With time slipping away, Obama vows middle-class focus

Aamer Madhani | USA TODAY

GALESBURG, Ill. — President Obama made clear on Wednesday that championing the middle class will be the central focus of his remaining time in office. It was the opening salvo in a campaign to cement a second-term legacy that will hinge in large part on the economy he leaves behind.

Obama laid out in broad brushstrokes his plan to focus on issues such as creating manufacturing jobs, reining in the cost of higher education and implementing his signature health care law.

"I care about one thing and one thing only, and that's how to use every minute of the 1,276 days remaining in my term to make this country work for working Americans again," he said in his address at Knox College here.

The address on the economy was billed by White House aides as an opportunity to shift the conversation in Washington back to the economy following six months during which the gun debate, intelligence leaks, scandal and a host of foreign policy crises have taken prominence.

Obama charged that Republicans had taken their eye off the issues important to middle-class Americans and challenged them to offer their own plans.

House Speaker John Boehner took to Twitter to respond that Republicans already have revealed their ideas for jobs and growing the economy, which centers on expanding oil production, repealing the president's health care plan and changing education policy to give parents more choice.

Even before Obama spoke, Boehner called the president's effort "a hollow shell. It's an Easter egg with no candy in it."

"All right, so exactly what will change?" Boehner said on the House floor Wednesday morning. " What's the point? What's it going to accomplish? You've probably got the answer: nothing."

Perhaps, most notable in Obama's hour-long speech was the stark appraisal that while the economy has improved dramatically from the depths of the Great Recession, working Americans have been left behind.

Since the beginning of 2013, the Dow and S&P 500 have gained about 19% and the Nasdaq has rallied almost 20%. Obama also noted that although businesses have emerged from the recession — some even breaking profit records — nearly all the income gains of the past 10 years have continued to flow to the top 1% of earners. The average CEO has received a raise of nearly 40% since 2009, while the average American earns less than he or she did in 1999, Obama said.

"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," Obama said. "And that's a problem."

The speech in some ways harkened back to the themes of last year's presidential campaign, when he fashioned himself as a champion of the middle class while branding his GOP opponent, Mitt Romney, as an out-of-touch venture capitalist.

During the 2012 campaign, Obama said he was hopeful that his re-election would break the fever of Republicans, who he complained were unwilling to work with him

But on Wednesday, Obama declared that "over the last six months, this gridlock has gotten worse."