Opinion: Obama's Latest Class Warfare Speech
Is it just me – or is anyone else bothered by the hyped, live speeches given during the day in which President Barack Obama has live props in the background as he speaks?
It’s like Obama is revealing one predictable letter at a time via his “Wheel of Fortune” message board while his “Vanna White”-type prop is the people standing nearly motionless behind him.
It happened again yesterday when Obama stepped forward in the White House’s East Room to make his obviously politically-calculated speech regarding the extension of former President George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the middle class.
First of all, it wouldn’t have been newsworthy unless President Obama made a change in the already-assumed measure to extend the tax cuts. And Obama did exactly that as he now calls on Congress to pass an extension of the tax cuts only for persons making under $250,000. Like dangling a wormed-hook in front of a fish, the president will leave the debate on whether or not an extended tax cut should be extended to wealthier people until the November presidential election is over.
While propped by a choir-looking assortment of people who would allegedly benefit from Obama’s plan, President Obama said: “The Republicans say they don’t want to raise taxes on the middle class, and I don’t want to raise taxes on the middle class, so we should all agree to extend the tax cut for the middle class. Let’s agree to do what we agree on. Let’s not hold the vast majority of the Americans and the entire economy hostage while we debate the merits of another tax cut for the wealthy.
Yet, Obama concluded, he will be the one holding the tax cut measure hostage if the Republican Congress doesn’t do it his way – because he says he will veto anything else.
As Obama spun the message out, it sounded like a summer rerun. After all, we’ve been here before and we’ve done this before. It took little thought to figure out what Obama’s purpose was in reweaving his story of tax cuts for the middle class with a new twist – and new live props dutifully flanked to his rear.
The president was actually responding to another repetitive story that came out Friday. As one will remember – and hopefully not soon forget – on Friday, United States Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis released the job’s unemployment report for June – the past month.
In that unfortunate repeat story, it was revealed that the unemployment rate in the U.S. is still a pathetic 8.2% under the leadership of President Obama. All that changed with this story is the number of jobs that were created. The change in that part of the story was that only 80,000 jobs were created in America in the past month while 150,000 must be created to break even due to population growth as well as the populous growth due to immigration. No surprise to anyone who’s trying to survive in this Obama economy, we’re not breaking even in these times.
So why did Obama basically retell the tax cut story on Monday, and why did he tweak the story?
First, one must realize that everything Obama says and does from now until Election Day will have one of two purposes. One: Obama will be trying to make himself look good whenever possible – as he has since he began campaigning for 2012 on the first day of his presidency in 2009. Two: Obama will try to make Romney look bad whenever possible.
President Obama’s presentation on Monday was a blatant attempt to remind people that he believes he is all for the middle class people in spite of all his administration has done regarding jobs and the economy to prove that he hasn’t helped either in the past nearly-four years. He also wanted to suggest that he – but not Romney – doesn’t want to give even tax breaks to people who make over $250,000 – whether they are businessmen or not.
This again successfully causes the middle class to be envious of the nation’s wealthy and enhances – for lack of a better term – “class warfare” via Obama’s words that separate America’s financial sectors.
Not only was this tweaked Obama tax cut plan ill-received by America’s small business people who play a huge role in making or breaking the American economy, but it was also ill-received by some of Obama’s staunchest supporters in politics – most notably Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi.
Obama obviously needs to do more research to prove his debatable point to America that taxing over $250,000 wage earners is just. He also needs to convince his fellow-politicians that there is good in making small business people pay the higher rate of taxes while they are already struggling to stay in business in these economic times. He must show how these businesses are going to benefit and even survive with his altered plan. Obama’s continued economic tax threats to America’s small businesses make a good case for simply not opening a business in the United States.
But, not to worry for Obama – for now, he thinks he’s made himself look passionate to the small wage earner while appearing tough on the small wage earners' enemy – Obama’s alleged rich man.
If anything, Obama is proving why America needs Mitt Romney – a man with successful business experience – to run the United States right now.
About Scott Paulson
Scott Paulson writes political commentary for Examiner.com and teaches English at a community college in the Chicago area. The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of CBS Local.
