Barack Obama returned to Michigan to campaign here with an eye on the general election.  Obama visited Macomb Country and toured the Chrysler Stamping Plant in Sterling Heights.  The symbol of America’s manufacturing strength for the better part of the 20th century, Michigan’s auto industry has been struggling to stay profitable and relevant in the era of outsourcing and rising oil prices.  The state served as a perfect backdrop for Barack Obama to unveil his Manufacturing Agenda that outlines his priorities for this crucially important sector of our economy.

Obama began by acknowledging the struggles of the industry.  The auto industry lost 300,000 jobs in the past eight years - about a third of which were lost in Michigan.  “That’s hundreds of thousands of workers who will no longer be able to count on a paycheck to pay the rising costs of health care and college; gas and groceries,” said the candidate. Obama noted that manufacturing supports one in six American jobs, and that we’ve lost nearly 4 million of them in the last eight years.

Here are the main initiatives of the manufacturing agenda that Barack Obama highlighted in his speech:

• $150 billion investment in “green energy sector” that will create “up to five million” new green jobs in the U.S.;
• 10 billion a year investment in Clean Technologies Deployment Venture Capital Fund that will assist with bringing breakthrough technologies invented in America to production also here in America;
• Advanced Manufacturing Fund to invest in “innovation and job creation in places that have been hard hit by the decline in manufacturing”;
• Double the funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership;
• $60 billion infrastructure fund to rebuild highways, bridges, roads, ports, air, and train systems, lower transportation costs for manufacturers and spur job growth in manufacturing;
• Fix the health care crisis and investing in science and math education from kindergarten through graduate school; and
• Reform our trade policy to ensure our workers can compete on a level playing field and to create good jobs at home and real markets for American products abroad.

Obama said that he believes in trade, but we need to make sure t that our workers are competing on a level playing field, and that countries like China aren’t breaking the rules and putting American workers at a disadvantage. “Fighting for our workers isn’t bad for business; it’s good for our economy,” concluded the candidate.  Now, that’s the spirit.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 10:20 pm and is filed under Manufacturing in the U.S., Holding China Accountable, Economic Security, Health Security, Enforcing Trade Laws. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.