Obama to return to Michigan next week

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will travel to Michigan on Wednesday to speak on the importance of investing in workers' skills and training at Macomb Community College in Warren, the site of his first-ever trip to Michigan as president six years ago.

The White House on Friday afternoon announced the visit, saying that Obama will travel to Michigan along with Vice President Joe Biden's wife, Jill. No other details, such as the time of the event or whether it would be ticketed or open to the public, were immediately available.

Obama is expected to deliver remarks on the link between investing the nation's resources in improving workers' skills and growing the national economy.

He comes to Michigan just as Congress returns to Washington to take up a series of key pieces of legislative business, including his administration's proposal to end economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for that country scaling back its nuclear program and a new federal spending plan needed by Sept. 30 to avoid a shutdown.

In July 2009, Obama made his first visit to Michigan as president to Macomb Community College's Warren campus, remarking that despite his administration's moves to restructure and prop up General Motors and Chrysler that year that some auto jobs would still be forever lost as "casualties of a changing economy."

Earlier this year, in a visit to Wayne, Obama noted that some 500,000 auto jobs had been created since the recession but that was still well off pre-recession levels.

In the 2009 Macomb Community College speech, Obama also talked about boosting community colleges with $12 billion in federal money over 10 years. That funding never materialized because of political considerations and funding restraints though the Obama administration did commit billions to community colleges and proposed making community colleges free for students who maintain a 2.5 grade point average or better.

It was not immediately known if the president planned any additional stops in metro Detroit during his visit but more details were expected to be provided in the days to come.

Contact Todd Spangler at 703-854-8947 or at tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @tsspangler.