Clinton proposing plan to keep jobs in U.S.

$7 billion effort offers tax benefits for research and job development

Presidential hopeful, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., wants to create "innovation and research clusters" and provide $500 million annually in investments to encourage the creation of high-wage jobs in clean energy.

PITTSBURGH - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is proposing billions of dollars a year Wednesday to keep jobs from being shipped abroad as she appealed to blue collar workers in Pennsylvania, the next big primary contest where she hopes to trim rival Barack Obama's lead.

Obama seemed to ignore the former first lady, turning his political guns on presumptive Republican nominee John McCain to blast his stands on the Iraq war and the economy.

Clinton has come under pressure from Obama supporters in recent days to drop out of the contest because of what some see as the Illinois senator's insurmountable delegate lead with just 10 primaries and caucuses to go.

But the former first lady showed no signs of quitting as she focused on job creation and challenges to the U.S. economy at campaign appearances across Pennsylvania, which holds the next primary contest on April 22 with 158 delegates at stake.

At an economic summit in Pittsburgh on Wednesday organized by her presidential campaign, Clinton proposed the elimination of tax breaks for companies that move jobs to other countries and use the savings to provide $7 billion a year in tax incentives to persuade companies to "insource" jobs in the United States

Pennsylvania and other states holding upcoming primaries, including Indiana and Kentucky, have suffered the loss of manufacturing jobs in recent years and have yet to transition to new industries and other ways of expanding their economies.

Clinton's plan would offer new tax benefits for research and job development. It would also create "innovation and research clusters" and provide $500 million annually in investments to encourage the creation of high-wage jobs in clean energy.

Obama tried to look past his nomination battle with Clinton to the general election matchup with the Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain, who has been playing up his foreign policy and national security experience.

Obama picked up the endorsement of former Indiana Rep. Lee Hamilton, the top Democrat on the panel that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks, which could boost his national security standing.

Hamilton is the highest profile Indiana Democrat to back Obama before the state's May 6 primary.

The former Indiana lawmaker served on the House Foreign Affairs Committee during his more than three decades in Congress and also was co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan commission that assessed U.S. policy in Iraq.

On Tuesday, Clinton lashed both the Republicans and Obama, most notably with vows not to quit the race and likened herself to a hometown Philadelphia legend, the film boxer Rocky Balboa."Let me tell you something, when it comes to finishing a fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common. I never quit. I never give up. And neither do the American people," Clinton said Tuesday at the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO convention in Philadelphia. The organization is one of America's largest labor union federations.

The Pennsylvania vote, in which polls show Clinton with a comfortable lead over Obama, is key to the former first lady's bid to whittle down her opponent's overall lead in popular votes, delegates and states won.

According to the Associated Press tally of delegates, Obama leads Clinton 1,632-1,500, including the so-called superdelegates, elected officials and party leaders who can vote for whichever candidate they want regardless of primary and caucus outcomes. A total of 2,024 delegates are needed to win the nomination at the party's national convention this summer in Denver.

NBC's national delegate count stands at 1252 for Clinton and 1416 for Obama. NBC’s estimated superdelegate count stands at 255 for Clinton and 222 for Obama.

[There are differences in how news organization count delegates, how they award superdelegates, how they account for states that have held caucuses but have not yet chosen their delegates, and how they project the apportionment of delegates within Congressional districts where the vote was close. The Associated Press and NBC news conduct separate delegate counts.]

But Obama turned his attention to McCain as if victory in the increasingly bitter nomination race against Clinton were a foregone conclusion.

"He's on a biography tour right now," Obama said of McCain. "Most of us know his biography, and it's worthy of our admiration. My argument with John McCain is not with his biography, it's with his policies."

McCain has opened a drive in recent days to define himself as a candidate with an impeccable military pedigree and experience in national security issues absent in either Clinton or Obama.

For his part, Obama has argued that a McCain victory would be another four years of President George W. Bush on economic and military policies.

"Senator McCain has been saying I don't understand national security, but he's the one who wants to keep tens of thousands of United States troops in Iraq for as long as 100 years," Obama said.

McCain has said the U.S. could end up having a long-term military presence in Iraq, similar to the more than 50-year presence of U.S. soldiers in Germany and South Korea.

"One hundred years in a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 may make sense to George Bush and John McCain but it is the wrong thing to do," Obama said, drawing applause at the town-hall session.

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said Obama's remarks showed his "complete lack of preparedness to be commander in chief."

"His attempt to paint McCain's position as something else is nothing but the disingenuous, old-style politics that he claims to reject," Bounds said.

