Hillary Clinton cast herself as organized labor’s presidential candidate on Sunday in Boston, standing with Marty Walsh, the city’s union-backed mayor, to roll out her plan to increase spending on infrastructure and manufacturing.
Standing inside historic Faneuil Hall’s Great Hall, Clinton said as president she would increase federal investment in infrastructure by $275 billion over the next five years, including establishing a $25 billion national infrastructure bank, which would put up federal dollars to attract private investment, and more federal spending to “bankroll upgrades to roads, bridges, airports and public transit.”
The event kicks off Clinton’s month-long focus on her jobs agenda, which, aides said Sunday, will be paid for through business tax reform. Clinton’s cumulative jobs and infrastructure plan — which aides called “the most significant investment, dollars-wise, of her policy platform” — will cost at least $350 billion.
“To build a strong economy for our future, we must start by building strong infrastructure today,” Clinton said flanked by paintings of Daniel Webster, Samuel Adams and George Washington. “I want our cities to be in the forefront of cities anywhere in the world. I want our workers to be the most competitive and productive in the world. I want us, once again, to think big and look up, beyond the horizon of what is possible in America.”
The former secretary of state teased that the plan would also call for universal broadband by 2020, more focus on creating a clean energy grid and bringing back Build America bonds, municipal bonds that were used during to fund infrastructure projects during the Great Recession in 2009.
“I know we can do this. I know it is not going to be easy,” Clinton said to the audience, made up largely of union members. “This is not my first rodeo.”
The event was notably pro-labor, with members from Laborers’ International Union of North America and United Brotherhood of Carpenters both inside and outside the event. Both unions have endorsed Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary.
Walsh, a former union member, forcefully endorsed Clinton on Sunday, casting her as the most qualified candidate for the job.
“Nobody comes closer to her experience, nobody comes closer to her achievements,” he said. “Get your sledgehammers ready, because we have a glass ceiling to demolish.”
Walsh was not among a number of the big city mayors to endorse Clinton as a group earlier this year, telling reporters before the event that he was “torn a little bit” between Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden, who toyed with a run.
Walsh pledged to do “whatever needs to be done” for the campaign, and said he was courted personally by Clinton a number of times, including conversations with former President Bill Clinton.
Infrastructure has long been a focus on Clinton’s presidential campaign. The candidate has promised to spend money on rebuilding the country’s bridges, roads and tunnels and focusing the spending on clean energy in many of her events across the country over the last few months.
“We have to get more good jobs and we do need, in my opinion, a targeted effort at people and communities that have not had the benefits of the recovery thus far,” Clinton said during an event earlier this year in South Carolina. “We need once and for all to have a very big infrastructure program.”
At an event earlier this year in Nashua, New Hampshire, Clinton said she had “ideas” how she could implement her “big infrastructure program” without Congress.
“I will find a way,” she said. “We will never quit.”
The program also gets mentioned at Clinton’s private fundraisers. During an event in Saratoga, California, Clinton said she would continue to advocate for “a big infrastructure program” that included an “infrastructure bank funded by public private partnerships to fund long-term projects.”
Clinton’s focus on infrastructure has also helped her win the support of a number of unions. When the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America endorsed Clinton earlier this year, they cited her focus on “strategic budgeting for our country’s infrastructure” as a reason they choose to back her.
The former first lady also promised to protect union rights on Sunday.
“I’m not going to let anybody undermine collective bargaining rights,” she said, arguing that unions would have a partner in the White House with her as president.
Clinton has not been alone in calling for more infrastructure spending. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s stoutest opponent for the nomination, has called for more than $1 trillion dollars in spending on the issue.