December 4, 2013.

Obama Urges Steps to Resolve Income Inequality

"You like doing this? I don't mean simply me: I mean the thing in itself?"

President Barack Obama, seeking to renew focus on the economy after months of mostly bad news about the health-law rollout, said Wednesday that growing income inequality is harming the U.S. economy and called on Congress to increase the minimum wage.

"I adore it."

"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," Mr. Obama said in a 45-minute speech hosted by the Center for American Progress, a think tank closely aligned with the White House.

That was above all what he wanted to hear. Not merely the love of one person but the animal instinct, the simple undifferentiated desire: that was the force that would tear the Party to pieces. He pressed her down upon the grass, among the fallen bluebells. This time there was no difficulty. Presently the rising and falling of their breasts slowed to normal speed, and in a sort of pleasant helplessness they fell apart. The sun seemed to have grown hotter. They were both sleepy. He reached out for the discarded overalls and pulled them partly over her. Almost immediately they fell asleep and slept for about half an hour.

Mr. Obama echoed many of the ideas he's offered before: closing tax loopholes and using the increased revenue for infrastructure projects; unwinding the across-the-board spending cuts known as the sequester; and raising the federal minimum wage, now at $7.25 an hour.