Obama praises workers “who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.”

President Barack Obama’s inaugural address praised the nation’s workers, but also laid out stark challenges they — and the country – face.  And he also made it very clear he intends to end the ideological warfare of the last two decades — conflict that cost workers their rights, their income and, increasingly, their jobs under former President Bush. 

Obama took the oath of office at   12:04 p.m., Jan. 20, before an estimated 1.8 million people stretching from the West Front of the Capitol all the way down the miles of the Mall in Washington to the Lincoln Memorial at its farthest end.

Hundreds of thousands more lined Pennsylvania Avenue for his inaugural parade, which included 265 unionists and their own pro-worker float. 

“On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics” in past years.

“In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given.  It must be earned.  Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path of the fainthearted, for those who prefer leisure over work or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things — some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor — who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom,” he declared. 

Obama made it clear in his address that his administration would try to serve those people, and not the rich and influential. And he warned cynics, whom he did not name, that their time has passed. 

Obama urged the 111th Congress to pass his $825 billion stimulus package to help stave off rising joblessness and state fiscal crises.

“The question we ask today is not whether government is too big or too small, but whether it works, whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford and a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is ‘yes,’ we intend to move forward.  Where the answer is ‘no,’ programs will end,” Obama stated. 

Obama had a stern warning for Wall Street as well.

“This crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control.  The nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.”

“The success of our economy has depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity, on the ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart, not out of charity, but because it is our surest route to the common good,” he explained. Obama also said “greed and irresponsibility” caused the economic slump.

But Obama also summoned workers, and citizens, to sacrifice for the common good. Early in the speech, he warned the country would finally have to face some hard choices “and unpleasant decisions” in “the task of remaking America.” He did not specify what they would be, but he previously said his administration would convene a task force to examine the future funding of the nation’s large entitlement programs.

And late in the speech, he praised workers for being willing to sacrifice for the greater good: “It is a kindness to take in the stranger when the levees break,” he said, as they did when Hurricane Katrina smashed New Orleans.

He also cited “the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job” and “the firefighters’ courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke” — as New York Fire Fighters did during the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks