The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Friday, September 11, 2015 — 3A
University prof.
featured on NPR
Bruce
Conforth,
professor
of
American
culture,
was
interviewed on NPR’s All Things
Considered.
Conforth
spoke
about
literary figures
whose
presence have appeared in pop
culture such as Lorathio from
Don Quixote, and Frankenstein, a
character created by author Mary
Shelley.
Michigan House
stuck in standstill
The
Michigan
House
of
Representatives reached a halt
Thursday afternoon while voting
to expel Rep. Todd Courser (R–
Lapeer) and Rep. Cindy Gamrat
(R–Plainwell).
Courser
was
accused of misuse of taxpayer
resources and covering up an
extramarital affair with Gamrat,
according to the Detroit News.
The voting was delayed due to a
Democratic boycott.
Mac ‘n’ cheese
comes to Big House
New to the Big House, Sweet
Lorraine’s Fabulous Mac n’ Cheez!
will be debuting a new “mac
wrap.” The dish is can eaten like a
sandwich or in the form of a
cone. They have three varieties
to choose from: classic, bacon or
spinach walnut pesto.
Mich. plane crashes
in Atlantic Ocean
A single-engine plane left Gay-
lord about noon and crashed in
the Atlantic Ocean about 2:45 p.m.
A search party of helicopters and
boats is working about seven miles
off the coast of Atlantic City. It is
not confirmed how many people
were on board.
President, Dr. Jill
Biden highlight
familiar message
during Mich. visit
BY SAMANTHA WINTNER
Daily Staff Reporter
WARREN, Mich. — As the 2016
presidential race picks up and
President Barack Obama enters
his final 16 months in office, the
Obama administration kicked off
a nationwide tour Wednesday
focusing on a familiar message —
the importance of bolstering the
nation’s middle class.
The president and Dr. Jill Biden,
a professor at Northern Virgin-
ia Community College and the
wife of Vice President Joe Biden,
addressed a crowd of several hun-
dred people at Macomb Commu-
nity College. During the event,
Obama rolled out a $175 million
apprenticeship
grant
program
through the U.S. Department of
Labor and rallied support for a
proposal he announced in January
to provide a guaranteed two free
years of community college.
Obama announced this plan
in his State of the Union address
with the goal of offering respon-
sible students the opportunity to
attend two years of community
college for free. He emphasized
the need for every student to have
a chance to succeed, arguing that
the benefits of a community col-
lege degree and job skills training
include the chance to live a more
prosperous life.
In Macomb, Biden said giv-
ing every American the highest
quality education possible is the
best way to ensure people from
all backgrounds have a chance to
succeed.
“Our administration believes
you should have the education and
skills you need to succeed with-
out being saddled with decades of
debt,” she said. “Because it’s too
hard to get ahead when you start
off from so far behind.”
This is the third time Obama
has visited Warren. He cam-
paigned there in 2008, and the
city hosted his first visit to Michi-
gan as president in 2009. It was in
Macomb that the president first
discussed his commitment to
encouraging Americans to attend
community college and investing
in community college programs
that serve local needs.
The
president
has
visited
Michigan 17 times since he took
office and has continually used
the state as a platform to discuss
the middle class.
In 2012, he spoke at the Uni-
versity to address the rising cost
of higher education, adding that
receiving an education is too
valuable to carry such a restric-
tive cost.
The president visited the Uni-
versity again in 2014 to advocate
for raising the federal minimum
wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour.
He argued that workers who hold
steady jobs should not be stuck in
poverty because they receive low
wages.
In his speech at Macomb,
Obama said after World War II,
the United States was the best-
educated nation in the world,
contributing to the rise of a great
American middle class.
“In places like Macomb Coun-
ty, you could feel secure knowing
that if you worked hard, you’d
get a chance to find a good job,
buy a home, raise a family, send
your kids to college,” he said. “We
didn’t promise everybody that
they would get rich, but we prom-
ised that everybody who worked
hard would have a chance to get
there, and have the dignity of a
decent-paying job with decent-
paying benefits. That’s what it
meant to be middle class.”
In
more
recent
decades,
Obama said, the economy has
changed, and attempts to better
it — including tax cuts for the
upper class — created hardships
for the middle class.
“We together have spent the
last seven years (since the 2008
recession) fighting back, getting
focused on middle class econom-
ics once again,” he said.
This effort, he said, includes
job creation, the provision of
health insurance for all Ameri-
cans and a commitment to revive
the U.S. auto industry.
“We placed our bets on Ameri-
can businesses and American
workers, and that bet is paying
off,” he said. “Michigan is coming
back.”
The president cautioned that
making comeback is not enough:
For the sake of future genera-
tions, he said, the country has to
do better for its citizens — not
just restore a previous standard
of living. He argued that wealth
inequality remains a challenge,
adding that jobs still do not pay
enough and wages are still flat.
“A big part of making sure
today’s economy works better
for ordinary folks goes back to
the issue of education,” he said.
“Every
American
willing
to
work hard should have a shot at
higher education because as the
economy globally becomes more
competitive, everybody’s got to
upgrade their skills a little bit.”
According to Obama, a post-
secondary education of some kind
will be a requirement for two out
of every three jobs by 2020. Spe-
cialized skills, he argued, will
be necessities in the search for a
good job.
“Having a credential above
and beyond your high school
diploma, that’s the surest ticket
to the middle class,” he said.
“And in global competition for
jobs and industries, having the
best educated workforce in the
world is the surest way for Amer-
ica to stay on top.”
In Warren, Obama talks education
LUNA ANNA ARCHEY/Daily
President Barack Obama speaks about his plan to improve American education by calling for free and public access to two years of community college at Macomb Community College on Wednesday.