President Barack Obama wants you to know that you don’t need to vote for Donald Trump to make America great again Obama’s already done it.
Obama didn't endorse any of the candidates for president on Wednesday afternoon as he spoke in Elkhart, Indiana. Instead, he essentially endorsed a third Obama term, and warned about choosing a path that's forged by Trump.
“If what you really care about in this election is your pocketbook; if what you’re concerned about is who will look out for the interests of working people and grow the middle class, then the debate isn’t even close,” Obama said.
Elkhart, a town known for its RV industry, certainly wasn’t great when Obama first took office. The unemployment rate was pushing 20 percent about double the already high national average when Obama visited the town as his first domestic trip in February 2009. Then, he pushed for the economic stimulus package, and now, he’ll say it worked. Elkhart’s unemployment rate is at 4 percent lower than the 5 percent nationwide. High school graduation rates in Elkhart are up, according to the White House, while underwater mortgages around Indiana and the nation are down.
“Elkhart” said a release from the White House blasted out just before Obama boarded Marine One for the trip, “is symbolic of America’s recovery.”
It’s also a predominantly white, working class town of about 50,000 in the center of the Rust Belt region that Trump hopes to move into the red column.
“One path would lower wages, eliminate worker protections, cut investments in things like education, it would weaken the safety net, it would kick people off health insurance, it would let China write the rules for the global economy. It would let big oil weaken rules that protect our air and water, and big banks weaken rules that protect families from getting cheated, and cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans to historic lows," Obama said.
“I know it sounds like a strange agenda for politicians claiming to care about working families. But these are their plans. You can find them on their websites. When I hear about working families voting for those plans, then I want to have an intervention. And the evidence of the last 30 years, not to mention common sense, should tell you that their answers to our challenges are no answers at all,” Obama went on to say.
“Fortunately, there’s another path that leads to more jobs. Higher wages. Better benefits. A stronger safety net. A fairer tax code. A bigger voice for workers. Trade on our terms. It will make a real difference for the prospects of working families. It will grow the middle class.”
On that trade point, however, it’s not clear what choice voters will have in November.
While Clinton has largely embraced Obama’s record, the Trans-Pacific Partnership is a glaring exception. Opposition to the 12-nation trade deal, which still needs congressional approval, is a rare point of agreement among Trump, Clinton and her Democratic opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders. The vociferous critiques of deals like NAFTA and the TPP are central planks of Sanders’ and Trump’s populist appeals to downscale voters who left behind by the globalized, service economy and the current recovery.
Indeed, Obama’s critics credit local resilience with Elkhart’s recovery (the state has also been run by Republican governors throughout his term) not to mention lower gas prices for the resurgence of the RV industry. Trump has even used Indiana as evidence that the economy is still in bad shape.
“You’re looking at a situation where the jobs are being ripped out of our states, out of our country, like candy from a baby,” Trump said in April as he blasted the air conditioning manufacturer Carrier for laying off workers at its Indianapolis plant as it moves some of its production south of the border.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Tuesday that’s all the more reason to pass the president’s trade deal.
Will politicians, Earnest said, “bemoan the fact that there are manufacturing jobs that are leaving Indiana as a result of this decision by Carrier, or are you actually going to do something about it? And President Obama has pursued a strategy for actually doing something about it by completing a Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement that includes Canada and Mexico, that effectively does renegotiate NAFTA, that will put in place higher and enforceable labor and environmental standards.”
Obama, as he has done before, tried to reinforce his more optimistic and united vision of the country.
“The ideas I’ve laid out today won’t solve every problem, or make everybody financially secure overnight,” Obama said. "But they'll put us in the right direction. And one thing I can promise you is if we turn against each other based on divisions of race or religion, if we fall for a bunch of okeedoke just because it sounds funny or the tweets are provocative, then we’re not gonna build on the progress we’ve started. If we get cynical and just vote our fears, or if we don’t vote at all, we won’t build on the progress we’ve started."
Source: Politico
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