Obama's Kansas Speech a Game-Changer

The Democratic Strategist

WaPo columnist Greg Sargent takes a look at President Obama's speech in Osawatomie Kansas, and finds it to be a critical point of departure, "a moral and philosophical framework within which literally all of the political and policy battles of the next year will unfold, including the biggest one of all: The presidential campaign itself." Citing Obama's emphasis on "inequality itself as a moral scourge and as a threat to the country's future," Sargent continues:

Obama's speech in Kansas, which just concluded, was the most direct condemnation of wealth and income inequality, and the most expansive moral defense of the need for government activism to combat it, that Obama has delivered in his career...

The clash of visions Obama tried to set the stage for today -- a philosophical and moral argument over government's proper role in regulating the economy and restoring our future -- is seen by Dems as more favorable to them than the GOP's preferred frame for Campaign 2012, i.e., a referendum on the current state of the economy and on Obama's efforts to fix it. Hence his constant references to the morality of "fairness."

"We simply cannot return to this brand of you're-on-your-own economics if we're serious about rebuilding the middle class in this country," Obama said, in what will probably be the most enduring line of the speech. A number of people on Twitter immediately suggested a new shorthand: "YoYo Economics."

That line is key in another way. Dems believe inequality will be central in 2012 because they think there's been a fundamental shift in how Americans view the economy, one rooted in the plight of the middle class and in the trauma created by the financial crisis.

A New York Times editorial affirms Sargent's evaluation of the President's speech:

Report: Corporate America Is Sitting On The Solution To The Jobs Crisis

Last September this news blog posted an article saying:

American corporations are holding more cash on their balance sheets than at any time in nearly a half century, as they continue to save instead of investing or hiring workers, according to a Federal Reserve report released last Friday. At the same time, Republican presidential candidates and corporate leaders continue to lobby for lower corporate tax rates and huge corporate tax giveaways under the guise that they will lead to higher rates of job creation.

According to the report, non-financial corporations held more than $2 trillion in cash at the end of June, a $88 billion jump since the end of March. Cash holdings made up 7.1 percent of all company assets, the highest level since 1963.

According to a new report from a group of University of Massachusetts economists America's largest banks and non-financial companies are now sitting on $3.6 trillion in cash. If banks and non-financial companies would stop hoarding the $3.6 trillion in cash they have accumulated and move it into productive investments, the report estimates that about 19 million jobs would be created in the next three years, lowering the unemployment rate to under 5 percent.

"There is no reason that the U.S. needs to remain stuck in a long-term unemployment crisis," Robert Pollin, lead author of the report and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute, said in a statement accompanying the report's release Tuesday.

"Getting the banks and corporations to move their hoards into productive investments and job creation requires carrots and sticks -- policies such as a new round of government spending stimulus as well as taxes on the banks' excess reserves -- that can both strengthen overall market demand and unlock credit markets for small businesses," Pollin said.

Obama Addresses Issues In Terms Of Basic Fairness

The "Occupy" movement has changed our country’s political conversation. One only needs to listen to the speech Pres. Barack Obama gave in Osawatomie, Kansas, today, to understand how the conversation has changed since the GOP controlled House twice threatened to shut down government earlier this year in the Republican bid to make draconian cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

For much of 2011, Obama’s speeches followed the Tea Party controlled Republican Party's lead on draconian cuts to federal safety-net programs for seniors and veterans. Today the central theme of Obama’s speech was income inequality—and how this mounting problem weakens our economy and our democracy. At long last, the president sounded like he was channeling his inner Elizabeth Warren.

Robert Reich: "The President’s speech today in Osawatomie, Kansas — where Teddy Roosevelt gave his “New Nationalism” speech in 1910 — is the most important economic speech of his presidency in terms of connecting the dots, laying out the reasons behind our economic and political crises, and asserting a willingness to take on the powerful and the privileged that have gamed the system to their advantage."

President Barack Obama promotes an economy and a government that works for the 99 percent in a speech on Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2011, at Osawatomie High School in Osawatomie, Kan. To read the prepared text click here.

Obama’s pivot away from the GOP's austerity orthodoxy and toward public investment began with his jobs speech in September.

Since his September "jobs speech" Obama has continued to sharpened his populist focus in response to pressure from Occupy Wall Street.

Obama is again sounding like a progressive tackling issues in terms of basic fairness and attacking the GOP’s brand of conservative “your-on-your-own economics” in a much more direct way.

Obama called for a new approach to addressing America’s current economic challenges. In calling for a new approach Obama fires a shot across the bow of 30 years of conservative economic theory; Trickle down economics, the conservative theory embraced by Ronald Reagan and virtually every conservative since, “doesn’t work,” Obama declared. And even as conservatives have clung to the idea in the face of overwhelming evidence against it, “it has never worked,” Obama added: