U.S. President Barack Obama said Wednesday that Washington has "taken its eye off the ball" as he pledged a stronger second-term commitment to tackling the economic woes that still strain many in the middle class nearly five years after the country plunged into a recession.
Returning to Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., where he gave his first big speech on the economy as a newly elected U.S. senator eight years ago, Obama repackaged his economic message, promising to "use every minute of the 1,276 days remaining in my term to make this country work for working Americans again."
While proposing nothing new, the president was obviously setting the table for what will likely be a bitter fight with congressional Republicans this fall over the need to again raise the U.S. government's borrowing limit to pay its bills and to fend off deep spending cuts being written into an upcoming Republican budget proposal.
In the first of three planned speeches on the economy, Obama played heavily on the need to put the brakes on growing income inequality, a repeated theme in all his remarks on the economy.
"Even though our businesses are creating new jobs and have broken record profits, nearly all the income gains of the past 10 years have continued to flow to the top 1%," Obama said to heavy applause.
"The average CEO has gotten a raise of nearly 40% since 2009, but the average American earns less than he or she did in 1999. And companies continue to hold back on hiring those who have been out of work for some time."
The president also chided Congress for being less concerned about the economy and more about "an endless parade of distractions, political posturing and phony scandals."
"I am here to say this needs to stop," he told a receptive crowd. "Short-term thinking and stale debates are not what this moment requires."
He called on Congress to set aside the kind of "slash-and-burn partisanship" that has been a drag on the country's economic recovery and urged Republicans to "set aside politics and work with me to find common ground."
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