Obama: wealth gap shows need for fairer approach
President Barack Obama, seizing on a report that showed America’s rich getting richer while the rest of the country struggled to get ahead, said on Saturday that Republicans were thwarting a fairer approach.
“Republicans in Congress aren’t paying attention. They’re not getting the message,” the president said in his weekly radio and Internet address.
Obama, a Democrat, has tried to tap anger at the super-rich, which has sparked Occupy Wall Street protests nationwide, to push congressional Republicans to pass his $447 billion jobs bill.
Republicans oppose his jobs bill because it is funded by raising taxes on Americans earning more than $1 million a year, which they say would hurt, not help, employment creation.
The president, who must convince voters he has a better plan to cut the 9.1 percent unemployment rate than Republicans when he fights for re-election next year, has also been using the executive powers of his office to roll out smaller job initiatives all week to show he is striving to spur growth.
