This Starts Today:

This morning, Senior Advisor Brian Deese sent the following message to the White House email list, detailing some of the steps the President will take over the coming weeks to help working- and middle-class families across America.

In the President's State of the Union address, he laid out his vision for Middle-Class Economics -- the theory that we can continue the progress we have made by promoting policies that build the economy from the middle out. In the run-up to the State of the Union and since, he has outlined specific proposals to achieve that goal -- in housing, jobs, education, to name a few.

The President's emphasis on Middle-Class Economics has begun to work -- delivering concrete benefits to families across the country and driving the policy debate in Washington as well. Over the next several weeks, the President will keep his foot on the gas by bringing forward new, concrete actions to strengthen the economic standing of working- and middle-class families.

This starts today, with the President announcing a new executive action to help more hardworking Americans save for retirement by cracking down on hidden fees that hurt consumers and back-door payments that help Wall Street brokers. Speaking at the AARP, the President will be joined by champions of consumer rights issues, including Senator Elizabeth Warren and Richard Cordray, Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to announce this new move.

And that's just the beginning. Over the next several weeks, the President will announce new steps to protect consumers, make college more affordable, and help boost the wages of working and middle-class families trying to make ends meet.

These steps -- which will have a real, tangible impact on millions of working- and middle-class Americans -- come at a time when Republicans in Congress are pushing the same failed trickle-down economic policies that led to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

In the first few weeks of the new Congress, they've voted yet again to repeal the Affordable Care Act, they've voted to cut education investments, and they've voted to weaken financial reform, while doing nothing to expand opportunity to working- and middle-class families.

So as Republicans prepare to release their budget, we will make the choice between Middle-Class Economics and trickle-down economics clear. If Republicans pull a page from the same failed playbook of cutting taxes for millionaires and billionaires while slashing investments in education and job training, we will move with even more resolve to demonstrate how Middle-Class Economics is working, and can help even more Americans.

So stay tuned for new ways we will continue to move our country forward and make sure that more Americans who work hard and play by the rules can get ahead.

Thanks,

Brian