http://www.alternet.org/story/152350Obama Delivers Impassioned Jobs Speech, But Fails to Take GOP to Task for Blocking ProgressBy Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on September 9, 2011, Printed on September 9, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152350/On Thursday night, Barack Obama took to the podium to address the country with uncharacteristic passion. His voice was inflected with genuine anger as he asked Congress to pass a stimulus package significantly larger than reports over the past week had suggested.
He called on the assembled lawmakers to stop squabbling and do something for the American people. “I know there’s been a lot of skepticism about whether the politics of the moment will allow us to pass this jobs plan,” he said. “But know this: the next election is fourteen months away. And the people who sent us here – the people who hired us to work for them – they don’t have the luxury of waiting fourteen months. Some of them are living week to week; paycheck to paycheck; even day to day. They need help, and they need it now.”
But the content of his speech belied the fire in his tone. Obama once again tried to offer something for everyone. For his base, he laid out a compelling narrative of how the American middle-class has faced a decades-long assault on its economic security. Americans, he said, believe “in a country where everyone gets a fair shake and does their fair share – where if you stepped up, did your job, and were loyal to your company, that loyalty would be rewarded with a decent salary and good benefits.” But for years, they “watched that compact erode. They have seen the deck too often stacked against them. And they know that Washington hasn’t always put their interests first.” He “rejected the argument that says for the economy to grow, we have to roll back protections that ban hidden fees by credit card companies, or rules that keep our kids from being exposed to mercury, or laws that prevent the health insurance industry from shortchanging patients.” He said, “We shouldn’t be in a race to the bottom, where we try to offer the cheapest labor and the worst pollution standards.”
He promised conservatives that the package wouldn't add a penny to the deficit, and took a shot at members of his own party “who don’t think we should make any changes at all to Medicare and Medicaid.” He talked about passing trade deals and cutting “rules and regulations that put an unnecessary burden on businesses at a time when they can least afford it.”
In splitting the difference, he may have pleased nobody, but that's not the issue. Regardless of what the pundits say, the speech's fatal flaw, in this circumstance, was its lack of partisanship.
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