President Barack Obama channeled his inner President Theodore Roosevelt yesterday while speaking before a crowd in Osawatomie, Kansas. Osawatomie was the site where Roosevelt delivered his "New Nationalism" speech in 1910, promising Americans a "square deal." (Read the text of Roosevelt's "New Nationalsim" speech.)
"This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and all those who are fighting to get into the middle class. At stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home and secure their retirement," said Obama.
The president pressed for action from Congress on an extension of payroll-tax cuts,a key part of his $447 billion jobs package. Congress is currently stalled on the payroll tax cut issues because the Tea Party feels they are a short-term solution that would worsen the federal deficit and take money away from Social Security. However, all of the GOP presidential nominee candidates have spoken out against payroll taxes completely. The GOP says they want to find a compromise with Democrats that would keep the payroll tax rate at 4.2 percent next year, rather than allowing it to revert to 6.2 percent, but are rejecting the Democratic plan to charge a surtax on people who make more than $1 million a year to pay for the tax cut, thereby taxing the rich to pay for the poor. Something the GOP has always been against. The GOP wants more tax cuts, not just the payroll tax cut.
Meanwhile the President is in Kansas speaking about more than just his jobs bill, and launching a broad defense of more government regulation and higher taxes on the wealthy. (Where is Robin Hood when you need him?)
While continuing to blame all of his budget and debt problems on George W. Bush tax cuts, the President also attacked conservatives' advocacy of a free-market economy as an idea that has "never worked." (And the Founding Fathers all rolled over in their graves.)