Clinton assaulted McCain as a candidate who would stand back and watch as the U.S. economy spiraled downward and blamed Bush for the nation's deepening financial difficulties. She announced support for a plan to create 3 million new jobs to rebuild the U.S. infrastructure.

Obama latched onto the same theme, promising to create jobs by using $60 billion he said would be saved by ending the Iraq war.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23916757/

Hillary believes that we need to restore balance to our economy by putting the needs of working families first.

• Creating Three Million Jobs Here at Home Through Investments in Infrastructure. Hillary’s plan to repair and modernize our nation’s infrastructure will help generate at least three million new jobs over the next decade. Her plan combines emergency initiatives with long-term investments to create a greener, sleeker 21st century highway and transit system. She will:
• Address immediate safety risks like the I-95 bridge in Philadelphia. She will establish a $10 billion Emergency Repair Fund that tackles the backlog of critical repairs, and prvide funding for Emergency Assessment Grants so that states and cities can determine their risks and needs.
• Ensure a sustainable, long-term commitment to a modern and efficient infrastructure. Last August, she announced her commitment to creating a $60 billion National Infrastructure Bank – a federally-backed independent entity that will evaluate and finance large infrastructure projects that are of regional or national significance. The bank will finance projects through the issuance of bonds backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, direct subsidies, and loan guarantees.
• Expand public transportation networks. She will increase federal funding for public transit by $1.5 billion per year and devote an additional $1 billion to intercity passenger rail systems over five years. She will also invest in cutting-edge technological solutions to the growing problem of traffic congestion.
• Promote the "greening" of our highways and transit systems. Hillary will ensure that funded projects incorporate eco-friendly strategies for repairs and upgrades, including: using recycled materials to reduce the energy required for building roads and other infrastructure; leveraging multi-modal transportation opportunities; linking regional transportation plans with local land use policies; and deploying cutting-edge technologies and materials to protect critical ecosystems.

  Turning investments into jobs. Hillary's Rebuild America plan and National Infrastructure will help create 3 million new jobs over the next decade. [Calculation based in part on a Federal Highway Administration study by Thomas F. Keane, "The Economic Importance of the National Highway System," adjusted for inflation.] These will be high-wage jobs with good benefits, including: general construction; engineering, design, architecture, and other specialty work; manufacturing and supply of building materials; and research, development, and production of new green infrastructure technologies.

  Hillary also discussed her plans to promote strong unions and fair trade:

  • Empowering American Workers and Ensuring That Our Unions are Strong. Hillary knows that unions have played a vital role in forming and sustaining America’s middle class. She will end this Administration’s practice of harassing and bureaucratizing our labor organizations and appoint people to the Department of Labor, the NLRB, and throughout the government who are actually pro-labor. She will:
  • Sign into law the Employee Free Choice Act so that unions can fairly organize for just wages and safe working conditions.
  • Improve enforcement of the Davis Bacon Act. The Act requires contractors for federal projects to pay their workers no less than the wage rates prevailing in the local area. Hillary’s Davis Bacon Improvement Act will allow workers to monitor Davis-Bacon compliance by giving them access under the Freedom of Information Act to the payroll records that contractors file with the federal government. The legislation would also increase penalties for certain violations.
  • Cut the number of contractors working for the federal government by 500,000 over the next ten years through an Executive Order. Hillary wants to roll back outsourcing our government to private companies that are too often less qualified – and less accountable – than government employees.
  • Making Trade Work for Working Families. Americans need a president who will fight for fair, pro-American trade policies that will not trap them in a race to the bottom. Low wages in other countries are costing America jobs and putting pressure on wages here at home. With approximately one quarter of our gross domestic product linked to international trade, we need smart, pro-American trade policies that help our workers and families. As president, Hillary will make trade work for working families:
  • The only candidate with a detailed, 4-part plan to fix NAFTA. As President, Hillary will dramatically strengthen NAFTA’s labor and environmental provisions; change its investment provisions that grant special rights to foreign companies; strengthen its enforcement mechanisms; and review NAFTA regularly.
  • Demand strong labor and environmental provisions in all trade agreements.
  • Appoint a new trade "prosecutor" and double the enforcement staff at the USTR so we can truly enforce our trade laws again, and get tough with countries like China for allowing the piracy of intellectual property.
  • Crack down on China's currency manipulation. Hillary is a co-sponsor of legislation that will require the administration to take definitive steps to stop China and other countries from harming American interests by undervaluing their currencies.

