Obama pegs himself as working class champion
JANESVILLE, Wis. — Speaking to workers at a General Motors plant that just announced buyouts this week, White House hopeful Barack Obama tried to position himself as a champion of the working class — a segment of the voting population that hasn’t warmed up to him.
“I know that General Motors received some bad news yesterday, “ Obama said. “But I also know how much progress you’ve made — how many hybrids and fuel-efficient vehicles you’re churning out.”
(AP)
Obama announced a series of economic proposals he said would help the hard-hit working class: tax rebates worth $1,000 per family; lower taxes for seniors; $4,000-a-year tax credits for college students, including community college.
“I’ll expand the child care tax credit for people earning less than $50,000 a year, and I’ll double spending on quality after-school programs,” he said.
Like Sen. Hillary Clinton in her speech in El Paso, Texas Tuesday night, Obama vowed to raise the minimum wage.
Obama also listed some more expensive proposals:
“I’m proposing a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank that will invest $60 billion over 10 years,” Obama said. “This investment will multiply into almost half a trillion dollars of additional infrastructure spending and generate nearly two million new jobs — many of them in the construction industry that’s been hard hit by this housing crisis.”
The money will come from ending the war in Iraq, Obama said. That’s also a source of money for his health plan, he has said.
“My energy plan will invest $150 billion over 10 years to establish a green energy sector that will create up to 5 million new jobs over the next two decades,” Obama said.
Obama blasted Hillary Clinton, saying she was a champion of the North American Free Trade Agreement before she became a candidate — an argument Clinton’s campaign said Wednesday was not true. Obama said he does not oppose free trade, but he vowed that any free trade agreement he signs will have safeguards for the environment and U.S. workers.
Outside the plant, Obama passed Clinton supporters holding up “debate” signs. Clinton is running a commercial blasting Obama for refusing to agree to a debate in Milwaukee, in addition to the two already scheduled in Ohio and Texas.
“We’ve already had 18 debates,” Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod said in Janesville. “We’re going to be meeting with the people of Wisconsin, taking their questions at town hall meetings.”
Campaign manager David Plouffe said Obamas chances in Wisconsin Tuesday, combined with what he said is a 136-delegate lead for Obama, shows he is pulling away from Clinton.
“Wisconsin would seem to be a tailor-made state for them,” Plouffe said, noting that Clinton’s campaign had dismissed earlier election victories of his in states with too many minorities or college graduates. Wisconsin is heavily white and blue-collar.
“Through hard times and good, great challenge and great change, the promise of Janesville has been the promise of America — that our prosperity can and must be the tide that lifts every boat; that we rise or fall as one nation; that our economy is strongest when our middle-class grows and opportunity is spread as widely as possible,” Obama told the workers Wednesday.
Obama said other funding for his programs would come from rolling back Bush’s tax cuts.
“It’s a Washington where George Bush hands out billions in tax cuts year after year to the biggest corporations and the wealthiest few who don’t need them and don’t ask for them — tax breaks that are mortgaging our children’s future on a mountain of debt; tax breaks that could’ve gone into the pockets of the working families who needed them most,” he said.