By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
c.2010 New York Times News Service
BUFFALO – President Barack Obama delivered an upbeat economic forecast and a defense of his economic policies on Thursday, telling a crowd at a manufacturing plant here that job growth would continue and that “next year is going to be better than this year.”
Obama came to this economically depressed city as part of his White House to Main Street tour. He dropped by a local restaurant, Duff’s, to sample a Buffalo delicacy – spicy chicken wings – and toured Industrial Support Inc., a specialty manufacturing company, where he gave himself credit for breaking the “economic freefall” the nation faced when he took office 16 months ago.
“We can say beyond a shadow of a doubt today we are headed in the right direction,” Obama told an audience of about 230 workers and local business leaders. “All those tough steps we took, they’re working, despite all the naysayers who were predicting failure a year ago.”