Clinton talks of creating jobs in Michigan
If this presidential campaign is ever to get around to policies instead of personalities, Detroit is where that might have started.
On Thursday, Hillary Clinton spoke in what once was one our foremost industrial city but is now a shell of its former self, filled with decaying buildings, unemployed workers and just about every issue that can plague a city. She came just three days after Donald Trump chose the same setting to talk about his economic policies.
While Trump offered tax cuts that, according to economists who analyzed his plan, will mainly benefit the wealthy, Clinton spoke about how to grow the economy and create jobs.
She spoke at Futuramic Tool & Engineering – an auto parts supplier that remade itself into an aerospace company – to stress the kinds of advanced manufacturing jobs we need to help for America’s middle class. She said workers there are “on the front lines of what I believe will be a true manufacturing renaissance in America.”
Her message was upbeat, but it might yet be a hard sell. The plant is in Macomb County, the Detroit suburb where the “Reagan Democrats” took shape in the 1980s. It’s a mostly conservative blue-collar community, and places like it likely to hold the key to victory in battleground states such as Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Clinton’s rebuttal to Donald Trump’s big economic policy speech Monday in Detroit showed clear differences between the major party nominees in substance and detail.
Trump’s centerpiece is a repeal of the estate tax, a move that overwhelmingly benefits wealthy families and corporations, including his. He also says he would cap deductions for wealthy people, but that would be offset by a cut in their tax rates.
In contrast, Clinton wants to impose a 4 percent surtax on income above $5 million, close loopholes so that millionaires don’t pay a lower tax rate than workers and expand the child-care tax credits for working parents.
Trump warned of American decline and looked to the past with protectionist trade policies.
Clinton promoted a can-do message and aimed at the future with a $275 billion infrastructure plan that she bills as the biggest since World War II, plus beefed-up job training and apprenticeships.
“America’s best days are still ahead of us if we make up our minds to actually go out and make that happen,” she said. A Trump spokeswoman called Clinton’s proposal “outlandish.”
While we’re not sure she can deliver on that promises, we’re not in favor of making incredibly wealthy people even wealthier as Trump’s plan would do.
On trade, where she is vulnerable, Clinton promised to stop any deal that will kill jobs or lower wages, pledged to levy tariffs on unfair trading partners and made clear she opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In perhaps the best line of her speech, she said if U.S. Olympians were as fearful as Trump on trade, gymnast Simone Biles and swimmer Michael Phelps “would be cowering in the locker room afraid to come out to compete. Instead, they’re winning gold medals.”
She said there’s too much inequality and too little upward mobility, seeking to win over supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders, who put economic fairness at the center of his campaign – where it belongs.
While she didn’t unveil any big new proposals and many of her initiatives are straight out of the Democratic playbook, she made the case that she is the best equipped to make the economy work better for the majority.
Yes, Clinton can be too wonky for her own good. But her policies offer a far better chance to boost the prospects of the vast majority of Americans than Trump’s.
This story was originally published August 11, 2016 at 3:08 PM with the headline "Clinton talks of creating jobs in Michigan."