Opinion: What does Obama know about the 99%?

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What does President Obama know about the 99%? That’s what a good portion of readers are asking on our discussion board as they lob an assortment of insults at Obama, a president they think is aligned with the 1%.

Their comments come as a reaction to the speech the president gave in Osawatomie, Kan., last week in which he aligned himself with the Occupy movement. In Sunday’s Opinion pages, Doyle McManus opined that Obama may have successfully started to reinspire voters who’ve lost faith in him, but that elections are won in the center -- and anyway, Obama needs to turn that talk into action:

Here’s what a few of our readers are saying:

Hate the rich and worship Obama? No thanks.

I have not owed taxes for over three years so I should be the perfect guy for worshiping Obama. Yet, I despise him. Destroying successful people won’t put a dime in my pocket. I know the hated top 10% provide a huge proportion of tax revenue, about 2/3s of it. So suppose we do what Obama wants and destroy those people so he can get re-elected. Then we’ll be screwed because we will have destroyed our economy too.

Our country spends way too much. Even after we’ve raised taxes to 98% of the income of the hated rich, we’ll still have a huge deficit. Hear that Obama! We’ll still have a huge deficit!!

Everything Obama does is get himself re-elected. Now he wants people like me to hate the rich and worship him to deflect knowledge of his role in wild government spending that he not only won’t stop but wants to increase.

-- BillCarson

OWS wants to take money from people who earned their income

It’s funny, here in suburbia, where we are not rich but work hard and where me and many of my neighbors own small businesses, we are not in support of OWS and resent them saying they represent us. For that matter, it sure seems like plenty of 1%-ers from Michael Moore to Alec Baldwin support the OWS folks so it sort of taints their message too.

Let’s face it, the OWS represents people who want to take money from other people who earned it.

--tv22xxx

Try getting the 99% to agree

If 99% of the people agreed on what government should do, they wouldn’t need to worry about occupying places and getting politicians to agree, they would win overwhelming landslides. There’s no question people agree they want to see America go in a different direction, but never before has the electorate been so split on what to do and how. And it’s not a two-sided argument as the media likes to portray. People have varying ideas and no candidate is perfect. That probably best explains the frustration. You can vote for someone but you know no matter what you have to hold your nose. So does your neighbor, who thinks very different from you. It’s why no one is happy.

--cagomez

Save the middle class, save the country

It’s the Middle Class....

It is not the 1% that the people are protesting it is the failure of the financial institutions that were bailed out along with the corporations that have sent their jobs overseas that make us angry. It is the vast sums of money that corporatio’’s horde and the fact that they don’t bring the jobs back to the United States.

I repeat it is ... JOBS JOBS JOBS!!!!!!!!!!!

The recession was caused by numerous activities that we have discussed much too much.

The success of corporations and the economies around the world depend upon the ability of the middle class to purchase goods and services. If the middle class is not working they can’t pay for these goods and services and hence the corporations will lose money and profits. When the corporations in the United States falter the world economies will also falter ... hence the Middle Class is the most important factor as a consumer that supports our economies. The very foundation... the middle class... upon which corporations depend are the very ones being cast out of the system of profits and gains and opportunity.

--GordonSantamonica

*For clarity purposes, spelling errors in the above comments have been corrected.

RELATED:

What’s so awful about the 1%?

Here’s what’s wrong with the 1%

Understanding the 99%’s problem with the 1%

Kinsley: Obama fired the first shots of the class war

--Alexandra Le Tellier