Obama: Middle class 'issue of our time'

OSAWATOMIE, Kan., Dec. 6 (UPI) -- President Barack Obama hammered at what he called unfairness in the U.S. economy in a speech Tuesday in Kansas.

"For most Americans, the basic bargain that made this country great has eroded," Obama told a crowd in Osawatomie. "Long before the recession hit, hard work stopped paying off for too many people. Fewer and fewer of the folks who contributed to the success of our economy actually benefited from that success. Those at the very top grew wealthier from their incomes and investments than ever before. But everyone else struggled with costs that were growing and paychecks that weren't, and too many families found themselves racking up more and more debt just to keep up."

In 2008, the president said in prepared remarks released by the White House, "the house of cards collapsed. We all know the story by now: Mortgages sold to people who couldn't afford them, or sometimes even understand them. Banks and investors allowed to keep packaging the risk and selling it off. ... Regulators ... were supposed to warn us about the dangers of all this, but looked the other way or didn't have the authority to look at all."

Obama said the country has reached a tipping point.

"This isn't just another political debate. This is the defining issue of our time," he said. "This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and all those who are fighting to get into the middle class. At stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home and secure their retirement."

The president said In the last few decades, the average income of the top 1 percent has gone up by more than 250 percent, to $1.2 million per year, and for the top one hundredth of 1 percent, the average income is now $27 million per year.

"The typical CEO [chief executive officer] who used to earn about 30 times more than his or her workers now earns 110 times more," Obama said. "And yet, over the last decade, the incomes of most Americans have actually fallen by about 6 percent.

"This kind of inequality -- a level we haven't seen since the Great Depression -- hurts us all."

The president said the country needs to make investments in education and innovation. Obama also pushed for extending middle-class tax cuts and raising taxes on the wealthy, both now stalled in Congress.

Obama was in Osawatomie marking the anniversary of a speech President Theodore Roosevelt made in 1910 that sounded many of the same themes.