What Obama wishes he could do on the economy
ANALYSIS - And some of these polities, particularly the health care law, will benefit middle-income Americans. But the broader economic trends that Obama criticized are much too powerful for a president to resolve himself...
In a series of speeches on the economy this week, President Obama outlined a set of policies, from universal pre-kindergarten to increased spending on infrastructure, to solve a problem that long preceded his tenure in office: an economy in which gains increasingly accrue to the top 1 percent of earners, while middle-class wages remain largely stagnant.
“The trends that I spoke about here in 2005, eight years ago, the trend of a winner-take-all economy where a few are doing better and better and better while everybody else just treads water — those trends have been made worse by the recession. And that’s a problem,” the president said at Knox College in Illinois on Wednesday.
Unfortunately for the president, he’s almost certainly not going to be able to enact much of his vision. Republicans on Capitol Hill, particularly in the House, oppose nearly every idea Obama put forward.
Many of them will never even come to a vote in Congress, unless Democrats regain control of the House next year despite very long odds.
Obama’s achievements as president are long: helping save the economy from a major recession, reviving the auto industry, passing a universal health care bill, appointing the first Latino Supreme Court justice and pushing through the first income tax increase on the wealthy in more than a decade.
And some of these policies, particularly the health care law, will benefit middle-income Americans. But the broader economic trends that Obama criticized are much too powerful for a president to resolve himself, particularly without the backing of members of Congress, the business community and even state governments.
Obama’s speeches were designed to lay out his next three years of governing, but they may more be more useful as a governing plan for Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden or whoever is the Democratic Party’s nominee in 2016, running as Obama’s successor.
