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Excuse after excuse, it's never Hillary's fault
#65 - 0--spud--Excuse after excuse, it's never Hillary's fault--2008-02-28 17:06:33
# BUFFALO, N.Y. - She's reminded of it all the time around here, so Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton
couldn't have been surprised when her failed 2000 campaign promise to
bring 200,000 jobs to economically desperate upstate New York became
part of the latest presidential debate.
In her first term in the Senate, the region saw a net loss of 26,500
jobs, according to an analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics by
the Business Council of New York State.
"All one has to do is listen to talk radio to know that's on a lot of people's minds," said Kevin Hardwick, a political science professor at Canisius College in Buffalo.
Clinton recently called the promise "a little exuberant." During Tuesday's debate with Barack Obama, the New York senator said she was figuring Al Gore would be in the White House.
"When I made the pledge, I was counting on having a Democratic White
House, a Democratic president, who shared my values about what we
needed to do to make the economy work for everyone and to create shared
prosperity," she said.
"And as you know, despite the difficulties of the Bush
administration and a Republican Congress for six years of my first
term, I have worked very hard to create jobs, but obviously as
president I will have a lot more tools at my disposal," she said.
The failed 200,000 number got its share of attention during
Clinton's 2006 bid for re-election, but it hardly hurt her. She easily
beat back a challenge from former Yonkers Mayor John Spencer.
THE SPIN:
By saying her job-creation efforts
for upstate were stymied in the Senate by a Republican administration
and policies, Clinton hopes to deflect doubt about her ability to
fulfill a new pledge as president to create 5 million new jobs over 10
years.
THE FACTS:
From 1990 to 2000, New York state jobs grew at a rate of about 13
percent, while the nation saw a 20 percent jump. If the upstate region,
with 3.1 million jobs in 2000, had broken out of its sluggish 5 percent
growth to be on par with the entire state or the nation, that could
have meant a couple hundred thousand jobs.
But upstate New York had not grown at the overall state or national
pace for decades — and there was no imminent change on the horizon.
As
they had before Clinton became senator, manufacturing jobs continued to
disappear upstate after the election — from Rochester-based Kodak,
flatware-maker Oneida Ltd., Carrier Corp. in Syracuse, western New York's auto and auto parts manufacturers, and others.
Two months after arriving in the Senate, Clinton introduced her
first legislation, a package of seven bills designed to spur job growth
through tax incentives, entrepreneurial incubators and job training
programs.
In late 2003, she announced her participation in a New Jobs for New York initiative, a private, not-for-profit corporation formed by investment banker Roger Altman, who served as deputy treasury secretary in her husband's administration. The goal was to stimulate economic development upstate by matching Wall Street investors with businesses in depressed areas.
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