Closing Income Gap Tops Obama's Agenda for Economic Change

[calteacherguy]

NYT
By DAVID LEONHARDT
Published: February 2, 2008

WICHITA, Kan. — Senator Barack Obama says the top priority of the next president should be to create a more lasting and equitable prosperity than achieved by either President Bush in the current decade or even Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

In an hourlong interview outlining his economic views, Mr. Obama praised the Clinton administration for reducing the deficit and setting the stage for the ’90s boom. But he said Mr. Clinton had failed to halt a long-term increase in income inequality that had left the middle class feeling squeezed.

If elected, Mr. Obama said he would to try to forge a popular mandate for policy changes that could reverse a generation of slow wage growth and outlast any one administration. At the top of his list would be shifting the tax burden more toward the wealthy and making investments — in health care, alternative-energy research and education — that would cost a significant amount of money but could ultimately lift economic growth.

“The project of the next president is figuring out how do you create bottom-up economic growth, as opposed to the trickle-down economic growth that George Bush has been so enamored with,” Mr. Obama, an Illinois Democrat, said.

more...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/02/us/politics/02obama.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=slogin

[Nickster]

1. That's the only way to rebuild the middle class.

[AP]

2. Looks like he's trying to get the Edwards endorsement.

[Colobo]

3. Definitely- that should be one of his priorities as president.

[Pirate Smile]

4. Great article. Very Interesting. Read the entire thing.

[Schema Thing]

5. I feel better

As a Clarkie who just didn't have a dog-in-the-hunt, as it were, I'd finally started to lean Edwards, for the very reason's of the original post in this thread.

It makes me feel heartened to have decided on Obama, because my choices had been determined by my belief that indeed, this is the most serious "top priority" item for America.

[philly_bob]

6. Depressed Edwards supporters: read full article.

First thing I've read in a while that makes me feel good about Obama, other than youthful enthusiasm and vague promises.

But he would start, he said, by trying to turn the discussion about taxes into an advantage for the Democrats during the general election campaign this year.

“We have to disaggregate tax policy between the wealthy and the working class or middle class,” he said. “We have to be able to say that we are going to at once raise taxes on some people and lower taxes on others.”

What I liked about Edwards was his "class warfare" recognition that there are economic classes in this country. Sounds like Obama might get the idea.

[calteacherguy]

7. Yes. I wanted to post that part of the article in the OP.

But there is the "four paragraph" rule. Thanks for bringing that up! I hope others read the full article and bring up other parts of it as well!