Cedar Rapids, Iowa – Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama lashed out Monday at the power of the oil, insurance and pharmaceutical industries in blocking progressive policy in Washington and used his charges to bolster his calls for ethical reforms in government.
“The reason that we’re not getting things done is not because we don’t have good plans or good policy prescriptions,” Obama said. “The reason is because it’s not our agenda that’s being moved forward in Washington – it’s the agenda of the oil companies, the insurance companies, the drug companies, the special interests who dominate on a day-to-day basis in terms of legislative activity.”
Speaking at Roosevelt Middle School, Obama said that if he is elected, no one who worked in his administration will be allowed to lobby the White House after they leave – a ban affecting potentially thousands of workers.
Obama cited the school’s namesake, Teddy Roosevelt, and the 26th president’s activities in busting trusts and breaking up monopolies as he sought to prevent wealth from accumulating in too few hands.
“We can’t settle for a second ‘Gilded Age’ in America,” Obama said in a reference to an era in late-19th-century America when wealth was celebrated as never before. “Unfortunately, that’s what we’re seeing these days.”
Obama said the country needs a president who does not see government as a “tool to enrich” friends and corporate interests but serves as a “defender” for fairness and opportunity for ordinary Americans.
Obama, the Illinois Democratic senator, and rival John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator, have each contended the excesses of corporate America and its Beltway influence have led to a government “rigged” against ordinary workers.
Acknowledging that voters have a reason to be cynical of candidate promises to reform Washington, he maintained that ethics has been a focus of his public career in the Illinois statehouse and during his time in the U.S. Senate. He said ethics reform has been “a cause of my life.”
