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Weekly Address: President Obama – Securing a Better Bargain for the Middle Class

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From the White House – Weekly Address

In this week’s address, President Obama tells the American people that his plan for creating a better bargain for the middle class builds on the progress we’ve made, fighting our way back from the worst economic recession of our lifetimes.

Transcript: Securing a Better Bargain for the Middle Class

Hi, everybody.  This week, I went down to an Amazon warehouse in Tennessee to talk more about what we need to do to secure a better bargain for the middle class – to make sure that anyone who works hard can get ahead in the 21st century economy.

Over the past four and a half years, we’ve fought our way back from the worst recession of our lifetimes and begun to lay a foundation for stronger, more durable economic growth.  Today, our businesses have created 7.3 million new jobs over the last 41 months.  We now sell more products made in America to the rest of the world than ever before.  Health care costs are growing at the slowest rate in 50 years, and our deficits are falling at the fastest rate in 60 years.

But as any middle-class family will tell you, we’re not where we need to be yet.  Even before the crisis hit, we were living through a decade where a few at the top were doing better and better, while most families were working harder and harder just to get by.

Reversing this trend must be Washington’s highest priority.  It’s certainly mine.  But too often over the past two years, Washington has taken its eye off the ball.  They’ve allowed an endless parade of political posturing and phony scandals to distract from growing our economy and strengthening the middle class.

That’s why I’m laying out my ideas for how we can build on the cornerstones of what it means to be middle class in America.  A good education.  A home of your own.  Health care when you get sick.  A secure retirement even if you’re not rich.  And the most important cornerstone of all: a good job in a durable, growing industry.

When it comes to creating more good jobs that pay decent wages, the problem is not a lack of ideas.  Plenty of independent economists, business owners and people from both parties agree on what we have to do.  I proposed many of these ideas two years ago in the American Jobs Act.  And this week, I put forward common-sense proposals for how we can create more jobs in manufacturing; in wind, solar and natural gas; and by rebuilding America’s infrastructure.

What we’re lacking is action from Washington.  And that’s why, in addition to proposing ideas that we know will grow our economy, I’ve also put forward a strategy for breaking through the Washington logjam – a “grand bargain” for the middle class.

I’m willing to work with Republicans to simplify our tax code for businesses large and small, but only if we take the money we save by transitioning to a simpler tax system and make a significant investment in creating good, middle-class jobs.  We can put construction workers back on the job rebuilding our infrastructure.  We can boost manufacturing, so more American companies can sell their products around the world.  And we can help our community colleges arm our workers with the skills they need in a global economy – all without adding a dime to the deficit.

I’ll keep laying out my ideas to give the middle class a better shot in the 21st century, and I’ll keep reaching out to Republicans for theirs.  But gutting critical investments in our future and threatening national default on the bills that Congress has already racked up – that’s not an economic plan.  Denying health care to millions of Americans, or shutting down the government just because I’m for keeping it open – that won’t help the middle class.

The truth is, there are no gimmicks when it comes to creating jobs.  There are no tricks to grow the economy.  Reversing the long erosion of middle-class security in this country won’t be easy.  But if we work together and take a few bold steps – and if Washington is willing to set aside politics and focus on what really matters – we can grow our economy and give the middle class a better bargain.  And together, we can make this country a place where everyone who works hard can get ahead.

Thanks, and have a great weekend.

Bolding added.

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Editor’s Note: The President’s Weekly Address diary is also the weekend open news thread. Feel free to leave links to other news items in the comment threads.


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3 comments

  2. JanF



    Transcript – Amazon Chattanooga Fulfillment Center Chattanooga, Tennessee

    The speech was not much admired by the 34-year-old editorial writer, Drew Johnson, for the Chattanooga Free Times who wrote an editorial with the headline “Take your jobs plan and shove it, Mr. President: Your policies have harmed Chattanooga enough”. Johnson was later fired for not following editorial guidelines. The comments section for the editorial (you can go find it) had a hilarious comment in which the commenter complained that liberals commenting hated this “fact-filled article”. THIS is what is wrong with journalism in America: no one can tell when someone is expressing their opinion or reporting because the lines have been intentionally blurred. Reporting requires work and opinion can just be pulled straight from the writer’s nether regions.  

  3. JanF

    Rebuilding America’s high-wage economy

    Good for President Barack Obama for emphasizing the need to restore America’s middle class. However, the actual proposals in his new summer offensive would not go very far toward that worthy goal.

    America is moving, at an accelerating pace, toward an economy with tens of millions of poorly paid service jobs at one end, and a relatively small number of astronomically compensated financial jobs at the other. In between the fast food workers, who demonstrated this week for a living wage, and the hedge fund billionaires is a new creative class heavily based on the Internet. But the web entrepreneurs are too narrow a segment on which to rebuild a broad middle class.

    He argues that the problem now is the disparity in incomes.

    You may recall the fellow who had one foot in a bucket of ice and the other in a bucket of boiling water – and on average was very comfortable. On average, Warren Buffett and I are both very rich.

    Strong regulations and government policy changes, he believes, can make service jobs better paying:

    It took several decades of struggle in the middle of the last century, including union organizing and supportive public policies, for factory work to pay a living wage. […]

    With the exception of a small elite of skilled trades, there was nothing inherently high-wage about factory jobs. The work was semi-skilled, repetitive and mostly soul-killing. The jobs were “good” only because they paid decently – thanks to the efforts of unions and government policy.

    Now we need to do it all over again with the service economy.

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