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Good morning, all! After Hillary’s economic address in Warren, MI, yesterday there’s a lot to cover today, so here goes:
First of all, if you haven’t gotten to watch the speech itself, check it out here:
Full transcript available at Newsweek, excerpted below.
How can you not be frustrated, and even angry, when you see nothing getting done? And a lot of people feel no one is on their side and no one has their back and that is not how it’s supposed to be in America. If I am fortunate enough to be your President, I will have your back every single day that I serve. My mission in the White House will be to make our economy work for everyone, not just those at the top.
This is personal for me. I am the product of the American middle class, I was born in Chicago, I was raised in a suburb. But my grandfather worked at the Scranton lace mill in Scranton, Pennsylvania, for 50 years. And because he worked hard, my Dad was able to go to college, and eventually start his own small business – and then send me out into the world to follow my dreams.
No matter how far those dreams have taken me, I have always remembered, I’m the daughter of a small-business owner and the granddaughter of a factory worker — and proud of both.
So here’s what I want. I want every American family to be able to tell the same story. If you work hard, you do your part, you should be able to give your children all the opportunities they deserve. That is the basic bargain of America.
As an article in Vox points out, in contrast to a speech by Donald Trump or even Bernie Sanders, who tend to favor a broad narrative in explaining why the economy isn’t working for everyone, Hillary’s speech was full of specific plans.
Despite the vast differences in their campaigns, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have both hammered away at a grand narrative about what had gone wrong with America. Sanders condemned the "millionaires and billionaires" who were distorting the economy for their benefit; Trump decries elites who don’t put "America first." Right or wrong, they told their voters a compelling story about what’s gone wrong with the US economy.
Clinton hasn’t really done this. Her economics speech hit on some of Sanders’s themes, but she didn’t offer one overarching theory of the American economy. Her message, instead, was that Trump can’t fix whatever problems do exist in America — and that even if his words ring true to you, he’s not going to be able to follow through with actions.
This didn’t make for an inspiring, elevating speech. What it did, though, was appear to offer something for almost everyone. If you’re a parent of a young child, she promised a bigger tax credit. If you’re worried about paying for college, she offered cheaper tuition. If you’re offended that she’s focused so much on college tuition, she promised to pay just as much attention to apprenticeships and skills training.
Some of Clinton’s ideas are genuinely bold, such as free college tuition for the middle class. But her speech, by giving equal weight to every plan, felt temperamentally moderate, an optimistic defense of an economy that, the implication goes, isn’t fundamentally broken. Instead, Clinton made the case that the country could work better for a whole lot of people — and that she has a specific, detailed plan to help all of them.
In case you want to read about some of the plans mentioned in her speech, check out the following pages on Hillary’s official website.
Also relevant to yesterday’s speech is an editorial that the Detroit News ran a couple of days ago, written by Tony Stovall, president of the Detroit Black Chamber of Commerce and owner of Hot Sams clothing store. Stovall argues that Hillary “is the only choice for small business.”
If elected this November, Clinton has already pledged to make the biggest investments in American jobs since World War II. For Detroit and Michigan’s hardworking families, that is welcome news.
Hillary wants to invest in manufacturing here in Michigan — strengthening our $82.3 billion manufacturing industry and adding to the nearly 600,000 manufacturing jobs across the state. She will rescind past tax breaks for corporations that outsource jobs abroad — instead rewarding businesses that create good-paying jobs here at home. Clinton will impose an “exit tax” on companies that move their headquarters overseas to try to avoid paying their fair share. She will cut red tape and increase access to capital for small businesses. And she understands the importance of investing in our state’s crumbling infrastructure, which has earned a “D” grade from the American Society of Civil Engineers. These investments will not only create jobs, but make us more competitive as a nation.
But Clinton’s jobs plan isn’t just about creating new jobs — it’s about breaking down barriers to employment. She will support career and technical training that responds to local employers’ needs — including by providing tuition-free community college.
…
For small business owners and working families this election presents a choice — a choice between Hillary Clinton, who believes we are stronger together and that we need to lift everyone up, or Donald Trump, who would have let our auto industry go bankrupt.
