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Subscribe to RSSThe Washington Post's Chris Cillizza and NBC's Chuck Todd talk about the key proposals from Tuesday's speech and the president's trip to North Carolina on Wednesday.
ASHEVILLE, N.C. -- Road-testing his State of the Union message for the first time since his speech last night, President Obama visited a factory here in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains that he said exemplified his second-term vision for manufacturing growth.
Obama emphasized his plans for increased collaboration between federal, state, and local governments to create good conditions for manufacturing, citing Canadian-owned Linamar’s arrival in the Asheville area in 2011 as an example.
“There's a good story to tell here,” Obama said, speaking to a factory floor full of plant workers after touring the auto-parts facility.
State and local officials offered Linamar about $18 million in incentives to move to the plant to Asheville in 2011, after it was vacated by the automaker Volvo, which caused 228 workers to lose their jobs.
The county had purchased the plant for $7 million, according to local reports at the time, which also noted that Linamar had pledged 363 jobs. So far, it has hired 160 workers and, as the president noted, plans to add another 40 by the end of the year.
Chuck Burton / AP
President Barack Obama speaks to workers and guests at the Linamar Corporation plant in Arden, N.C., Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2013.
Obama said the success of Linamar can be mirrored around the country if the plans he laid out in his State of the Union are implemented -- including funding for “innovation centers” around the country and comprehensive corporate tax reform, which includes disincentives for outsourcing and the elimination of some corporate loopholes.
And as the president said in his speech last night, he wants to raise the federal minimum wage to $9.00 per hour by 2015.
(That's lower than the $9.50 he called for on the campaign trail in 2008, but his advisers say it's still a sizeable boost, given the new tax credits low-income families have available to them like the child tax credit, as well as the implementation of the president’s health care plan.)
“It’s time for an increase in the minimum wage because if you work full-time, you shouldn’t be in poverty,” Obama said during his speech today.
The president also urged Congress to vote on his initiatives that need its approval -- including the 15 innovation centers he wants –- but he was less aggressive than he was in the House chamber Tuesday night, saying only, “I need Congress to do their part.”
Obama will continue his traditional post-State of the Union roadshow to Decatur, Ga., on Thursday and then Chicago on Friday.
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The only way to make manufacturing in the US viable is to limit imports through tariffs and decrease corporate taxes. There is no way US industry can compete in the open market with China and India with a slave workforce.
The only thing the an increase in the federal minimum wage will do is increase the cost of production and thereforedrive more jobs overseas. If people want to make better wages then they should better their educations and skills to achieve a higher paid position. Make yourself indispensable to the company and you can demand greater pay. It has worked to hundreds of years. The only problem now is everyone thinks they are owed just for breathing.
Well said "canon". It just makes too much sense from some of the liberal posters here, steadily breathing...
Why is it that when offered tax breaks (loopholes) companies are willing to re-locate?
I wonder if that would work in every day life?
Cut taxes = create jobs??? How can this be?
I don't think the union is mandatory in N.C. .....hmmmmmm Just saying.
Sophistry! Sophistry I say! Who would have thought that by cutting taxes, it would create jobs? It's as elegant as it is simple. Ask Boeing.
Cool Chris, Seeking called you names! Always better than rebuttal. Bet she does it again soon, she thinks its the same as making a point. You are in an elite group now of people who keep pulling back the curtain on her favorite wizard.
What planet is this President living on??? He thinks companies are going to magically return to manufacture in the U.S. with highest corporate tax on the planet, the Roman Legion EPA, Unions, and above all Obamacare.
And Apple making macs in the US? A measly 200 employee pilot line. All this while their sub-con Foxconn in China employs thousands with child labor.
But wait your suppose to worship the ground he walks on and trust his wisdom to fix everything with his magical oratory skills.
Just ask Chris Mathews or that guy, Rachel Madcow.
Publius,Obama is not living in reality.He sincerely needs an economist to help him figure out this unemployment problem as he hasn't a clue.
Obama has and does make sense.The tea baggers make zero sense,and should stfu as they are irrelevent
Please elaborate as to what he said make sense?
Raising minimum wage?
Spending more money that we have to borrow?
Exactly what does he propose that make sense?
Hey Numbskull Bullet Brain, do some math, our GDP is $15.7 trillion, and our debt is $16.4 trillion,
Nothing is paid for! We are a insolvent nation.
Building a few roads with cheap illegal Mexican Labor is not going to do anything but send money to Mexico and take jobs from Americans.
Liberal idiots are taken us down the garden path
I don't speak to retards
So you are just another one of the mouth breathing idiots who believes whatever the liberal media tells you.
