Obama calls GM decision a 'painful reminder' of Bush failures
On the day that he was set to secure the delegates needed to become the Democratic nominee for president, Barack Obama was thinking about Janesville.
The news that General Motors plans to stop production at its plant in the Rock County City -- along with three other large-vehicle manufacturing facilities -- by 2010 was noted by the senator from Illinois in a statement issued from his campaign. Obama recalled visiting the plant in February, when he delivered a major address on trade policy to workers at the facility six days before he won the Wisconsin primary.
"My heart goes out to the workers and families affected by the closing of these GM plants, including the Janesville plant that I visited a few months ago," Obama said. "Today's news is a painful reminder not only of the challenges America faces in our global economy, but of George Bush's failed economic policies. For eight long years, we've had an energy policy that funds both sides in the war on terror without promoting fuel efficiency or helping make our auto companies more competitive. That's part of the reason thousands of more Americans in Wisconsin and Ohio will no longer be able to count on a paycheck at a time when they're already being pinched by rising costs."
On message for the fall race against Republican John McCain, Obama linked the senator from Arizona with the policies he blamed for deindustrialization in battleground states such as Wisconsin.
"Unlike John McCain, I'm not in this race to extend the failed Bush economic policies; I'm in this race to end them," Obama said. "I've proposed investing $150 billion over ten years in green energy and creating up to five million new green jobs. We'll finally provide domestic automakers with the funding they need to retool their factories and make fuel-efficient and alternative fuel cars. And we'll invest in efforts to make sure that the cars of the future are made where they always have been -- in the United States. Because the fight for American manufacturing is the fight for America's future -- and I believe that's a fight this country will win."
Associated Press
Presidential hopeful Barack Obama noted his visit to the General Motors plant in Janesville in February (pictured) after GM announced the plant's closure Tuesday.
