Obama: High-tech manufacturing key to rebound

SCHENECTADY - President Barack Obama touted America's potential to rebound economically through high-tech manufacturing during a tour Friday of a General Electric Co. turbine plant located near Thomas Edison's original GE campus.

Before an audience of 200 to 300 plant workers and state and local politicians, Obama perhaps forecast his upcoming State of the Union speech when he said: "The past two years was about bringing our economy back from the brink. The next two years is about putting our economy in overdrive."

Standing on the assembly floor, the president got his loudest, strongest applause when he talked of opening China to American high-tech products, such as GE turbines and large-scale batteries.

"They [China] are selling here. But we want to sell there," the president said, evoking hoots and shouts of "Yeah!" from the workers. He set a goal of doubling America's exports in the next two years.

"We're going to build stuff, and invent stuff," Obama told the crowd. "We're going back to Thomas Edison's principles."

"I think you saw a little preview of the State of the Union," said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), "talking about growth and jobs and a positive future for America - not a gloom and doom future."

Obama also introduced GE chief executive Jeffrey Immelt as the head of a Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. The panel replaces Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

"I think the picture that meant the most to me was the president walking in with Jeffrey Immelt," Schumer said. "Democrats are going to be for new jobs and allied with business to create new jobs."

In contrast, state Republican chairman Edward Cox fired off a critical statement of Obama's "photo op."

"Photo ops don't create jobs. Fiscally conservative policy does," Cox said. "The fact still remains that the president's core philosophy of more government, more spending, more regulation and higher taxes has inhibited our economic recovery."