Okay, enough said.
Yah! More stupid ideas from Obama that didn't work in 2009 and 2010 to get us into a steady recovery, like they predicted it would.
Let's try some more, chuckleheads, you have nothing else in your fake, govt-run economy.
Wait, you mean green jobs, green shoots, recovery summer, the "built to last" economy, and cash-for-clunkers weren't all unqualified successes? You mean the media has been lying to us?
Wait---it's the Kiss of Death when Obama shows up at some company right, so a year from now, we'll read that they laid off half their workers or closed?
Not a fan of Obama but the anti manufacturing mind-set started with Reagan. Remember him saying we had to moved from manufacturing to service industries?
The sad fact is that most of the people needed to make manufacturing competitive have either retired or are near retirement and have moved to other kinds of work. Having worked in manufacturing for many years I left when Federal regulations made it cheaper to manufacture overseas.
Even if they were serious, it will take a decade to get people trained that can compete with the factory skills many other countries have acquired.
The sad thing is, Obama believes in a global economy with everyone sharing the wealth. The problem is we cannot compete with countries like China and India who have a virtual slave workforce, yet we allow them to import goods at an enormous rate with little tariffs. We cannot become an isolationist country but we must protect our industry by keeping goods competitive here. Of course this effects our exports but then we have things that we can export cheaper than others, coal, natural gas, timber. Only we have been restricted in these by the environmental regulatory system. Well 4 more years of this miserable economy and maybe people will be ready to move on with a plan that will work.
Really..
What specific "federal regulations" are you referring to???
Corps. offshore for reasons of labor force cost... Low wages,.. no benefits...
The dems won't change anything about china since it was a dem that signed the trade agreement with china clinton was his name
okie58,Excellent post.Clinton screwed it up for people retiring also.If you are under 59 1/2 you have to roll your retirement into a government qualifying IRA of which you can make withdrawals of a certain percent.You have to make it last until you are 59 1/2.If you don't then there is a 10% penalty to the IRS along with the state and federal that you pay on it.Thanks Clinton,my retirement is gone due to his Rule of 72T and letting the stock market regulations timeout,which was Bush's doing.Reagan enacted a tax change that you can't take a deduction on your Federal tax filing for the Medicare and Social Security that you contribute.The employer still gets that credit for their contribution.We haven't had anybody in office that is truly for the middle class .That is why it is shrinking. Both sides of the political parties are not worth a grain of salt.
K1200Rs: There have been hundreds of federal regulations that affected manufacturing since the 1980's and if I have to name them you have no clue about manufacturing.
One simple example was a friend of mine was going to manufacture boats on property that had been used for boatbuilding since the American Revolution - EPA said ok as long as you replace all 5 acres of soil. Result: boats were built in Malta and shipped here. That cost 250 jobs here.
Sue -
The Clintons were a huge force in moving mfg off-shore. Remember NAFTA? It was the politicians and the academics all touting the "transition to a service economy." Businesses could hardly pass on it.
Those of us with a brain could see the outcome.
The bright spot on the horizon may be the low quality of most Chinese and Indian products/sevices. Soem manufacuting is returning because of this.
If the feds really wanted to bring it back, they would declare a one-time corporate tax holiday on earnings overseas brought back into the economy.
Let me get this straight. Obama is touring a plant in Western North Carolina as a model for his economic plans, when it was $18 million in state and local incentives that got the new owners to come down there in the first place?!?!?!? Way to take credit for the actions of others, Mr. President.
Where in the associated piece does he "take credit"???
Maybe reading comprehension isn't your strong suit...
Just sayin'
Maybe I should have said he is trading on the success of others to advance a dissimilar agenda. Better?
He's just employing the same gambit he did in Oklahoma, when he touted the already approved section of the Keystone Pipeline was currently being built! Taking the credit for something that had already been approved, and was under construction at the time. This man's ego truly knows no bounds.
Increasing jobs?? If he was in college, after 4 years during his first term he got a F in economics, D in Public relations, F in American history and government, D- in constitutional law, Incomplete in Accounting give no budget submitted. He is clueless, socialist, manipulative, political hack who couldn't run a popcorn stand. He is a blow-heart liberal who promises everything and delivers nothing.
Did President Obama learn nothing from the GM bankruptcy?
Companies cannot compete in the world marketplace paying top wages, luxurious benefits, and healthy retirement plans.
And as we're painfully finding out, our governments cannot sustain those same costs.
Perhaps lowering the cost of living would be the better angle of attact. Make current income farther.
