Obama appeals to middle class ‘under assault for long time’

PRESIDENT Barack Obama yesterday offered help for people struggling to pay bills and care for their families, appealing to a middle-class he says has been “under assault for a long time”.

In a partial preview of a State of the Union address, Obama outlined the series of proposals from the White House. The product of a middle class task force headed by Vice President Joe Biden, the proposals will also be included in Obama’s budget request to be submitted to Congress.

Among the initiatives: a doubling of the child care tax credit for families earning under $85,000; a $1.6 billion increase in federal funding for childcare programmes; and a programme to cap student loan payments at 10% of income above “a living allowance”.

His initiatives also include expanding tax credits to match retirement savings and increasing aid for families taking care of elderly relatives.

That programme would also require many employers to provide the option of a workplace-based retirement savings plan.

Obama is seeking to offer some attractive options to taxpayers, mindful of the painful implications of the loss of a traditionally Democratic Senate seat in Massachusetts to Republican Scott Brown. White House advisers see Wednesday’s State of the Union speech as a key opportunity for Obama to recalibrate his message and reset his presidency after that stinging setback, which took away the Democrats’ 60-vote Senate supermajority and put his main domestic agenda item, health care overhaul, in doubt.

Obama and fellow Democrats are trying to regroup to stem more losses of congressional, gubernatorial and legislative seats in this autumn’s midterm elections. His poll numbers are also off, because of slow economic recovery and double-digit unemployment.

Obama said, “We also need to reverse the overall erosion in middle-class security, so that when this economy does come back, working Americans are free to pursue their dreams again.”

The White House says the new proposals are aimed at just that, the “sandwich generation” that is now struggling to care for both children and parents. The theme fits into the planned economic message of Obama’s prime-time address to the nation on Wednesday, which promises to provide a sharper focus on jobs and is likely to cover financial regulations, energy, education, immigration and a push to change the political tone in Washington.