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by Richard A. Epstein
(Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow and member of the Property Rights, Freedom, and Prosperity Task Force)
July 30, 2013
Income redistribution and pro-union policies are hurting, not helping, the economy.
This past week in Galesburg, Illinois, President Obama gave his first speech on his plans to reinvigorate a still stalled economy at Knox College. The speech itself received little press coverage—so little, in fact, that the Sunday New York Times ran a puff-piece on it to build interest in his next speech—on a similar topic—scheduled for Tuesday, July 30 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In these speeches, the president is using the bully pulpit to argue for redistributive, pro-regulatory, pro-union policies that he claims will serve the middle class.
But his all-too familiar remarks are likely to continue to fall on deaf ears, as the public imagination turns its attention to real events, including the Securities and Exchange Commission’s indictment of SAC Capital Advisors and the public fight over who will assume the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve at Ben Bernanke leaves. Will the President choose the oft-impolitic Lawrence Summers, who is suspicious of the stimulus, or the cautious Janet Yellen, who supports it?
Deconstructing Obama
Instead of suggesting policies to reduce the impact of government on production, Obama reverts into a lament for the lost middle class. He notes that our economic engine has, over time, “began to stall”:
[Excerpt]
Read more:
Obama's Middle Class Malaise | Hoover Institution
Obama has destroyed the middle class. Just look around.
(Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow and member of the Property Rights, Freedom, and Prosperity Task Force)
July 30, 2013
Income redistribution and pro-union policies are hurting, not helping, the economy.
This past week in Galesburg, Illinois, President Obama gave his first speech on his plans to reinvigorate a still stalled economy at Knox College. The speech itself received little press coverage—so little, in fact, that the Sunday New York Times ran a puff-piece on it to build interest in his next speech—on a similar topic—scheduled for Tuesday, July 30 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In these speeches, the president is using the bully pulpit to argue for redistributive, pro-regulatory, pro-union policies that he claims will serve the middle class.
But his all-too familiar remarks are likely to continue to fall on deaf ears, as the public imagination turns its attention to real events, including the Securities and Exchange Commission’s indictment of SAC Capital Advisors and the public fight over who will assume the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve at Ben Bernanke leaves. Will the President choose the oft-impolitic Lawrence Summers, who is suspicious of the stimulus, or the cautious Janet Yellen, who supports it?
Deconstructing Obama
Instead of suggesting policies to reduce the impact of government on production, Obama reverts into a lament for the lost middle class. He notes that our economic engine has, over time, “began to stall”:
Technology made some jobs obsolete. Global competition sent others overseas. It became harder for unions to fight for the middle class. Washington doled out bigger tax cuts to the rich and smaller minimum wage increases for the working poor. The link between higher productivity and people’s wages and salaries was severed—the income of the top 1% nearly quadrupled from 1979 to 2007, while the typical family’s barely budged.
[Excerpt]
Read more:
Obama's Middle Class Malaise | Hoover Institution
Obama has destroyed the middle class. Just look around.