Obama addresses party faithful in Reno

RENO — Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois told a small crowd of party faithful and union members Sunday that too many people “feel as if the American dream is slipping away.”

“This election is about how we’re gong to maintain and sustain the American dream,” he told the crowd of just 250 in the courtyard at Wooster High School.

He said his Republican opponent John McCain has charged that his tax plan would lead to economic disaster.

“My tax plan provides tax cuts to 95 percent of the American people,” he said. “His benefits the same corporations that have been making out like bandits under the Bush Administration.”

“My plan’s not going to bring economic disaster. We already have economic disaster from John McCain’s President George Bush.”

Obama said his plan will cut deficit spending by ending the war in Iraq and “roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.”

He said McCain’s plan to double those tax breaks is nothing more than “$300 billion in tax breaks for companies like Exxon-Mobil.” He said nothing would change under McCain because he is tied to all the same lobbyists and corporate interests Bush is tied to.

Obama said he would tie the minimum wage to inflation and make health care available to everyone. He called for $4,000 a year in tuition credits so more middle class people can attend college saying, “unless you get some post high school training today, you’re not going to be able to support your family.”

He called for development of renewable energy resources saying sunny Nevada should become an solar power energy exporter.

And he said the auto industry needs to get back on the cutting edge of technology.

“Let’s help them retool,” he said. “Make sure those energy efficient cars are built not in Japan but in the United States of America.”

“When we invest in our people, the country grows,” he said.

He urged his supporters to work hard to overcome the negative ads being run by McCain and the Republican Party. He said that is their campaign strategy because they have nothing to offer the country except more of the same.

In response to union officials who asked what can be done about what they say are illegal tactics to frustrate and block union organizers, Obama said: “It’ll help to have a president who doesn’t choke on the word union.”

He said he would select “a Labor Secretary who believes in labor.”

Obama was making his first Nevada stop since the end of May and his first trip to Northern Nevada since January. He said he intends to be back before the election.

The two hour stop at a high school conveniently just a quarter mile from the airport was set up informally with attendees, all there by invitation, sitting at picnic tables in the grassy courtyard.

Obama left almost immediately for a fund-raising event in San Francisco later in the day

• Contact reporter Geoff Dornan at gdornan@nevadaappeal.com or 687-8750.