President Barack Obama returned to the same themes as his stand-in last week, Vice President Joe Biden, who delivered a barn-burner on the dignity of work and the successful rescue of the auto industry.
The president met with employees in a Chrylser plant in Toledo, Ohio, where he highlighted the multi-generational work force that has benefited from the government subsidies–which, he took pains to point out, have largely been paid back.
Today, each of the Big Three automakers – Chrysler, GM, and Ford – is turning a profit for the first time since 2004. Chrysler has repaid every dime and more of what it owes American taxpayers for their support during my presidency – and it repaid that money six years ahead of schedule. And this week, we reached a deal to sell our remaining stake. That means soon, Chrysler will be 100% in private hands.
And what that means, the president said, is more jobs.
Most importantly, all three American automakers are now adding shifts and creating jobs at the strongest rate since the 1990s. Chrysler has added a second shift at the Jefferson North plant in Detroit that I visited last year. GM is adding a third shift at its Hamtramck plant for the first time ever. And GM plans to hire back all of the workers they had to lay off during the recession.
He pointed out the benefits of government intervention, despite all the naysayers:
We could have done what a lot of folks in Washington thought we should do – nothing. But that would have made a bad recession worse and put a million people out of work. I refused to let that happen. So, I said, if GM and Chrysler were willing to take the difficult steps of restructuring and making themselves more competitive, the American people would stand by them – and we did.
He talked about the "retooling" and upgrading the industry for added value in the future, even as he acknowledged the present economic difficulties faced by Americans today.
Now, we’ve got a ways to go. Even though our economy has created more than two million private sector jobs over the past 15 months and continues to grow, we’re facing some tough headwinds. Lately, it’s high gas prices, the earthquake in Japan, and unease about the European fiscal situation. That will happen from time to time. There will be bumps on the road to recovery.
Those "bumps on the road to recovery," he concluded, will be overcome by the American people, "who do big things, who shape our own destiny."