Obama Says Income Disparity a Defining Challenge of Era

[Purveyor]

By Roger Runningen - Dec 4, 2013

President Barack Obama, setting out a theme that he’ll pursue in the final years of his presidency, said growing income disparity in the U.S. is the “defining challenge or our time” and Washington must confront it.

Upward mobility for middle-income Americans has been stymied by economic changes and government policy, Obama said.

“The basic bargain at the heart of our economy has frayed,” he said in an address in Washington today that echoed a speech he gave two years ago in Osawatomie, Kansas, that set the stage for his 2012 re-election race. Increasing inequality “challenges the very essence of who we are as a people.”

After being bogged down for the past two months by the botched rollout of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the president offered arguments to press his stalled economic agenda and set a foundation for Democratic Party candidates in the 2014 congressional elections.

Illustrating the political agenda within the speech, Obama challenged Republicans in Congress to offer their own ideas for reducing inequality and providing opportunities for middle-income Americans. He said relying on free markets to solve the nation’s problems isn’t enough.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-04/obama-says-income-disparity-a-defining-challenge-of-era.html

[Mass]

1. I agree and I generally liked the speech

but two themes were really missing:

- how to reintegrate long term unemployed people. It is nice to increase minimum wage, but if companies do not want to employ unemployed people, how will that help (as he recognized himself in the speech, but did not offer solutions).

- Banks. Part of the issue is the power of the financial institutions of this country that are uncontrolled (or not really controlled). Nothing will really change if we do not change back the creation of wealth to people and companies that produce something (services or products) from those who deal with financial transactions.

So, it was a generally inspiring speech but with few solutions that could transform society.

I guess that, while it was a speech with a lot of principles I agree with, it was short of solutions (ACA and Minimum wage excepted).

[FiveGoodMen]

2. Therefore, fight the GOP (who only want that disparity to grow) tooth and nail

NO FUCKING COMPROMISE.

If THEY won't give in, get on that bully pulpit and tell America what they're trying to pull.