Obama tackles college costs, autos in local radio interview

Detroit — In a local radio interview aired Friday morning, President Barack Obama talked about national needs, including bringing jobs back to the United States, continued investment in research and technology and more cooperation from a bickering, politically obsessed Congress.

The president also lauded the recovering auto industry, stating that the near failure of the industry would have had a devastating effect on the U.S.

Obama, who is scheduled to address students this morning at the Al Glick Field House at the University of Michigan, gave an early morning prerecorded interview to Paul W. Smith on WJR-AM (760).

Obama, who had previously spoken at the commencement ceremonies at the university in May 2010, drew a laugh from Smith by stating "Go Blue!" before talking about his plans for new educational initiatives to make college more affordable.

"The key fact I think families have learned is that college tuition has been going up faster than health care costs and wages," said Obama, in a phone interview. "We've taken steps to increase student aid over the past three years, but we also have to figure out how to keep costs down. We want to make sure that ideas are implemented across the board.

"We want graduates to start a life without being tens of thousands of dollars in debt."

Smith noted that an important part of the U.S. being dominant in manufacturing could be traced directly back to the auto industry. He asked Obama what Detroit and the U.S. would be like without the Big Three.

"When we made a decision to help, we stood to lose 1 million jobs through the failure of the auto industry," Obama said.

"Not only are the Big Three an icon, they built the middle class. There are all kinds of businesses that are dependent on the auto industry that would have been devastated by that loss.

"They're getting together to make more efficient operations, redesigning their products and are better and more competitive.

"We've seen the auto industry come back and create 160,000 jobs, and GM is once again the No. 1 auto company in the world."

Obama said transportation problems and rising wage costs overseas would have a positive effect on bringing jobs back to the U.S.

"Wages are going up faster than productivity in China," Obama said, pushing points from his State of the Union address given earlier this week. "We should give tax breaks to companies making jobs here in the United States, not those that outsource. When you look at the costs … it makes more sense to invest in the U.S.

"We have to pull together if we want to sell in Seoul, South Korea, and not just import."

Obama clarified a reported conversation he had with the late Steve Jobs of Apple who had said that computer industry jobs wouldn't be coming back to the U.S.

"Jobs did say there would be some low wage assembly work not coming back here," Obama said. "But he said if we train enough engineers to supervise the plants and the wage differentials overseas are raised, that we could bring jobs back here.

"We need more skilled workers, engineers and tax codes for investment here in the United States."

When asked about the problems with the Chevrolet Volt, the president earned another laugh from Smith when he said he thought that Congress was sometimes more interested in playing politics than in solving problems.

"Look at the Navy Seals that recently rescued two hostages from Somali thugs," Obama said. "They focus on completing the mission, not trying to score political points, which gum up the works. The point I want to make to Congress is that there's a time for campaigning. … Let's push the pause button and get things done."

Obama declined to give a direct answer when asked if the Keystone XL pipeline was completely dead.

"The problem is that anytime we do a pipeline from another country into ours, we have to make sure it's done safely," Obama said. "This has to do with developing Canadian resources that would be shipped to the Gulf Coast for processing and then shipped around the world.

"I'd rather we concentrate on U.S. energy … developing American oil and gas instead."

The president noted that UPS had recently converted its trucking fleet to natural gas instead of oil-based fuels.

"We have a 100 years supply of gas, but we have to convert our fleets and we need places where they can refuel," he said."There's a lot of exciting stuff out there, but we have to make sure we continue to make those investments … in science and research."

When Smith noted this was the second time he had visited the University of Michigan, Obama laughed and agreed that it was time he paid a visit to the campus of Michigan State University.

tgreenwood@detnews.com

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