Obama Sells His Economic Record by Talking up Plant He Tried to Close

Posted on February 19, 2012 by Conservative Byte

President Obama wants desperately to be able to take credit for economic recovery…even when his administration arguably stood in the way.

The Washington Examiner reports that the President recently delivered a speech praising the productivity of Boeing’s manufacturing plants:

“This company is a great example of what American manufacturing can do in a way that nobody else in the world can do it,” Obama told the assembled workers this afternoon at the Everett, Wash., Boeing plant. ”And the impact of your success, as I said, goes far beyond the walls of this plant. Every Dreamliner that rolls off the assembly line here in Everett supports thousands of jobs in different industries all across the country. Parts of the fuselage are manufactured in South Carolina and Kansas,” Obama noted before mentioning factories in other states.

The problem? His administration tried to close one of the most productive of those plants over conflict with unions. Specifically, when Boeing decided to relocate some of its manufacturing plants to South Carolina – a right-to-work state, unlike Washington state – the unions sued in front of Obama’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in retaliation. The NLRB sided with the unions, even though the workers themselves had voted to kick them out of their plant.