President Barack Obama praised American workers for reviving the domestic manufacturing industry today at a Detroit Diesel plant in Redford Township.
"The word’s going out all around the world," Obama told the crowd of roughly 1000. "If you want to find the best workers in the world, you want to find the best factories in the world, you want to build the best cars or trucks or any other product in the world, you should invest in the United States of America."
Obama toured the factory before speaking to a crowd on the plant floor. Detroit Diesel, owned by German automaker Daimler, recently announced a $120 million expansion at their Redford facility. The investment is expected to create create 115 new jobs--"good new union jobs," as the President put it.
"For seven and half decades, through goods times and bad, through revolutions in technology, through having seen a lot of good manufacturing jobs go overseas, men and women like you, your parents and maybe even your grandparents, have done your part to build up America's manufacturing base," he said. "That's something you can all be proud of.
"Now you're writing a new, proud chapter to that history. Eight years ago you started building axles right here along side the engines. We're started to see more products stamped with those three proud words 'Made In America.'"
Obama took this opportunity to wade into the battle over Michigan’s Right To Work leglistation, which was approved by the Michigan legislature last week and is expected to be signed by Governor Rick Snyder. Obama called the policy “the right to work for less money.”
"America is not going to compete based on low-skill, low-wage, no workers rights--that's not our competitive advantage," Obama told the crowd dotted with UAW jackets and sweatshirts. "There's always going to be some other country that can treat its workers in even worse. What is going to make us compete is we've got the best workers, well-trained, reliable, productive, low turnover, healthy. That's what makes us strong. It's also what allows the workers to buy the products they make."
The president also used the event to stump for his plan to resolved the so-called “fiscal cliff.”
"What we need to do is keep taxes where they are for middle-class families, we make some tough spending cuts on things we don't need, and then we ask the wealthiest Americans to pay a slightly higher tax rate," Obama said. "And that I won't compromise on because I'm not going to have a situation where the wealthiest among us --including people like me--get to keep all their tax breaks and then we're asking students to pay higher student loan rates."
Without an agreement between the President and Congress, statutory budget cuts and a complete rollback of the Bush stimulus tax cuts as well as the payroll tax cut will be automatically enacted.
