• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Obama's Middle Class Malaise

Wehrwolfen

Banned
Joined
May 11, 2013
Messages
2,329
Reaction score
402
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Conservative
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”:

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.
 
The President, who has never worked a day in the private sector, has no systematic view of the way in which businesses operate or economies grow. He never starts a discussion by asking how the basic laws of supply and demand operate, and shows no faith that markets are the best mechanism for bringing these two forces into equilibrium....

In otherwords, Obama is not a laisse fair austrian economics kinda guy. Is this a new revelation to the OP? Also, I think working as teacher at Harvard and as a lawyer and a community organizer is working in the private sector. If the OP doesn't know those basic facts about Obama then how can he know what he's saying to his advisors in the privacy of the oval office? Does he have access to NSA data or something?



Gawd, I hope he doesn't appoint Larry Summers. arg.
 
Last edited:
"WHY WON'T OMAHA HELP OUT THE MIDDLE CLASS BY RAISING THEIR TAXES, CUTTING PROGRAMS THEY RELY ON AND INFLATING AWAY THEIR PAYCHECKS?!?!?!?"

*collects paycheck from the American Robber Baron Foundation*
 
The stock market is sky high. Only 53% of Americans own stocks. Hmm that leaves 47%.....intriguing number
 
Back
Top Bottom