Obama emphasizes job creation in Charlotte

CHARLOTTE — In his third visit to North Carolina since taking office, President Barack Obama brought good news to an area that faces one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates.

Obama spoke to employees of Celgard, a lithium battery-manufacturing company in Charlotte, citing new figures that show signs of economic recovery.

About 50,000 jobs have been added each month over the first quarter of the year, and 162,000 jobs were added in March, Obama said.

“Today is an encouraging day.,” he said. “We learned that the economy actually produced a substantial number of jobs instead of losing a substantial number of jobs. We are beginning to turn the corner.”

The announcement of the increase in jobs was met with cheers and applause from Celgard employees, who have seen the unemployment rate in Charlotte shoot up to nearly 13 percent.

But, the focus of Obama’s visit shifted from job creation to a justification for the measures taken by his administration, especially when he opened the floor to questions. He defended the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, his plans for offshore drilling and health care overhaul that he signed into law March 30.

Obama said although the Recovery Act has faced criticism, it was a necessary step to boost the economy.

“Government can’t reverse the toll of this recession overnight,” he said.

“What government can do is create the conditions for companies to succeed.”

Celgard received a $49 million grant through the Recovery Act to expand production and create clean-energy jobs, which Obama said are the future of the economy, reiterating Vice President Joe Biden’s message during his visit to Durham last month.

 Obama also launched into a 17-minute response to an employee’s question about increasing taxes to support the health care overhaul.

“I’m going to have to work hard over the next several months to clean up a lot of the misapprehensions that people have,” he said.

Obama said only those who make more than $200,000 or $250,000 a year in unearned income from capital gains will have to pay additional taxes.

“If this health care bill never existed, if I didn’t do anything about it, we’d actually be a trillion dollars worse off over the long term,” he said.

Obama also said his plans for offshore drilling — something being considered for the North Carolina coast — will not replace his push for investing in alternate sources of energy.

“Here’s the challenge that we have. We don’t yet have the technological breakthroughs that can completely replace fossil fuels,” he said.

The U.S. accounts for 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves, but uses 20 percent of the world’s oil.

“We can’t drill our way out of the problem,” he said. “That’s why we’ve got to get moving on this clean energy sector.”



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