The President Campaigns for his Legacy

On Tuesday, Pres. Obama gave the second of a series of speeches laying out how he plans to fulfill his 2012 campaign promises. If this campaign is intended to solidify his legacy, that legacy is in trouble.

The president correctly addresses the most serious problem – an impoverished middle-class. Unfortunately, what the president projects as a bold and aggressive economic program lacks the centerpiece that would make it work - an economic stimulus that would put money in the hands of the middle-class.

Instead, he embraces a watered-down, business-controlled and profit-oriented Republican set of solutions as he did in healthcare, financial reforms and student loans. The president's proposals contradict the ringing rhetoric. They lack the audacity of hope.

The president tends to give a good speech, so much so that people are starting to tune him out because of the eloquence. Instead, they are questioning: will his proposals revive the American Dream, "the sense that your hard work [will] be rewarded with fair wages and benefits, the chance to buy a home, to save for retirement, and above all to hand down a better life for your kids."

The proposals look like something the policy wonks dragged in. The president presents a coherent list of cornerstones that he holds would bolster the middle-class with good jobs, education, housing and a secure retirement. That's not enough. They don't address that lack of aggregate demand or the power of money.

The jobs the president proposes are the usual suspects: wind, solar and natural gas; manufacturing innovation institutes in the Rust Belt; ports for supertankers; and transportation, power grids and communication networks. The economic expansion is all based on those good jobs which to the worker means the security of money in the pocket. But to the macro economist those jobs means aggregate demand and a stimulus to the economy. This is simply a call for more stimulus.

The president's second cornerstone is an education that prepares our children as workers for global competition. The culprits in the cost of financing higher education are condemned but never named. In fact, the president nowhere acknowledges the existence of bankers and the finance sectors. The president assures us he is having meetings with "business leaders, tech entrepreneurs, and innovative educators to identify the best ideas for redesigning our high schools." No teachers?

Third, housing. The president recognizes the place home ownership occupies in the American economy and the security that is affords the middle-class. The problem of lost wealth and wages are at the heart of everything but the president seems to give it short shrift. He adopts some warmed-over, business friendly Romney proposal to offer everybody a refinance that merely shovels more money to the bankers.

It is in the housing sector where the middle-class need is greatest, the funds are available and the channels are open. When the most was possible, the president dribbled out aid while leaving millions of homeowners with underwater mortgages based on bad documents, fake appraisals and compliant courts. The middle-class remains burdened by those fraudulent, inflated mortgages. Precious little was done to bail out homeowners; everything was done to bail out the banks.

Fourth, a secure retirement. Again, the president notes the effects of the crisis on retirement planning for the middle-class. The best he can offer is a rising stock market, reform of the tax system with no particulars and an immigration reform that has undocumented workers shoring up Social Security. That's pathetic.

The president apparently understands the depth of the problem. For he says, if we do not implement his program "The position of the middle-class will erode further. Inequality will continue to increase, and money's power will distort our politics even more." He never relates inequality or the power of money to his program in any substantive way. And that is the disaster of the speeches and his program.

The president does not offer any hope, he offers a laundry list of well-worn platitudes. The president has never brought the larcenous bankers to justice, he invites them to dinner. And his Justice Department has declared known felons to be Too Big to Jail. He ignores the part their crimes played in the loss of jobs and the consequent lack of demand that leaves us mired in recession. Money power thrives on and approves of the inequality that is plaguing America. Money is a parasite that will destroy us.

Which brings us to the Republicans as an alternative. The Republicans in the House of Representatives are adamant that they would impose additional austerity on the middle-class. They would turn the whole educational and regulatory system over to the profit motive. They would make voting a hardship. And they would abolish the social safety net, Medicare and social security to avoid supporting the 47% of us who are moochers. And worst of all they would give you justices and judges that would strengthen Citizens United and the power of money.

As I finish this, I read the White House is in negotiation with the Republicans to trade Medicare cuts for tax increases in a Grand Bargain. That is a betrayal of everything we voted for.

That "better life for your kids" may be just a dream.