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Obama Restates Economic Vision at Site That Resonates Obama Focuses on Economy, Vowing to Help Middle Class
(35 minutes later)
WASHINGTON — President Obama on Wednesday returned to the site of his first major economic speech to begin what he described this week as a new conversation with the American public about the direction of the country. GALESBURG, Ill. — President Obama tried to move past months of debate over guns, surveillance and scandal on Wednesday and reorient his administration behind a program to lift a middling economy and help middle-class Americans who are stuck with stagnant incomes and shrinking horizons.
Eight years after Mr. Obama first spoke at Knox College as a young, junior senator, he returned to the campus, in Galesburg, Ill., in an attempt to highlight the country’s economic progress and to restate his vision for the rest of his presidency. Returning to the site of his first major economic speech as a young senator eight years ago, Mr. Obama lamented that typical Americans had been left behind by globalization, Wall Street irresponsibility and Washington policies, while the richest Americans had accumulated more wealth. He declared it “my highest priority” to reverse those trends, while accusing other politicians of not only ignoring the problem but also making it worse.
In remarks to supporters on Monday night, Mr. Obama acknowledged what the speech wouldn’t do: it would not “change any minds,” he said. And it would not offer any new proposals. The president said the address on Wednesday would be “thematic” rather than prescriptive. Any new ideas will come in a series of other speeches in the weeks to come. “With this endless parade of distractions and political posturing and phony scandals, Washington’s taken its eye off the ball,” Mr. Obama told an audience at Knox College. “And I am here to say this needs to stop. This needs to stop. This moment does not require short-term thinking, and it does not require having the same old stale debates. Our focus must be on the basic economic issues that matter most to you — the people we represent.”
But Mr. Obama and his aides have said his second Knox College speech is an important milestone in the president’s tenure on the national political stage. They said they hope it will reset a national economic debate that had become too mired in the bitter clashes between the parties in Congress. The president mainly offered revived elements of his largely stalled economic program, like developing new energy, rebuilding manufacturing, spending more on roads, bridges and ports, expanding preschool to every 4-year-old in the country and raising the minimum wage.
“We need to do more and we need to make the right policy choices so that the middle class feels like they’re getting their interests addressed here in Washington, as opposed to ignored through policies that only do harm to the middle class,” Jay Carney, the president’s press secretary, said Tuesday. But he and his aides hoped to use the speech both to claim credit for the progress made since the recession of 2008-9 and to position himself as the champion of a disaffected middle class that has yet to recover fully.
Critics have mocked the Mr. Obama’s planned speeches as little more than the latest rhetorical gimmick from a president who repeatedly found it necessary to demonstrate that he hasn’t forgotten about the importance of economic issues to most Americans. He chastised Republicans in Congress for not focusing on economic priorities and obstructing his initiatives. “Over the last six months, this gridlock has gotten worse,” he said.
The Republican National Committee began posting comments on Twitter this week with the hashtag: #SpeechesDontHire. And he challenged them to come up with their own plans. “I am laying out my ideas to give the middle class a better shot,” he said, addressing himself to Republican leaders. “Now it’s time for you to lay out yours.”
The Knox College speech was the president’s first stop on Wednesday. Afterward, he will travel to the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg for a second speech that afternoon before returning to the White House in the evening. Republican leaders were not impressed renewed push on the economy. Speaker John A. Boehner said before the speech that it would not make a difference. “What’s it going to accomplish?” he asked on the House floor. “You’ve probably got the answer: nothing. It’s a hollow shell. It’s an Easter egg with no candy in it.”
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican minority leader, said Mr. Obama’s speech would just be partisan rhetoric. “With all the buildup, you’d think the president was unveiling the next Bond film or something,” he said before the speech. “But in all likelihood it will be more like a midday rerun of some ‘70s B-movie. Because we’ve heard it all before. It’s old.”
Mr. Obama acknowledged before the speech that it would not “change any minds,” nor would it outline new proposals. Any new ideas will come in a series of other speeches in the weeks to come.
But Mr. Obama and his aides billed his second Knox College speech as an important milestone in the president’s tenure on the national political stage. They said they hoped it would reset a national economic debate that had become too mired in the bitter clashes between the parties in Congress.
The Knox College speech was the president’s first stop on Wednesday. Afterward, he was to travel to the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg for a second speech that afternoon before returning to the White House in the evening.
On Thursday, Mr. Obama is scheduled to travel to Jacksonville, Fla., where he will continue to discuss his economic vision at the Port Authority there. The president has long pushed for renewed federal investment in infrastructure, including ports, as a way of helping to kickstart the economy.On Thursday, Mr. Obama is scheduled to travel to Jacksonville, Fla., where he will continue to discuss his economic vision at the Port Authority there. The president has long pushed for renewed federal investment in infrastructure, including ports, as a way of helping to kickstart the economy.
Senior advisers to the president said he frequently refers back to his first speech at Knox College in 2005, long before the economic crisis that seized the country three years later. They said Mr. Obama was eager to discuss how much has changed in the nation’s economy since that first speech. Senior advisers to the president said he frequently refers to his first speech at Knox College in 2005, long before the economic crisis that seized the country three years later. They said Mr. Obama was eager to discuss how much had changed in the nation’s economy since that first speech.
“It gives us an opportunity to refocus attention on the thing that the American people sent me to focus on,” Mr. Obama told activists with Organizing for Action, the successor to his campaign organization. “Our goal, I think, is to lay out a vision and a plan, and then to just keep on pushing. “Now, today, five years after the start of that Great Recession, America has fought its way back,” he said, citing the recovery of the auto industry, growth in energy sectors, higher taxes on the wealthy, new regulation on banks and 7.2 million more private sector jobs. “Thanks to the grit and resilience and determination of the American people, of folks like you, we’ve been able to clear away the rubble from the financial crisis. We’ve started to lay a new foundation for stronger, more durable economic growth.”
But he said too many Americans had been left behind. He said nearly all of the income gains of the past 10 years had gone to the richest 1 percent of Americans, and said the average chief executive had seen raises totaling 40 percent since 2009, while the average American earned less than in 1999.
“This growing inequality, it’s not just morally wrong, it’s bad economics,” he said. “Because when middle-class families have less to spend, guess what? Businesses have fewer consumers. When wealth concentrates at the very top, it can inflate unstable bubbles that threaten the economy. When the rungs on the ladder of opportunity grow farther and farther apart, it undermines the very essence of America, that idea that if you work hard, you can make it here.”
But Mr. Obama gave little sense of how he would change that beyond giving more speeches in the next few weeks if he cannot win more cooperation from Congress. “I will not allow gridlock or inaction or willful indifference to get in our way,” he said. “That means whatever executive authority I have to help the middle class, I’ll use it. Where I can’t act on my own, and Congress isn’t cooperating, I’ll pick up the phone and call C.E.O.'s, I’ll call philanthropists, I’ll call college presidents, I’ll call anybody who can help.”

Peter Baker contributed reporting from Washington.