Obama stresses economic needs of N.C. voters

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Sunday that he would work to make the tax code fairer and to hammer out better trade deals to help the middle class in North Carolina, which, as elsewhere, is being financially squeezed.

"Our economy is out of balance," Obama said in a telephone interview from his bus tour in Pennsylvania. "The people of North Carolina recognize that.

"We have got homes being foreclosed on," Obama said. "We've got wages and income that have flat-lined since George Bush took office. The average family has a lower income, adjusted for inflation, than 10 years ago. That is the first time since World War II you had an economic expansion where people's incomes haven't gone up."

Obama called for changes in the tax code, including ending tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas, rolling back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and creating new tax cuts for families making $75,000 per year or less.

The Illinois senator made his comments three days after his rival in the May 6 primary, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, launched her North Carolina campaign by stressing bread-and-butter issues such as improving worker training.

Although the metropolitan areas of North Carolina, such as the Triangle, are doing well, many small towns and rural areas have been hurt by job losses -- particularly those in the textile and furniture manufacturing industries.

In the past decade, North Carolina has lost 250,000 manufacturing jobs, many of which moved overseas.

On Friday, Obama ran his first TV ads in North Carolina, promising to end tax breaks for companies that send jobs overseas.

Obama is not scheduled to campaign in North Carolina this week, but his campaign plans to focus on voter registration and other organizational efforts.

Obama said that many of his proposals overlap with Clinton's, but he said he is better positioned to change policy in Washington.

"The challenge is not to produce a 10-point plan," Obama said. "The question is who is willing to shake up Washington to put these plans into action? It is very hard to say you are going to change the economy when you have taken lots of money from banks and financial institutions, from their [political action committees] and you don't think that's a problem."

Obama suggested that Clinton doesn't have much credibility on the issue of trade because of the role she played in helping her husband pass the North American Free Trade Agreement.

"The facts are the facts," Obama said. "She was championing NAFTA on behalf of her husband. She claimed she wasn't, but when she released her schedule it showed on several occasions she met with business organizations and urged them to pass it. I think that is part of the record."

Obama said he supports trade but that it's important that trade deals be "good for workers and not just for corporate bottom lines and CEOs."

He said the U.S. needs to make sure trading partners such as China meet labor and environmental standards. There must be high labor and environmental standards, he said.

"There has been a tendency to look out for corporate profits and stocks, and a lot of those corporations don't feel a strong affinity for the American economy," Obama said. "They view themselves as international companies."

To help improve the economy, Obama is proposing $60 billion in new spending to build infrastructure.

He also is proposing a $150 billion, 10-year plan to help make the country more energy independent, including the building of more oil refineries, making automobiles more efficient, and greater use of solar and other alternative energy forms.