Obama’s America
President Obama gives another great speech—great not just because he’s a compelling speaker but because he’s laying out so much about what’s wrong with the economy.
Excerpts:
I ran for President because for much of the last decade, a very specific governing philosophy had reigned about how America should work: Cut taxes, especially for millionaires and billionaires. Cut regulations for special interests. Cut trade deals even if they didn’t benefit our workers. Cut back on investments in our people and in our future -– in education and clean energy, in research and technology. The idea was that if we just had blind faith in the market, if we let corporations play by their own rules, if we left everyone else to fend for themselves that America would grow and America would prosper.
And for a time this idea gave us the illusion of prosperity. We saw financial firms and CEOs take in record profits and record bonuses. We saw a housing boom that led to new homeowners and new jobs in construction. Consumers bought more condos and bigger cars and better TVs.
But while all this was happening, the broader economy was becoming weaker. Nobody understands that more than the people of Ohio. Job growth between 2000 and 2008 was slower than it had been in any economic expansion since World War II -– slower than it’s been over the last year. The wages and incomes of middle-class families kept falling while the cost of everything from tuition to health care kept on going up. Folks were forced to put more debt on their credit cards and borrow against homes that many couldn’t afford to buy in the first place. And meanwhile, a failure to pay for two wars and two tax cuts for the wealthy helped turn a record surplus into a record deficit.
I ran for President because I believed that this kind of economy was unsustainable –- for the middle class and for the future of our nation. I ran because I had a different idea about how America was built.
And
I believe government should be lean; government should be efficient. I believe government should leave people free to make the choices they think are best for themselves and their families, so long as those choices don’t hurt others. (Applause.)
But in the words of the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, I also believe that government should do for the people what they cannot do better for themselves. (Applause.) And that means making the long-term investments in this country’s future that individuals and corporations can’t make on their own: investments in education and clean energy, in basic research and technology and infrastructure. (Applause.)
That means making sure corporations live up to their responsibilities to treat consumers fairly and play by the same rules as everyone else. (Applause.) Their responsibility is to look out for their workers, as well as their shareholders, and create jobs here at home.
And that means providing a hand-up for middle-class families –- so that if they work hard and meet their responsibilities, they can afford to raise their children, and send them to college, see a doctor when they get sick, retire with dignity and respect. (Applause.)
That’s what we Democrats believe in -– a vibrant free market, but one that works for everybody. (Applause.) That’s our vision. That’s our vision for a stronger economy and a growing middle class. And that’s the difference between what we and Republicans in Congress are offering the American people right now.
Tags: Barack Obama, economy
The labor unions are doing a disservice if they are going to flatter Obama and praise the speech. The speech was troubling. There was nothing in his speech that would actually lead to a job for the growing number of workers older than 50 experiencing long term unemployment. Whether it’s the creation of New Deal jobs or the institution of quotas on the hiring of older workers, there has to be some recignition that the long term structural unemployment in this age group is a qualitative problem and the result of employers’ hiring processes. Hundreds of thousands of people above the age of 50 are going to become homeless a the 99 weeks of unemployment expire, and this slow moving tsunami is going to hit the shore starting this week unless specific action is taken on behalf of older workers. Everyone is refusing to talk about remedying age discrimination, shoving the issue under the rug with false claims that people over 50 have outdated skills and aren’t qualified. The truth is that employers don;t want the increases in health insurance premiums. The failure of our health care policy to separate health insurance from employment or to start Medicare at age 50 is still affecting the unemployment problem. A problem can’t be solved as long as there is a refusal to acknowledge that the problem exists, and age discrimination is the elephant in the room that nobody is talking about.
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The speech was also troubling on the subject of Social Security. Obama said that he opposed the privatization of Social Security. But then he went on to discuss the deficit commission and to say that he would not cut areas that stimulate the economy, such as education. He also repeated his mantra that government can;t do everything and we have to take personal responsibility, and he said nothing about making sure that Social Security isn’t weakened. So I’m sorry, I am a Democrat, but I cannot support Obama as the Presidential candidate in 2012. I would be happy if Trumka ran for President of the US. I think he is someone who “gets it” and understands real people, and I do not think that Summers and Geithner understand real people.
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