Hillary Clinton: Donald Trump Misses What Makes Michigan, America Great

Updated. WARREN, MI — Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton didn’t hold back any punches in her rejection of Republican Donald Trump’s economic agenda Thursday at a suburban Detroit factory, saying the plan he outlined in Detroit just days before would throw the economy back into a recession and further pinch America’s working class.

Clinton’s speech at the Futuramic Tool and Engineering factory, which started as an automotive manufacturer but is now chiefly involved in the aerospace industry, wasn't a new policy rollout as much as it was a rebuttal of the economic agenda Trump had rolled out three days before.

“It’s like he was in a different place,” Clinton said. “He talked only of failure, of poverty and crime. He is missing so much of what makes Michigan great, and the same is true for the rest of the country.”

Clinton hammered away at the economic agenda Trump outlined Monday in a speech before the Detroit Economic Club, saying that although he touts it as helping working class families, it would give “trillions in tax cuts to people like himself.”

“My eyebrows went up when he said he wanted to abolish the death tax, which would be about a $4 billion gift to him and his family,” Clinton said.

In comparison, Clinton would hike the estate tax by 45 percent and reduce the exemption to $3.5 million.

Trump said Monday that his proposal to reduce corporate income taxes to 15 percent from 35 percent would benefit small businesses, an assertion Clinton sharply discounted as containing a “Trump loophole” that would allow wealthy individuals to pay only about half as much tax as they do now.

It’s hard to say how much Trump would benefit, the former secretary of state said, “because he refuses to do what every other presidential candidate in decades has done and release his tax return.”

She went further to paint her opponent as no friend to small business, saying that Trump has “made a career out of stiffing small businesses” and faulting him for making many products for his companies overseas.

Clinton also reiterated her earlier stated opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. “I oppose it now, I will oppose it after the election and I will oppose it as president,” she said.

Trump said Monday that he will tear up trade agreements, but Clinton took a different approach, saying she would appoint a chief trade prosecutor, triple the number of trade enforcement officers and target companies that break the rules with tariffs.

“His approach is based on fear, not strength,” Clinton said. “If Team USA was as fearful as Trump, Michael Phelps and Simone Biles would be cowering in the locker room. Instead, they're winning gold medals.”

Clinton positioned herself as the candidate who will go to bat for American families and offer "serious, steady leadership ... that rises above personal attacks and name calling, not revels in it."

"I just don’t think insult and bullying is how to get things done," she said.

Our Earlier Report

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton plans to outline a $125 billion economic and jobs plan that is expected to create 321,000 jobs in Michigan and 10.4 million across the country in a policy address Thursday at an old-line automotive supplier in Warren that has expanded into the aerospace industry.

Clinton is expected to address supporters at 1:15 p.m. Eastern at Futuramic Tool and Engineering, which was hit hard in the economic recession of 2008 but has bounced back by securing military contracts and investing in an apprentice program with Macomb County Community College.

Clinton’s “family first” economic plan calls for an increase in the national minimum wage to $12-$15 an hour, stronger union organizing rights, support for workers and employers through loans and grants, and deeper investments in the nation’s infrastructure.

“Our roads, our bridges, our tunnels, our ports, our airports, our water systems, our sewer systems, they are in desperate need of being either repaired and maintained or built,” Clinton said earlier this week at a rally in Florida.

“Those are millions of jobs, good, middle class jobs. And I am sick and tired of people who watch roads get potholed; who watch water systems poison children; who don’t stand up and say, we’re going to put America to work building the infrastructure we need for the 21st century.”

Clinton is leading Trump in Michigan and in traditionally Republican-leaning Macomb County, where she leads 51 percent to 30 percent, according to a poll released last week by Lansing-based EPIC/MRA.

Clinton’s visit comes three days after a disciplined Donald Trump teased a major economic policy before the Detroit Economic Club Monday. He avoided some of the gaffes that sent his poll numbers into a free fall the week before, but the so-called campaign reset lasted only about a day.

A fresh controversy erupted Tuesday when Trump quipped “the Second Amendment people” might be able to stop Clinton from appointing Supreme Court justices who could weaken gun rights. The campaign quickly pivoted into what-really-happened mode and rejected claims that he had tacitly called for the assassination of his political opponent.

Clinton spent Wednesday in Iowa, where she said comments are further evidence that “Trump simply does not have the temperament to be president and commander in chief.”

“Words matter my friends, and if you are running to be president or you are president of the United States, words can have tremendous consequences,” Clinton said. “Yesterday we witnessed the latest in a long line of casual comments from Donald Trump that cross the line.”

Meanwhile in Florida, Trump said President Obama and his then-secretary of state Clinton had co-founded the Islamic State. “He is the founder of ISIS. He is the founder of ISIS, OK? He’s the founder. He founded ISIS,” Trump said. “And I would say the co-founder would be crooked Hillary Clinton.”

Though she continues to benefit from a post-Democratic National Convention bounce in the polls, Clinton has her own problems. The parents of two of the four Americans killed in the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, have filed a lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, calling the former secretary of state directly responsible for the deaths of their sons.

Her favorability rating is only 42.2 percent, according to national poll averages on Real Clear Politics. Trump, though, is less popular with a favorability rating of 33.3 percent.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr / Creative Commons