Osawatomie Speech

It is striking how much better regular folks understand than most of the elites in this country what is really going on with this economy. That is why I continue to fear a more upbeat message on the economy from the Obama team will cause him to lose.

Well, that didn't last. President Obama went out to Osawatomie, Kansas, to deliver what the White House told us in hushed tones was a major address. H...

What with the inmates running the asylum, you might think it's an odd time to talk about the concrete ideas that grow out of the speech President Obama gave recently in Kansas... ideas in the spirit of actually building an economy that works a lot better for a lot more of us. But if anything like the low job growth we've seen for the past decade continues, we will need ambitious infrastructure and social spending programs not just in bad times but in good times, too. Again, it may seem strange to start planning that kind of agenda when the polar opposite is transpiring in the halls of power. But then again, maybe this is exactly the right time. Maybe, as Congress creeps under the impossibly low bar we've already set for them, it's actually the right time to start promoting a new vision.

Trickle-down economics has been tried, the president recently said, and it "has never worked." Is he right? Or is this just more political blather? To see, we need to go back to basics, back to Reaganomics.

President Obama's speech last week in Osawatomie, Kansas was widely recognized as an important and revealing look at his domestic policy framing and agenda as the election year begins in earnest. The contrast between you're-on-your-own economics and the president's we're-in-this-together agenda has the potential to be deeply resonant with the vast majority of Americans for whom you're-on-your-own has been a terrible bust. It is now time to add some concrete to the structure the president began to build -- to begin to think about which policies grow out of the contrasting views of the political economy he compellingly introduced.

My faith and hope for our country was temporarily restored when I listened to and read the text of Obama's speech on income inequality at a high school in Osawatomie, Kansas.

Mr. Obama is not larger, broader than he was in 2008. He is sadly diminished. But his Osawatomie Speech may prove as unfortunate for him as TR's was.

I applaud the president for making the case against regressive tax cuts as the lodestar of economic policy. We cannot afford to double down on the failed, plutocratic pipe dream that is trickle down economics.