President Obama escalated his public campaign against Republican economic policies on Tuesday with a speech in Kansas. Obama vowed tougher enforcement of Wall Street and pushed his proposal for a payroll tax cut offset by a surtax on millionaires.

President Barack Obama: “This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and for all those who are fighting to get into the middle class, because what’s at sake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, secure their retirement.”

In what was widely described as a preview of his re-election campaign, Obama positioned himself as the defender of working-class Americans versus Republicans who favor the wealthy.

President Obama: “There are some who seem to be suffering from a kind of collective amnesia. After all that’s happened, after the worst economic crisis, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, they want to return to the same practices that got us into this mess. In fact, they want to go back to the same policies that stacked the deck against middle-class Americans for way too many years. And their philosophy is simple: we are better off when everybody is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules. I am here to say they are wrong.”