20 p.m. ET
Channeling the progressivism of President Teddy Roosevelt, President Obama on Tuesday traveled to Osawatomie, Kansas to call for an economic agenda based on shared sacrifice and to strongly rebuke the Republicans' laissez-faire policies.
"This is a make or break moment for the middle class, and all those who are fighting to get into the middle class," Mr. Obama said from Osawatomie High School. "At stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, and secure their retirement."
Citing both the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movement, Mr. Obama called the restoration of the middle class "the defining issue of our time."
"I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, and when everyone plays by the same rules," he said. "Those aren't Democratic or Republican values; these aren't 1 percent values or 99 percent values. They're American values, and we have to reclaim them."
Other than that, however, Mr. Obama endorsed few specific policies, choosing instead to promote broad economic ideas -- such as investing in science and research, promoting education and encouraging domestic manufacturing -- which he put in a historical context.
Just over a century earlier, Roosevelt made a similar pitch in Osawatomie, calling for a "New Nationalism." In Roosevelt's era, the president said today, "some people thought massive inequality and exploitation was just the price of progress... But Roosevelt also knew that the free market has never been a free license to take whatever you want from whoever you can."
And for taking that stand, Roosevelt was called a radical and a socialist, Mr. Obama said, eliciting chuckles from the crowd.
Republicans in this era, Mr. Obama continued, have pushed for a trickle-down system of economics that simply doesn't work.
"We simply cannot return to this brand of your-on-your-own economics if we're serious about rebuilding the middle class in this country," he said. "It doesn't result in a prosperity that trickles down. It results in a prosperity that's enjoyed by fewer and fewer of our citizens."
In the last few decades, the average income of the top one percent has gone up by more than 250 percent, he said, while over the last decade, the incomes of most Americans have fallen by about six percent. The typical CEO who used to earn about 30 times more than his or her workers now earns 110 times more.
Income inequality hurts the nation economically, Mr. Obama argued, and it also "runs the risk of selling out our democracy to the highest bidder."
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Lets put politics and race aside, and have respect for the position!
Beginning with me.
NOBAMA2012!
OBAMA: OneBigA$$MistakeAmerica!
Amen.
I find it especially aggravating that capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than wages. It devalues productive work, and it tells you who has really been writing our legislation.
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So what you are saying is that buying investments with money that has already been taxed once and then have to pay an additional tax on is wrong? Remember not all investments have gains, you can also have a loss (ask people who own AMR stock). You put your money at risk with any investment.
Under your thinking, it would be alright that when your parents sell their home, to down-size in their golden years, they would have to pay taxes on any gains they may realize as ordinary income instead of long term capital gains?
Remember that selling your home, your capital gain is defered if you buy another home of greater value. That is a "tax loophole" too, maybe it should be eliminated in "fair-ness" also, because people who don't or can't buy a home are being cheated out of your tax money too.
Straight BS and laughable if it werent so effective on Ditto heads and Faux News zombies.
It really must scare you people to think that lower income workers might gain a foothold and start to live decent lives with modicums of comfort and safety that only the elite minded reserve for their own.
Think about....say......Rockerfellers - are their descendants worth 256% more than their anscestors were?
Their very fundamental principles of elevating giant corporations and the very rich to Godlike status has failed miserably and caused the current crisis, every bit of it. And the morons are STILL repeating the same ridiculous message. How stupid is that? Better question is how stupid are we to even consider these imbeciles for ANY elected office?
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THAT is what's wrong, right there. Everyone who argues the rich getting richer doesn't make the poor poorer look at the numbers! They go UP 250% and everyone else goes down 6%! One way or another, it has to be balanced.
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Yeah Dan, we'll make just as many bricks tomorrow without ANY straw!
Are the CEOs of today Really worth 256% MORE than they used to be?
" There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war,
and we're winning."
The republicans cry class warfare only when the middle class decides it's time to push back.
The rich have gotten richer over the past 30 years while 90% have seen stagnant wage increases. bmallen3, you and the rest of the retardlican party cry class warfare when the disappearing middle class decides to push back.