President Barack Obama Announces Creation of Task Force on the Middle Class, Signs Executive Orders Aimed at Strengthening Labor Unions

In a tremendous departure from the Bush Administration, President Barack Obama realizes that the middle class is the backbone of this society. On a day when the country's gross domestic product suffered its worst slide in three decades, President Obama has ordered the creation of a task force on the middle class and signed executive orders aimed at strengthening labor unions.

"This isn't just an economic concept," Obama said of the 3.8% decline in the GDP in the last quarter of 2008. "This is a continuing disaster for America's families." "The recession is deepening, and the urgency of our economic crisis is growing," Obama said in an address in the East Room of the White House, part of a series of addresses on the economy this week.

"Every day it seems there is another round of layoffs, and another round of families' lives turned upside down."In signing orders aimed at protecting access to federal contracts for companies with labor unions and informing workers of their rights to organize, the president said,

"I also believe that we have to reverse some of the policies" toward organized labor."I don't see organized labor as part of the problem," Obama said. "To me, it's part of the solution." Citing record unemployment claims as well as the overall economic decline, he said, "This is a difficult moment. But I believe ... if we act swiftly ... it can be an American moment."

Obama, describing what is happening in the nation's economy as "the American dream in reverse," also used this stage as a forum for promoting the $800-billion-plus economic stimulus plan that the House approved in the measure's first vote this week. The Senate, expected to expand on the plan, will vote next."They need us to pass the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan," Obama said, promising that it will create jobs "for years to come," rebuild crumbling roads, renovate schools, double the nation's capacity for alternative energy generation and "bring healthcare into the 21st century." Source: LA Times

The Obama administration has started a new website -- http://www.astrongmiddleclass.gov/ -- that will keep track of the task force's work.The administration has assigned it these goals: "Expanding education and lifelong training opportunities, improving work and family balance, restoring labor standards, including workplace safety, helping to protect middle-class and working-family incomes, protecting retirement security."

Members will include the secretaries of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Commerce, as well as the directors of the National Economic Council, the Office of Management and Budget and the Domestic Policy Council and the chair of the Council of Economic Advisors. The White House says it will hold its first meeting Feb. 27 in Philadelphia, focusing on "Green Jobs: A Pathway to a Strong Middle Class."

So, some people may find President Obama's policies a bother, but I can say one thing, he is the closest person we have as our president who truly understands the middle class. President Bush had no concept of what it means to struggle to make ends meet. I may not agree with all President Obama's positions, but I will give him my full support because he is the embodiment of the middle class.