DETROIT – President Barack Obama and Detroit Mayor Dave Bing met one-on-one Monday during the President’s visit to Detroit.
Bing and Obama discussed a number of pressing matters in the city including the City of Detroit’s current financial crisis and the Mayor’s reform agenda according to Bing’s press office.
Obama spoke at Detroit Diesel’s Redford engine plant Tuesday as part of a campaign to get Americans on board with his plan to avoid the fiscal cliff.
“I did compliment the President on what some of his departments are already doing, in particular Transportation, HUD, Labor, Education and the Strong Cities, Strong Communities program,” Bing said of the meeting. “We did talk about the potential of getting personnel to help us with the execution of our restructuring plan.”
Bing said the highlights of President Obama’s speech at the Detroit Diesel facility included his assertion that everyone has to come to the table to work together and his stance on the importance of manufacturing in this country.
“I think the risk and the investment that the President made in the auto industry helped turn the industry around, no doubt,” Bing said.
Bing also said he agreed with the President who made it clear he was opposed to the right-to-work legislation.
“These so-called right-to-work laws, they don’t have anything to do with economics, they have everything to do with politics,” Obama told autoworkers in his Detroit speech. “What they’re really talking about is giving you the right to work for less money.”
The right-to-work debate is hotly contested in Michigan as state legislature is poised to pass the bill this week and send it to the governor’s desk. Governor Rick Snyder said last week that if right to-work legislation reaches his disk he would sign it into law.
In a recent interview on CNN, Bing claimed to have the hardest job in America as Mayor of Detroit, second only to Obama’s.
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