For me, this isn’t a choice at all.
What’s remarkable about yesterday’s address is that despite all of the outreach the Clinton camp is doing to disaffected Republicans these days, this outreach is not showing up in her actual economic policy proposals.
What economic policy concessions might Hillary Clinton offer up to woo Republicans? If her speech Thursday in Warren, Michigan is any indication, the answer is: Nothing.
In her first major economic address since her campaign began actively courting the Republicans turned off by Donald Trump, Clinton made no major pivot to the ideological center.
Instead, Clinton reiterated several of the policy positions she adopted during her primary fight against Bernie Sanders, even while making a direct appeal to Independent voters and Republicans.
Clinton didn't toy with entitlement reform or hint at grand bargains on deficit reduction. Instead, she talked about expanding Social Security, debt-free college, making corporations pay higher taxes, a public option for health care, raising the minimum wage, opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the concentration of wealth in "the top 1 percent."
So much for the fear that she would immediately pivot to more centrist economic policies upon entering general election mode. It’s clear that Republicans are welcome to come along with Clinton, but it will be on her terms.
Besides the continued progressive tone of her economic proposals, in what should be counted as another victory for us lefties, it came out yesterday that Hillary would like to reschedule marijuana from Schedule I (where it currently sits among illicit drugs such as heroin and LSD) to Schedule II, which would make it easier to research and study its medical uses.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton plans to reschedule marijuana if she is elected in November, according to a statement issued by the campaign.
While the Drug Enforcement Administration denied a petition early Thursday to remove marijuana from its Schedule I list under the Controlled Substances Act, leaving the drug lumped in with heroin, LSD and other elicit substances, the Clinton campaign thinks that rescheduling the drug serves a higher purpose.
“Marijuana is already being used for medical purposes in states across the country, and it has the potential for even further medical use,” Maya Harris, a senior policy advisor to Clinton’s campaign, said in a statement, reported by The Denver Post. “As Hillary Clinton has said throughout this campaign, we should make it easier to study marijuana so that we can better understand its potential benefits, as well as its side effects.
Meanwhile, disaffected Republicans should have no issue coming aboard on their own, as the Donald continues to dig himself into a hole, this time insisting absurdly that Obama founded ISIS (and doubling down on the claim when called on it). As the Hillary campaign eloquently responds:
There’s also just the issue of “common decency” pushing moderate Republicans into the Clinton camp (or at least out of the Trump camp) as the Washington Post writes.
Susan Byrnes, a York County commissioner and a moderate Republican who supported John Kasich in the Pennsylvania primary, said her work with veterans over the years explains her horror over Trump’s comments about the Khan family and his casual treatment of the matter of earning a Purple Heart.
“The way he interacted with the parents of a Muslim soldier and the way he talked about the Purple Heart — it almost made my heart stop,” she said in a telephone interview from a county commissioners’ gathering in the Poconos. “I can’t vote for someone like that.”
...
She doesn’t say so directly, but her point is clear: Trump may simply be too rude and coarse for many who are conservative in their politics but traditional in their view of how leaders should behave.
With all of his issues winning over the usual Republican coalition, is it any surprise that a new PPP poll finds a 2-point race in SOUTH CAROLINA, of all places?
The Republicans' streak of winning South Carolina in nine straight presidential elections may be in jeopardy.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is within 2 points of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump in the state, according to a Public Policy Polling survey released Thursday.
Trump has 41 percent support in South Carolina to Clinton's 39 percent, the poll found. Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson takes 5 percent, and Green Party nominee Jill Stein has 2 percent.
I’ll believe it when I see it, but we all can dream, and eat popcorn while the GOP plays defense in what should be a safe red state!
Finally, you should all enjoy this adorable picture of a young Bill and Hillary Clinton, taken in 1979, as posted on the official campaign Twitter account yesterday.
Happy Friday...looking forward to your comments as always!
Crossposted at HillaryHQ, an independent, progressive blog committed to the electing Hillary Clinton as the next President of the United States. If you want to support this work, consider a donation through GoFundMe.