Stumping for votes in Michigan ahead of next week’s primary, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton called for a “new bargain for a new economy” at a campaign stop Friday.
Speaking from a factory floor in Detroit, Clinton said that “creating good-paying jobs and raising incomes is the defining economic challenge of our time.”
Clinton outlined a vision to meet that challenge.
She said U.S. corporations should practice “economic patriotism,” and treat workers as assets, not costs.
And if they move jobs or assets abroad, Clinton called for using the tax code to punish them.
“If you desert America, you will pay a price,” Clinton said. “But do the right thing—invest in your workers, and your country’s future—and we will stand with you.”
Clinton called for a national infrastructure bank to “rebuild our crumbling water systems in Flint and around the country.”
She also took aim at Wall Street misbehavior, widening inequality, and “bad trade deals”—all major campaign themes of her Democratic opponent, Senator Bernie Sanders.
But Clinton said turning back the clock on trade or other “old battles” isn’t a “credible strategy.”
Most polls show Clinton with a sizeable lead over Sanders in Michigan.