President Obama returned to the site of his first presidential trip in Indiana to call for an “intervention” against Republicans, and to dispute Donald Trump’s claims that his economic recovery has failed the country.
The president returned to the town of Elkhart, Ind., a city experiencing a resurgent motor home industry, for an economic victory lap and to do what he called some “myth-busting” about GOP election messages and claims of “crazy, liberal government spending.”
“The reason we are told this is an unusual election year is because people are worried about the economy … so I wanted to come to the heartland, to the Midwest, and I want to talk about the economy,” he said.
Republican policies, he said, would “lower wages, eliminate worker protections, cut investments in things like education, weaken the safety net, kick people off health insurance, and let China write the rules for the global economy.”
In addition, he said, they would let oil companies weaken rules that protect the air and water, let big banks weaken rules that protect families from getting cheated, and cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans to historic lows.”
“These are their plans,” he said. “I’m not making it up. You can usually find them on their websites. 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.”
“When I hear working families thinking about voting for those plans, then I want to have an intervention … I want you to just take a look at what you’re talking about here,” he said.
Obama argued that the economy is not only better than it was seven years ago, but said “it’s the strongest, most endurable economy in the world.” He also stressed that “we can make it stronger and provide more opportunity for more people, but to do that we’ve got to be smarter…”
Elkhart, he said, is symbolic of American’s recovery and the fruitfulness of his policies.
In 2009, unemployment in Elkhart peaked at 19.6 percent while national unemployment surged to 10 percent. The city’s jobless rate has dropped to roughly 4 percent, lower than its pre-recession average, while the national unemployment rate has been cut in half to 5 percent.
In addition, at the peak of the housing crisis in 2010, 9.5 percent of mortgages in Indiana were late or in the process of foreclosure. Now that percentage is down to 3.7 percent, while just 4 percent of mortgages nationally are in trouble.
“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,” he said.
“The primary story that Republicans have been telling about the economy,” he said, “is not supported by the facts … they repeat it a lot but it’s not supported by the facts.”
He also said the GOP is making false arguments that “hard-working middle class families” are getting “squeezed” because of expensive government programs and illegal immigrants taking up services and jobs. He said illegal immigration flows are slower than they’ve been in two decades.
He said nothing, however, about the national debt, which exceeds $19 trillion and is the net of annual budget deficits plus interest, minus any annual surpluses. He also didn’t mention that the number of illegal immigrants in the country has more than tripled between 1990 and 2007, according to the Pew Research Center.
Obama blamed conservative outlets like Fox News and talk radio for spreading misinformation and argued that politicans can’t “build up walls around the U.S. economy.”
