Obama vows to rebuild national economy on new foundation

OTTUMWA – President Obama told Iowans Tuesday his goal is to rebuild the national economy on a new, firmer foundation of long-term growth to ensure the recovery gets to hard-working, middle-class Americans struggling to get ahead after getting hit with “an economic tidal wave.”

Obama brought the promise of economic turnaround, help for small businesses struggling to get needed capital, and investment in job-creating advance manufacturing industries like clean energy to the state that helped make his presidential aspirations a reality.

“Everybody here knows there is a lot of recovery that we still have to do,” Obama told 2,100 people who jammed an Indian Hills Community College gymnasium on the third leg of a three-city stop that included a tour of a wind-blade production plant in Fort Madison, a piece of rhubarb pie and organic farm tour in Mount Pleasant, and a town hall meeting in Ottumwa.

“Lately, we've been able to report some welcome news after a hard two years. Our economy is finally growing again. Our markets are climbing. Our businesses are beginning to create jobs again,” the president said during his Iowa swing.

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President Obama makes stop at Mt. Pleasant restaurant

TRANSCRIPT: President Obama's remarks in Fort Madison

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“Now, in too many places, though, the recovery isn't reaching everybody just yet. Times are still tough for middle-class Americans, who have been swimming against the current for years before this economic tidal wave hit,” he said. “We've got to make sure we put some wind at the back of working men and women.”

Obama conceded his administration took some “unpopular” steps to keep the U.S. economy from plunging into depression, but he said what's been lost among the criticism is the fact that a third of the federal effort went toward tax cuts to help small businesses, home owners, college students and working families. Other needed pieces helped Americans hit by job losses to weather economic calamities and pumped money into infrastructure upgrades, tax credits, loans and other aid to retain and create jobs.

With that stabilizing help in place, Obama said the attention is shifting to growing innovative businesses, expanding exports through fair trade agreements, providing help to places like rural Iowa, improving schools, expanding health care coverage with new reforms, making college more affordable, and bringing regulatory reform to Wall Street to avert a future repeat of the recent financial crisis.

At the same time, he said tough choices are ahead to address the nation's burgeoning debt and federal deficit that likely will not be popular. He also called for bipartisan work to forge a comprehensive immigration reform that will require better securing U.S. borders, cracking down on companies that hire undocumented workers and pay them low wages and requiring people in this country illegally to register, pay fines, learn English and get in line behind legal immigrants who have followed the rules.

Charley Carver, a 2008 Obama activist and co-precinct captain from Cedar Rapids who drove 2 ½ hours to see the president in Ottumwa Tuesday, said the president's message resonated but added “with me he's kind of preaching to the choir.”

Carver said Obama has been faced with some tough challenges and big issues in his first term, but he has not detected any loss of support among the Democrats and independents he knows.

“We learned not to believe in the polls when Obama was running against Hillary Clinton in Iowa,” Carver said. “I'm still as gung-ho as ever. We're getting fired up and ready to go pound the pavement again.”

Obama paid tribute to his early Iowa supporters during Tuesday's visit, saying “if it weren't for Iowa, I wouldn't be president. I believe that.” He noted the last time he came to Ottumwa it was not by helicopter, “it was in a van and my legs were a little cramped up.”

Not all Iowans were so welcoming for Obama's third trip to Iowa since being elected president.

Matt Strawn, chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa, said he detects growing concern “about a White House that seems to believe that every problem in this country can be answered with more federal spending and greater federal control.”

Strawn said he was pleased to hear the president was in Iowa to talk about job creation given the above-average jobless rates in the communities he visited, but “that is where the agreement ends,” he added.

“Iowans understand that long-term job creation does not result from unsustainable federal spending, but rather creating an environment that incentivizes job creation through a stable and consistent regulatory environment, lower taxes, and access to capital for growth and expansion,” Strawn said.

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