Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant'
25th July 2013, 12:56
The usual american liberal rhetoric; let's try and get some of the middle class voters a slightly bigger piece of the pie, but keep the ingredients and oven in the hands of the '1%'
...that was a pretty grim metaphor, my apologies.
Reversing US economic inequality should be Washington's top priority, President Barack Obama has said, as an autumn budget battle with Congress looms.
He touted the slow but steady recovery in what was billed as a major economic speech at Knox College in Illinois.
And he criticised his Republican opponents at length, challenging them to develop their own economic plan.
Republicans attacked the president's speech, saying the country needed actions not words.
On Wednesday, Mr Obama returned to Knox College, where in 2005 he gave one of his first addresses as a newly elected US senator, discussing the economic forces that had depressed the US middle class.
"Even though our businesses are creating new jobs and have broken record profits, nearly all the income gains of the past 10 years have continued to flow to the top 1%," the Democratic president said on Wednesday.
"The average CEO has gotten a raise of nearly 40% since 2009, but the average American earns less than he or she did in 1999.
"This growing inequality isn't just morally wrong - it's bad economics."
Mr Obama put the wage stagnation and the "decades-long erosion" of middle-class security down to technological advances, globalisation, the declining power of labour unions, and the rise in tax incentives for corporations and the wealthy.
But the president said America had seen a stronger economic recovery than other nations, crediting his administration's efforts to rescue the US automobile industry, overhaul the healthcare system, and invest in renewable energy.
Mr Obama added that the US now produced more natural gas than any other country and that it would soon produce more oil than it imported.
To encourage the recovery and create jobs, Mr Obama called for greater public investment in infrastructure and education.
He said the US had to invest in infrastructure if it wanted to remain competitive in the global economy, quipping that many of America's bridges were old enough to collect public pensions.
The president said that failure to restore equality of opportunity would be a "betrayal of the American idea".
...that was a pretty grim metaphor, my apologies.
Reversing US economic inequality should be Washington's top priority, President Barack Obama has said, as an autumn budget battle with Congress looms.
He touted the slow but steady recovery in what was billed as a major economic speech at Knox College in Illinois.
And he criticised his Republican opponents at length, challenging them to develop their own economic plan.
Republicans attacked the president's speech, saying the country needed actions not words.
On Wednesday, Mr Obama returned to Knox College, where in 2005 he gave one of his first addresses as a newly elected US senator, discussing the economic forces that had depressed the US middle class.
"Even though our businesses are creating new jobs and have broken record profits, nearly all the income gains of the past 10 years have continued to flow to the top 1%," the Democratic president said on Wednesday.
"The average CEO has gotten a raise of nearly 40% since 2009, but the average American earns less than he or she did in 1999.
"This growing inequality isn't just morally wrong - it's bad economics."
Mr Obama put the wage stagnation and the "decades-long erosion" of middle-class security down to technological advances, globalisation, the declining power of labour unions, and the rise in tax incentives for corporations and the wealthy.
But the president said America had seen a stronger economic recovery than other nations, crediting his administration's efforts to rescue the US automobile industry, overhaul the healthcare system, and invest in renewable energy.
Mr Obama added that the US now produced more natural gas than any other country and that it would soon produce more oil than it imported.
To encourage the recovery and create jobs, Mr Obama called for greater public investment in infrastructure and education.
He said the US had to invest in infrastructure if it wanted to remain competitive in the global economy, quipping that many of America's bridges were old enough to collect public pensions.
The president said that failure to restore equality of opportunity would be a "betrayal of the American idea".