To whom was President Obama speaking this week in his ground-breaking speech in Osawatomie, Kansas? I believe he was speaking directly to the Concerned Majority. At this moment in our nation's history, the vast majority of Americans are concerned. They are concerned about the dysfunction of their government, the shakiness of the economy, and the uncertainty of the future. They are concerned about jobs, education, medical care, and retirement. They are concerned perhaps most of all about their children. They are right to be concerned.
What the president was telling the majority of the American people was that he understands and shares their concerns and that government -- their government -- has a responsibility to take those concerns seriously.
He was telling them what they already know: that their government does not take their concerns seriously. As reflected in opinion poll after opinion poll, the American people hold Congress in disdain. They know that too many members of Congress are not interested in their concerns. They know that too many members of Congress are driven, not by the needs of the Concerned Majority, but by the demands of powerful corporations and the very wealthy. Of course, politicians have always been responsive to those who support their campaigns. But thanks to recent Supreme Court decisions invalidating campaign finance laws and runaway lobbying on behalf of the ultra-rich and their business interests, a small cohort of rich and powerful individuals and corporations now shape the American political system on a broad range of critical issues.
This is no accident. We now have an extraordinary maldistribution of wealth in the United States. It exceeds that of almost every other advanced nation in the world. The richest 1% of Americans today control 40% of our nation's wealth. This is a degree of concentrated power and privilege not seen in the United States since before the Great Depression.
This state of affairs corrodes our national spirit; undermines our capacity to revitalize our economy, create jobs, improve our educational system, and reduce our national debt; and corrupts our democracy. Moreover, this state of affairs came to pass in no small part because of the ever-increasing clout of the wealthy Americans, as we have seen our top tax rate for the highest earners decline from 90% under President Eisenhower, to 70% under President Nixon, to 50% under President Reagan, to 35% under President Bush. No wonder the majority of Americans are concerned.
We now face an age-old issue: for whom is our government? As Aristotle recognized more than 2,000 years ago, "where the possession of political power is due to the possession of economic wealth... that is oligarchy, and when the unpropertied class have power, that is democracy." Or as Louis Brandeis explained almost a century ago, "We can have a democratic society or we can have great concentrated wealth in the hands of a few. We cannot have both." And as Franklin Roosevelt reminded the nation under circumstances not so different from today, "The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."
What we need now in America is not a culture of political obstruction, not a culture of unrestrained greed, but a culture of shared responsibility. In Osawatomie, Kansas, that is what President Obama told Americans. He told them that it is time for them to take back their nation, that it is time for them to tell those who obstruct and obfuscate and filibuster and rant that "enough is enough." He reminded us that the very idea of America is about shared responsibility rather than rampant self-interest, and that it is time for the Concerned Majority to act decisively on their concerns.
This piece was initially published in the Chicago Tribune on December 11.
Ronald Reagan won 49 states in his re election bid against Jimmy Carter's vice-president, Walter Mondale. Mondale won his home state of Minnesota by less than 4000 votes.
For an more accurate report on "Reaganomics" click the link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics
Is this really the historical pattern that Obama is looking to repeat?
I'm not sure a mere speech can ever be groundbreaking, but certainly the content of this one broke no new ground. How is this different from what BO has been saying for three years?
Is this what America has become? people who really believe that one day they will be rich like Gates.Not going to happen ever.Romney said he was not born poor and if we are all equal we are all poor.He totally miss what has happened to us in the 99%. We cannot even aspire to own a house,get a decent paying job and stop using pay day loans to keep up.And none of us has $10,000 for a bet.
Like him or not President Obama is the only one who wants to help us,yes looks like us,want our kids to be healthy and not be obese and Michele knows enough to know that Pizza is not a vegetable, she grows real vegetables in the WH vegetable garden.
Barack Obama skipped hand-in-hand with George W. Bush to the bank to deposit all of our tax money.
But what about the things he has accomplished? New Free Trade agreements that ship more jobs overseas to countries we would have denounced as inhumane a little more than a decade ago? Or the bank bailouts?
You're seeing a star-belly sneech and making assumed behavioral distinctions between it and those that have none where there are no distinctions to be found.
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." In many instances we are not going to like the outcomes.
We asked that he look into Scientology's tax exemption. He refused to comment.
We asked that he look into medical cannabis. We got a stock answer that contradicts what medical science has learned about cannabis.
I have no hope nor faith in Obama's presidency and it's too bad the Democratic party has seized upon him for a second term. I won't vote for him. I'm finished with voting for the lesser of two evils. And the clown car of Republican candidates suggests that they're not taking this seriously, so why should I?
Imagine a world that worked with this simple, logical rule. The democrats would have been able to pass their adgenda when Obama was swept into office. If the American public did not like the result, they would have the chance in 2012 to elect a republican majority to try something different.
I beleive that is what the framers had in mind, and what the country needs to move forward. We may move in 4 year bursts, but at least we would move.
I like my car to have an accelerator. I also like for it to have brakes as well.
I see the filibuster and one of those built in tools that prevent equilibrium from swinging too far, too fast in any one direction.
But "they've" made sure that no one of any substance or sanity runs against him...therefore pretty much guaranteeing a second term.
"Vote for me! I'm not as bad as him!"
The sly foxes!!
Despite the decades of betrayals however, the political left persists in its relentless belief that giving this government more wealth and more power will ultimately result in a massive improvement in the plight of the poor and middle class.
Their "faith" in the federal government is almost akin to a monotheistic religion. No matter how much evidence accumulates to undermine that belief, it remains unshakable.
Folks, you will NEVER get a big central government like this to serve the majority of people on a consistent basis. 535 people controlling $3.8T in wealth and having sweeping powers over our everyday existence will always be manipulated by elite special interests.
Big powerful central government is just NOT the solution to our social problems because power corrupts and big government is a fundamentally corrupt institution.
That doesn't mean you can't have government performing significant functions. It just means that you need to take power AWAY from the federal government and restore it to state and local governments.
See what OWS is doing? They're practicing democracy with a grassroots level dialogue. THAT is where the wealth and power of government should be concentrated. It doesn't work for everything however which is why we have county and state governments. There are likewise problems that the states can't solve (e.g. national defense) but they are very few. ONLY then should we grant power to the federal government.
But he has a pretty smile and reads a teleprompter much better than the last guy, so the two-headed federal government monster rolled out a bunch of quacks to oppose him because they can't find anyone else that's a better saleman for this ridiculous charade.