Obama: “I Do Think At A Certain Point You’ve Made Enough Money”
Much like candidate Obama’s passing comment about “redistributing the weath” to Joe the Plumber in 2008 got a ton of airtime, this too certainly seems like a quote we can expect to hear played over and over again in the run-up to the midterm election. During an event in Illinois yesterday, President Obama spoke about the reasons for pushing financial reform and let loose the following quip, which was immediately pounced upon by Sean Hannity and his guest Frank Luntz.
On his last stop of a two-day tour though the Midwest, the President was speaking to a crowd of roughly 3,000 people in Quincy, Illinois, in which he discussed the recently passed health care reform bill and rallied support for financial regulation reform, which is no currently in congress. The “money quote” is as follows:
“We’re not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that’s fairly earned. I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money, but you know, part of the American way is, you know, you can just keep on making it if you’re providing a good product or you’re providing a good service.”
The graphics package used by producers in this particular segment screams the words “Caught on Tape,” and Luntz immediately opines “he’s outed himself.” The following clip cuts of early, but Luntz then goes on to reference an editorial post he’d just published at Huffington Post and lays the following claim:
But that kind of comment is why so many Americans are coming out against this financial services reform legislation. They realize that it isn’t just but Wall Street it is about punishing small financial institutions. it is about punishing average everyday workers.
Its worth pointing out that Obama immediately qualified his comment with “you can just keep on making it if you’re providing a good product or you’re providing a good service,” appearing to point his ire at the category of bankers who are making billions of dollars without providing a good product or service, though that part of the comment will likely be lost to the edit room floor in the coming weeks.
Either way, we can probably expect to see this clip played repeatedly until early November.
