President Obama: Income Inequality a “Fundamental Threat” to Our Way of Life

Finally!  Liberal columnists and bloggers have been saying this for years.  It's way past time for mainstream politicians to admit it and get this subject out in the open.  Maybe we can all finally start talking about the white elephant in the room.

At a speech in Washington DC earlier today, President Obama said:

“The combined trends of increased inequality and decreasing mobility pose a fundamental threat to the American dream, our way of life, and what we stand for around the globe...A growing deficit of opportunity is more of a threat to our future than our rapidly shrinking fiscal deficit.”

And he had a message for Republicans:

“You owe it to the American people to tell us what you are for, not just what you're against.”

He also took a swipe at the Republicans' knee-jerk slogans about “free enterprise" and “the invisible hand of the marketplace” —

“It's not enough anymore to just say we should get our government out of the way and let the unfettered market take care of it, for our experience tells us that's just not true.”

It's one thing for rightwing bloggers to spout off about “Class Warfare!” to their readers, all twelve of them.  Let's see if Republican politicians will spew out these same tired soundbites in front of millions of Americans.  If any high-profile conservatives have the nerve to regurgitate “politics of envy” and “equal opportunity, not equal outcome” on nationwide TV, they've got more balls than I thought.