Obama: Limited Gov't That Preserves Free Markets 'Doesn't Work. It Has Never Worked'

CNS News ^ | December 7, 2011 | Terence P. Jeffrey

[Son House]

In a speech delivered at Osawatomie High School in Osawatomie, Kansas, on Tuesday, President Barack Obama argued that while a limited government that preserves free markets "speaks to our rugged individualism" as Americans, such a system "doesn't work" and "has never worked" and that Americans must look to a more activist government that taxes more, spends more and regulates more if they want to preserve the middle class.

"'[T]here is a certain crowd in Washington who, for the last few decades, have said, let’s respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. 'The market will take care of everything,' they tell us," said Obama. "If we just cut more regulations and cut more taxes--especially for the wealthy--our economy will grow stronger.

"Sure, they say, there will be winners and losers," Obama continued. "But if the winners do really well, then jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everybody else. And, they argue, even if prosperity doesn’t trickle down, well, that’s the price of liberty.

"Now, it’s a simple theory," said Obama. "And we have to admit, it’s one that speaks to our rugged individualism and our healthy skepticism of too much government. That’s in America’s DNA. And that theory fits well on a bumper sticker. But here’s the problem: It doesn’t work. It has never worked.

"It didn’t work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression," said Obama. "It’s not what led to the incredible postwar booms of the ‘50s and ‘60s. And it didn’t work when we tried it during the last decade. I mean, understand, it’s not as if we haven’t tried this theory.

"Remember in those years, in 2001 and 2003, Congress passed two of the most expensive tax cuts for the wealthy in history," said Obama. "And what did it get us? The slowest job growth in half a century. Massive deficits that have made it much harder to pay for the investments that built this country and provided the basic security that helped millions of Americans reach and stay in the middle class==things like education and infrastructure, science and technology, Medicare and Social Security.

"Remember that in those same years, thanks to some of the same folks who are now running Congress, we had weak regulation, we had little oversight, and what did it get us?" said Obama. "Insurance companies that jacked up people’s premiums with impunity and denied care to patients who were sick, mortgage lenders that tricked families into buying homes they couldn’t afford, a financial sector where irresponsibility and lack of basic oversight nearly destroyed our entire economy.

"We simply cannot return to this brand of 'you’re on your own' economics if we’re serious about rebuilding the middle class in this country," said Obama.

[Straight Vermonter]

"It didn’t work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression,"

Actually big government crony protectionism was a large contributor to the depression.

"It’s not what led to the incredible postwar booms of the ‘50s and ‘60s.

Is he suggesting that we use our air force to physically destroy the industrial infrastructure of our international competitors? That is, after all, what led to the post-war boom.

And it didn’t work when we tried it during the last decade.

He can't seriously be suggesting that we had anything approaching free market capitalism with a low tax rate, can he? It's been about 100 years since we had anything like that.

[lentulusgracchus]

Thanks for the post of the Rush link. I sent cc of the [Manchester] Guardian link to the original text, to my sensate friends who will know what they're reading.

[OldEarlGray]

"We didn't truly know the dangers of the market, because it was a dark market," says Brooksley Born, the head of an obscure federal regulatory agency -- the Commodity Futures Trading Commission [CFTC] -- who not only warned of the potential for economic meltdown in the late 1990s, but also tried to convince the country's key economic powerbrokers to take actions that could have helped avert the crisis. "They were totally opposed to it," Born says. "That puzzled me. What was it that was in this market that had to be hidden?"

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/view/

[OldEarlGray]

How’s that TARP over the A$$paper thing workin’ out for ya?

[arasina]

How’s that TARP over the A$$paper thing workin’ out for ya?

See? If you aren't spamming, you're cursing at someone. Trying to be clever calling yourself stale tea? You might want to take a break and do something about that stomach ulcer, Earl.

[OldEarlGray]

A$$paper is the vernacular term used on Wall Street for the fraudulent AAA-—>Junk that was manufactured via the sub-prime securitization process.

TARP was the how that fraud was further redistributed.

How’s that workin’ out for ya?

[arasina]

You’re nuts. How’s that workin’ out fir ya?

[CottShop]

and apparently the government FORCING bajks to lend money to peopel to buy hosues they can’t afford works according to whiny o? Freddie and Fannie will be the first to declare big government RUIINED them- then stepped i nand bailed them out with TAXPAYER money that hte taxpayers will NEVER see again- he left is spendign htis coutnry into oblivion, but this country doesn’t realize it yey because the bill hasn’t come due just yet- thanks to big government- they are running out of ways to STEAL more money fro mworkign class America to pay for buig government-

[OldEarlGray]

Who was Roland Arnall super genius?

[Bellflower]

The way this man can lie makes me think that he really is Satan himself in disguise. Unbelievable!!! I HAD to check and see if this was a satire. It isn't. Again, unbelievable!!! How could anybody of prominence get away with giving this speech in the United States of America, and he is the acting President? I am so shocked. He is pulling off his mask and strutting about as a Stalinist and he isn't being tarred and feathered and ran out of the Country.

I am printing this speech and distributing it to all that I can. I may tack it on telephone poles and say read what your communist President has to say about the USA and how we have thought and how we have run our Nation since it's beginning and weep, and vote him out.

Everyone tack this around the city you live in. Send it to everyone. Do our Conservative commentators know about this unbelievably anti USA, communistic speech??? This cannot be buried, but this speech must have accountability.

I am not exaggerating when I say that I think that Satan himself lives in this man.