Legal Commentary

Late Night: Working Class Hero

By Jeralyn

John Lennon, r.i.p, would be proud. Yesterday, Hillary Clinton announced a plan for 3 million new jobs.

At the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO Convention in Philadelphia, Hillary Clinton announced a plan to create three million new jobs through increased investments in the nation’s infrastructure. Hillary would create these jobs over 10 years by combining emergency initiatives like fixing the immediate safety risks of the I-95 bridge in Philadelphia along with long-term investments to create a greener, sleeker 21st century highway and transit system.

"President Bush has stood by and watched as we've lost 3 million manufacturing jobs. And he’s done nothing about the loopholes in our tax code that actually encourage companies to ship jobs overseas," said Clinton. "It's time for a different approach. I'll fight for every single job in America – and create millions of new, high paying jobs that can’t be outsourced. We're trying to run today’s economy on yesterday’s infrastructure – and we’re jeopardizing tomorrow’s prosperity. So I will rebuild America – by rebuilding, repairing and modernizing our infrastructure."

It's a $7 billion plan of tax incentives to companies that will keep jobs from going overseas. [More...]

On Wednesday, she will explain more:

At an economic summit in Pittsburgh on Wednesday organized by her presidential campaign, the former first lady was expected to propose the elimination of tax breaks for companies that move jobs to other countries and use the savings to persuade companies to "insource" jobs in the U.S.

Clinton has focused on job creation and challenges to the U.S. economy at campaign appearances across Pennsylvania, whose primary is April 22.

Read the plan now, so when you see Barack Obmama's competing plan emerge in the next few weeeks, you can say, "That sounds familiar."

Why is this plan emerging now?

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.

We've only got one working class hero in this race, and it's Hillary. 30 years ago, she could have been Tess (Melanie Griffith) in the movie Working Girl. You can speechify and borrow and take credit for work done by others, or you do what Hillary does, and learn every facet of the problem and have a hand in creating a proposal that results in a solution.She did it with Health care and with her Economic Stimulus Project. Now she's done it with a job plan.

She's a work horse, and she'll be a work horse for all of us if she gets the chance.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on April 02, 2008 (boomark / email).