The pollys both parties are on the path of a new world order that the 1st bush noted in one of his speech's also known as globalization.The only way to do this is to bring the U.S. down to their level since they can't give the other countries all our taxes to bring them up.They are rapidly giving our jobs to the countries to help boost their economy and lower ours. Yea it sounds like a conspiracy theory but do some research and it gets easier to believe
Lowering the cost of living..only half right. Obama wants to lower the living standards for everyone so that they are equal..gotta bring down the working folks and business people..they have too much..or as he said. At some point you have enough...
I'm watching Mr. Ed now. They are talking about the infrastructure spending Obama wants. Nobody has said one word about where the .15 per gal. FEDERAL GAS TAX has gone. Where did that money go? Shouldn't we look into that before we allocate more money for infrastructure?
The National Center for Strategic Education released their findings today the 23% of Americans are completely illiterate, 24% more are functionally illiterate. Where have I seen those numbers before? Oh, yeah, they equal 47%!!!! Democrats, not the uninformed party, just illiterate.
Why did Obama stop at $9.50 for min wage. Heck lets jack it up to $65.00 an hour....
Then you no longer need college....
He is just so smart. I'm sure with all his business experience he knows that would help so much...
Perhaps we should also not pay politicians nothing. That way we can fix the bridges and roads..
OH NO!!. The kiss of death..Every plant Obama gives a speech at goes bankrupt...
If Obama wants to learn something about manufacturing he needs to skip the peoples republic of North Carolina and come to South Carolina. We will provide him with a teaching moment.
Visalia,California gave Cigna,a call center,perks to bring their business and jobs into town.They were required to hire so many people and they did.They hire,layoff.hire,layoff and on and on. Cigna is a lousy employer.I quit after 7 weeks. Cigna didn't bring in their headquarters with the good jobs.They brought in the $11.00 an hour jobs and you only get a raise if your evaluation merits one.You also have to pay for your Cigna health coverage or you can opt out.Nobody most of the time merits a raise.I don't recommend states giving millions to companies to bring in jobs.I can see a few tax breaks but not money changing hands as those are our tax dollars.
Oh, come on. I thought all the insurance companies were getting rich off the checks of people. Hah ha ... sooner or later your all gonna realize its the docs, technology and hospitals raking it in. Not these paper pushers ..not much money in that. The only companies I would bring to town are mining and people who can sell stuff at big profit. Not these weasals.
typical, usual lecturer in chief, a lot of worn words, no responsibility for getting anything done. blame others, promise the moon, deliver nothing
yep. He is waiting for a response so he can criticize it. The repubs just need to sit on their hands and toil while he does whatever fits into his cynical little mind.
And why would anyone believe a word Obama said last night given his legacy of lies:
1. If we spend $800B in stimulus - we will be at 5% unemployment - LIE
2. If we spend $800B in stimulus - our GDP will be growing at 4% of more by 2012 - LIE
3. Obamacare will allow people to retain their current health insurance - LIE
4. Obamacare will lower the cost of healthcare - LIE
5. The US has never had more people in poverty
6. The US has never had more people on food stamps
7. The black unemployment rate is over 15% - much higher for young people
8. The past 5 years have seen the worst economy since the Great Depression:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/02/07/the-worst-five-years-since-the-great-depression/
In summary - when Obama said the State of the Union is strong - that's just another Obama LIE.
what can you say, its a white conspiracy and people like abuse.
Yes all the worlds problems are due to the evil white man... That's why Africa is kicking our economic butt...
"Others might simply call the effort liberal government on the cheap."- Gerald F. Seib. Most just call it wrong. In spite of the November election, recent polls seem to indicate significant "buyer's remorse".
We need some Econ folks to explain how much money is lost to other countries when some example products are analyzed on how much of the money we pay at the store for them, that is what fraction or percent of that $ per item is lost by not making it here. My guess is on the average about 50% of the value of our purchases of things made totally outside the USA goes to other countries as "manufacturers income/profits" that would have stayed here if made here, and some large amount of that would have gone into the Treasuries of city/county/state and federal governments to maintain infrastructure and services by police, firefighters, building inspectors, military defense, etc.
Democrats have no economic theory... Haven't had any for years why confuse them now!!!!
Here is the problem that Obama created for himself: 4+ years of lies, class warfare, and dictatorial behavior have stripped him of all credibility. Obama could string together the most eloquent words in the English language and a very large percentage of the public will accurately hear nothing but noise.
Obama never lies and he never has actually taken responsibility for anything...
Ask any liberal on the lie part.
Were in good hands as long as the feds printing press stays running.....