Obama Statement on GM Plant Closings

Senator Barack Obama today released the following statement regarding the GM plant closings.

"My heart goes out to the workers and families affected by the closing of these GM plants, including the Janesville plant that I visited a few months ago. Today's news is a painful reminder not only of the challenges America faces in our global economy, but of George Bush’s failed economic policies. For eight long years, we’ve had an energy policy that funds both sides in the war on terror without promoting fuel efficiency or helping make our auto companies more competitive. That’s part of the reason thousands of more Americans in Wisconsin and Ohio will no longer be able to count on a paycheck at a time when they’re already being pinched by rising costs. Unlike John McCain, I’m not in this race to extend the failed Bush economic policies; I’m in this race to end them.

I’ve proposed investing $150 billion over ten years in green energy and creating up to five million new green jobs. We’ll finally provide domestic automakers with the funding they need to retool their factories and make fuel-efficient and alternative fuel cars. And we’ll invest in efforts to make sure that the cars of the future are made where they always have been -- in the United States. Because the fight for American manufacturing is the fight for America’s future – and I believe that’s a fight this country will win."