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Obama To Focus On Middle-Class Families in Kansas City Today

President Obama greets the crowd on the runway at Kansas City International Airport. The president is in town to give a speech on the economy and meet with Kansas Citians who have written him letters.
Elle Moxley
/
KCUR
President Obama greets the crowd on the runway at Kansas City International Airport. The president is in town to give a speech on the economy and meet with Kansas Citians who have written him letters.
President Obama greets the crowd on the runway at Kansas City International Airport. The president is in town to give a speech on the economy and meet with Kansas Citians who have written him letters.
Credit Elle Moxley / KCUR
/
KCUR
President Obama greets the crowd on the runway at Kansas City International Airport. The president is in town to give a speech on the economy and meet with Kansas Citians who have written him letters.

President Barack Obama will talk about the economy in Kansas City today, focusing on his executive orders that are aimed at helping middle-class families.

Obama touched down in Air Force One shortly after 7 p.m. Tuesday at Kansas City International Airport Wednesday, where an invitation-only crowd of well-wishers greeted President Barack Obama.

Four Kansas Citians who had written to the president were treated to dinner at Arthur Bryant's. The president's press secretary, Kansas City native Josh Earnest, reached out to the invitees earlier this week.

Earnest told KCUR today that the concerns of those people — a single mother trying to put her son through college, for instance — are among the top items on Obama's domestic policy agenda.

"The fact is what the president has sought to do is to use his executive authority to take action on a range of things, from making it easier for middle-class families to save for retirement, or insuring that equal work leads to equal pay or lowering the cost of a college education," Earnest said.

It's "pretty ironic," Earnest said, that Obama is talking about helping middle-class families when House Republicans are reportedly planning to file a taxpayer-funded lawsuit aimed at impeaching the president.

While there was talk of impeachment from the House GOP last week, they have since backed away from the idea, at least publicly. The Washington Post reported that Democrats raised 2.1 million in online donations over the weekend using speculation that Republicans were seeking Obama's impeachment.

Obama is expected to speak for about 25 minutes at the Uptown Theatre today. KCUR will carry the president's speech live on Up To Date.

Copyright 2014 KCUR 89.3

Elle covers education for KCUR. The best part of her job is talking to students. Before coming to KCUR in 2014, Elle covered Indiana education policy for NPR’s StateImpact project. Her work covering Indiana’s exit from the Common Core was nationally recognized with an Edward R. Murrow award. Her work at KCUR has been recognized by the Missouri Broadcasters Association and the Kansas City Press Club. She is a graduate of the University Of Missouri School Of Journalism. Elle regularly tweets photos of her dog, Kingsley. There is a wounded Dr. Ian Malcolm bobblehead on her desk.
Peggy Lowe joined Harvest Public Media in 2011, returning to the Midwest after 22 years as a journalist in Denver and Southern California. Most recently she was at The Orange County Register, where she was a multimedia producer and writer. In Denver she worked for The Associated Press, The Denver Post and the late, great Rocky Mountain News. She was on the Denver Post team that won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage of Columbine. Peggy was a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan in 2008-09. She is from O'Neill, the Irish Capital of Nebraska, and now lives in Kansas City. Based at KCUR, Peggy is the analyst for The Harvest Network and often reports for Harvest Public Media.