    Implement a trade "timeout" to formulate a genuinely pro-worker and pro-American trade policy.

     It is easy to speak in broad generalities and emotional symbolism in talking about solutions to pressing problems, ending with the rousing mantra of "yes we can!" It is another thing to outline specific ways and means to solve pressing problems. Public speeches at rallies don't lend themselves well to articulating detail economic plans. "How to' details can be boring to twenty thousand swooning supporters. Hilary Clinton's and Barack Obama's websites provide the candidates economic plans in the detail they can't provide at rallies or debates. Above is Hilary Clinton's plans for job creation and below is Barack Obama's. Judge for yourself which one has the most detailed and comprehensive plans for creating jobs in America. Soaring rhetorical speeches are shallow. Detailed, well thought out plans are substance. Which does America need today?

Obama will encourage the deployment of the most modern communications infrastructure to reduce the costs of health care, help solve our energy crisis, create new jobs, and fuel our economic growth.

• Support Job Creation: Barack Obama believes we need to double federal funding for basic research and make the research and development tax credit permanent to help create high-paying, secure jobs. Obama will also make long-term investments in education, training, and workforce development so that Americans can leverage our strengths - our ingenuity and entrepreneurialism - to create new high-wage jobs and prosper in a world economy.
• Invest in U.S. Manufacturing: The Obama comprehensive energy independence and climate change plan will invest in America's highly-skilled manufacturing workforce and manufacturing centers to ensure that American workers have the skills and tools they need to pioneer the first wave of green technologies that will be in high demand throughout the world. Obama will also provide assistance to the domestic auto industry to ensure that new fuel-efficient vehicles are built by American workers.
• Create New Job Training Programs for Clean Technologies: The Obama plan will increase funding for federal workforce training programs and direct these programs to incorporate green technologies training, such as advanced manufacturing and weatherization training, into their efforts to help Americans find and retain stable, high-paying jobs. Obama will also create an energy-focused youth jobs program to invest in disconnected and disadvantaged youth.
• Boost the Renewable Energy Sector and Create New Jobs: The Obama plan will create new federal policies, and expand existing ones, that have been proven to create new American jobs. Obama will create a federal Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) that will require 25 percent of American electricity be derived from renewable sources by 2025, which has the potential to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs on its own. Obama will also extend the Production Tax Credit, a credit used successfully by American farmers and investors to increase renewable energy production and create new local jobs.
• Deploy Next-Generation Broadband: Obama believes we can get broadband to every community in America through a combination of reform of the Universal Service Fund, better use of the nation's wireless spectrum, promotion of next-generation facilities, technologies and applications, and new tax and loan incentives.
• Protect the Openness of the Internet: Obama supports the basic principle that network providers should not be allowed to charge fees to privilege the content or applications of some web sites and Internet applications over others. This principle will ensure that the new competitors, especially small or nonprofit speakers, have the same opportunity as big companies to innovate and reach large audiences.
• Invest in Rural Areas: Obama will invest in rural small businesses and fight to expand high-speed Internet access. He will improve rural schools and attract more doctors to rural areas.

• Labor

  Obama will strengthen the ability of workers to organize unions. He will fight for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. Obama will ensure that his labor appointees support workers' rights and will work to ban the permanent replacement of striking workers. Obama will also increase the minimum wage and index it to inflation to ensure it rises every year.

  • Ensure Freedom to Unionize: Obama believes that workers should have the freedom to choose whether to join a union without harassment or intimidation from their employers. Obama cosponsored and is strong advocate for the Employee Free Choice Act, a bipartisan effort to assure that workers can exercise their right to organize. He will continue to fight for EFCA's passage and sign it into law.
  • Fight Attacks on Workers' Right to Organize: Obama has fought the Bush National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) efforts to strip workers of their right to organize. He is a cosponsor of legislation to overturn the NLRB's "Kentucky River" decisions classifying hundreds of thousands of nurses, construction, and professional workers as "supervisors" who are not protected by federal labor laws.
  • Protect Striking Workers: Obama supports the right of workers to bargain collectively and strike if necessary. He will work to ban the permanent replacement of striking workers, so workers can stand up for themselves without worrying about losing their livelihoods.
  • Raise the Minimum Wage: Barack Obama will raise the minimum wage, index it to inflation and increase the Earned Income Tax Credit to make sure that full-time workers earn a living wage that allows them to raise their families and pay for basic needs.

tags: hialry clinton  barack obama  democrats  2008  politics  takebackamerica  economy  free enterprise  us  president  power  

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