Barack Obama Quotes

A smaller government reflecting the needs of the middle class and poor is superior to a big government reflecting the needs of the privileged and powerful.

Do what is best for most people, not just a few. Prevent your elites and growing middle class, those who often benefit most from growth and development, from turning into a special interests group that blocks reforms.

Putting middle class families in jeopardy in order to protect the wealthiest among us isn't consistent with the values and priorities that most Americans share.

But I don't think the Democratic Party is at eye level with the middle class.

We're going to need to absorb some pain. The Republicans want to pile all the pain on people who can least afford it and the middle class and Democrats under his leadership want to make sure that we can address deficit reduction and continue to make investments and shared sacrifice is going to be imperative in order to be able to do that.

We cannot run a democracy without a strong middle class.

The messenger matters. When people of modest means complain about inequality, it usually gets written off as class warfare, but when billionaires complain, the problem is redefined.

The best social programs we've had in this country are those that have united the middle class and the poor.

The middle class has no more to give. The poor have nothing. Let's get it from those who've got it.

We can have a democracy or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.

Today’s cabinet members are yesterday’s board members … I am running for President to eliminate this kind of crony capitalism.

It's not class warfare to talk about fairness.

To be concerned about inequality is not engaging in class warfare.

I agree that income disparity is the great issue of our time. It is even broader and more difficult than the civil rights issues of the 1960s. The '99 percent' is not just a slogan. The disparity in income has left the middle class with lowered, not rising, income, and the poor unable to reach the middle class.

If the American people make their voices heard and put enough pressure on Congress, we can restore fairness in our economic system, do what's right for the middle class, and show that Congress can stand up to special interests.

Betty Sutton and I will make it a point to put state government back on the side of the middle class, not the wealthy and well-connected who have run the show at the statehouse for far too long.

This should be the message of Occupy Wall Street: We just want a chance; our government needs to give us a chance.

I want to make sure that ours is a party that is focusing on both middle class issues and not becoming a party of our two coasts.

It's the middle class; it's middle Ireland, and it's a group of people who often feel that they contribute a lot to the economy and a lot to society, but maybe they don't get as much back for it as they should.

Corporations and special interests have their voice in Congress, and they have too many members scared of their power. What Congress needs is a progressive voice who is unafraid to take on these powerful interests - who is willing to fight for all Americans, not just the wealthiest 1 percent.

I was raised to stand up for the little guy, for working families and the middle class.

Your life doesn't change one way for the better when the Democrats start punishing the rich. In fact, every time you hear the Democrats start talking about standing up for the little guy, look out because it's the little guy that gets creamed.

When the Democrats are attacked for [inciting class warfare] they shrink back. They don't say what obviously should be said, "Yes, there is class warfare. There has always been class warfare in this country." The reason the Democrats shrink back is because the Democrats and the Republicans are on the same side of the class war. They have slightly different takes. The Democrats are part of the upper class that is more willing to make concessions to the lower class in order to maintain their power.

There are too many people trying to take opportunity from people in the middle class.

Under this [Bush] Administration, America's middle class has been abandoned -- its dreams denied, its Main Street interests ignored and its mainstream values scorned by a White House that puts privilege first.