MIDDLE CLASS
CHALLENGE
The Hard Math Facing Obama
By DAVE JAMIESON and ARTHUR DELANEY
ON ELECTION NIGHT in Chicago two months ago, President
Barack Obama triumphantly
pledged to fight for a middle class
he’d appealed to relentlessly —
and successfully — on the 2012
campaign trail.
“I believe we can build on the
progress we’ve made and continue
to fight for new jobs and new opportunity and new security for
the middle class,” Obama said. “I
believe we can keep the promise
of our founders, the idea that if
you’re willing to work hard ... you
can make it here in America.”
The central challenge of
Obama’s second term is whether
he can keep that founder’s “promise” to working Americans. It
won’t be easy, and in an era of divided government and amid cries
for austerity and budget cuts,
it does not seem likely that the
president will offer sweeping new
proposals to do so. The administration has said that its top two
priorities at the outset of its second term ar H[[ZYܘ][ۈ