World | USA
Obama promises to heal economy
Texas Barack Obama set out plans to revive America's economy in an attempt to counter criticism that his White House campaign was too strong on rhetoric and too weak on detail.
- By Alex Spillius/Toby Harnden, The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2008
- Published: 00:30 February 15, 2008
- Image Credit: AP
- emocratic presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama speaks during a rally in Racine Town Hall on Wednesday.
Washington: Texas Barack Obama set out plans to revive America's economy on Wednesday in an attempt to counter criticism that his White House campaign was too strong on rhetoric and too weak on detail.
The Illinois senator has pulled ahead of Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination after winning the Maryland, Virginia and Washington DC primaries by a wide margin on Tuesday night.
For the Republicans, John McCain also completed a clean sweep.
Obama succeeded in widening his appeal among different voting groups on Tuesday, but remains determined to reach out to working class voters in forthcoming contests. He chose to launch his economic manifesto at a General Motors factory in Janesville, Wisconsin, which holds its primary on Tuesday.
He pledged to ease the pain of homeowners defrauded in the mortgage crisis and to introduce a "Credit Card Bill of Rights" to protect consumers from punitive charges.
He proposed a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank that would invest £30 billion (Dh222 billion) over 10 years, with the promise of creating two million jobs, and to pump £75 billion into developing the green energy sector.
Business cycle
"We are not standing on the brink of recession due to forces beyond our control. The fallout from the housing crisis that's cost jobs and wiped out savings was not an inevitable part of the business cycle.
It was a failure of leadership and imagination in Washington," he said, speaking the day after General Motors announced a record annual loss of £19 billion.
Much of the soaring oratory that has characterised his campaign speeches was sacrificed for plainer fare. Obama now runs the risk of exposing his proposals to detailed examination.
Attempting to pre-empt any doubts, he said his plans to revive the middle class would be paid for by closing corporate tax loopholes, ending President George W Bush's tax cuts for the top two per cent of earners, and ending the war in Iraq.
"We know that all of this must be done in a responsible way, without adding to the already obscene debt that has grown by four trillion dollars under George Bush. We know that we cannot build our future on a credit card issued by the bank of China," he said, referring to Chinese ownership of US debt.
Wednesday amounted to a road-testing of his new approach, which is designed particularly for audiences in Texas and Ohio, where blue collar concerns are said to be paramount among Democrat primary voters.
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