Re: Convention junkies can obsess details here!
What is being said is that it was closed, Obama promised to open it, and it did not open. Obviously I don't know what the government can do in terms of opening those establishments, but the result is: "Obama lied, Capitalism died."
Ummm....no, that's not what he's saying at all. You got caught in a lie and are frantically trying to CYA.
From the Detroit Free Press:
Washington - Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan inaccurately said Thursday that President Barack Obama "broke his promise" by failing to keep a General Motors plant open that closed in 2008 - before the Democrat took office.
Ryan, the House Budget committee chairman, recounted the decision by GM to shutter the Janesville Assembly plant in his hometown in June 2008. The last SUV rolled off the line in December 2008.
"I remember President Obama visiting it when he was first running, saying he'll keep that plant open," Ryan said at a campaign stop in Ohio Thursday, recounting the fact that his high school friends worked at the GM assembly plant. "One more broken promise. We used to build Tahoes and Suburbans. One of the reasons that plant got shut down was $4 gasoline. You see, this costs jobs. The president's terrible energy policies are costing us jobs."
In fact, Obama made no such promise and the plant halted production in December 2008, when President George W. Bush was in office.
GM cited the low demand for SUVs and high gas prices during the Bush administration as the reason for closing the plant, but Obama hadn't taken office.
Obama did speak at the plant in February 2008, and suggested that a government partnership with automakers could keep the plant open, but made no promises as Ryan suggested.
"I believe if our government is there to support you, and give you the assistance you need to re-tool and make this transition, that this plant will be here for another hundred years," Obama said.
The Janesville plant, which once employed about 7,000 and had 2,400 workers when GM announced it would close, remains on standby. The plant opened in 1919.
In June 2009, GM considered three sites to locate a small car: its Orion plant in Michigan; Janesville, Wis.; and a Spring Hill, Tenn., plant slated to close in November. GM picked Orion and later reopened Spring Hill.
Ryan broke with his running mate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, by voting for a government bailout of GM and Chrysler LLC in December 2008 without a requirement that the automakers file for bankruptcy first, as Romney had insisted.
dshepardson@detnews.com
(202) 662-8735
From The Detroit News:
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120816/AUTO0103/208160480#ixzz252tR3XBX
