Greg Sargent at The Plum Line has a sneak preview of Obama's speech on the economy later today in Pittsburgh, and it's looking like he's going to come out swinging:
As November approaches, leaders in the other party will campaign furiously on the same economic argument they've been making for decades. Fortunately, we don't have to look back too many years to see how it turns out.
There's more...
The President appears to be entering full-on campaign mode:
For much of the last ten years, we tried it their way. They gave tax cuts that weren't paid for to millionaires who didn't need them. They gutted regulations, and put industry insiders in charge of industry oversight...This the same crowd who took the record $237 billion surplus that President Clinton left them and turned it into a record $1.3 trillion deficit.
Note the bolded section. Obama may not be entirely blameless when it comes to the current situation in the Gulf--he had over a year to clean up the Minerals Management Service, and failed to do so--but he's not above reminding people that it took many years of Republican indifference, mismanagement and corruption to wreck it in the first place.
And he's going all-in on the notion that it was just such indifference that led to not only the oil catastrophe, but the economic meltdown as well.
Sargent's post is entitled Obama doubles down on gov't as force for good, and he adds:
...it's fascinating -- and heartening -- to see that Obama is set to double down on government as a "force for good" today.
I agree, because you don't advance an argument like that in half measures. Either you believe in government, or you don't. Again, I would add that Obama's actions have frequently not lived up to such words. The most obvious recent example is financial reform, which doesn't go nearly far enough. But just try to imagine any reform being passed under a Republican administration and congress. You can't, because such a thing wouldn't even be considered, let alone passed.
One party believes in government, one side does not. It's that simple. Once you see past the many imperfections in how the Democrats govern, this becomes starkly clear. It's a choice between two corporate parties, one of which has committed itself for the past thirty years to drowning government in a bathtub (and largely succeeding), and another that wants government to succeed, even though they often go about it in ways that are far from perfect.
That's the choice, and I'm happy to see Obama stating it plainly.
Live streams of the speech can be found here:
The speech has now concluded.
The White House
CSPAN
Thanks to SJerseyIndy in comments.