Obama visits Milwaukee to boost jobs agenda in key swing state President Obama will use a stop at a manufacturing factory in Milwaukee on Wednesday to highlight his plan to boost manufacturing jobs in the United States, a priority for his administration in an election year when the economy has been the most pressing issue. Obama will make remarks at Master Lock, a padlock manufacturing company that the president praised during his State of the Union address last month for bringing 100 jobs back from China as that country's labor costs rise. As part of his 2013 budget request, the president has proposed new tax breaks for companies that return jobs from overseas. "Right now we have an excellent opportunity to bring manufacturing back - but we have to seize it," Obama said in a statement from the White House. My message to business leaders is simple: Ask yourselves what you can do to bring jobs back to your country, and your country will do everything we can to help you succeed. But that success has largely been an anomaly in Wisconsin, where private-sector job creation has fallen in each of the past six months, bucking national trends. Obama carried the state by 14 percentage points in 2008, and winning it remains important to his reelection chances. Further complicating the picture for the president is the statewide effort to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who met Obama at the airport and joined him on the factory tour. Walker successfully pushed legislation last year that eliminated most collective bargaining rights for public employees, a move the president called an "attack on unions." Walker, who almost certainly will face a special election this summer, has become a star among conservatives, and he and his allies have suggested the recall race will motivate Republicans for the fall. Walker has told supporters that if he prevails, his win would damage Obama's own chances to stay in office. From what we've heard for months ... the White House wasn't particularly thrilled about having this election. ... This wasn't part of their game plan," Walker said this week, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. "I think his political people are perplexed" by it. With his stop in Milwaukee, Obama hopes to build momentum for his jobs agenda. Leaders in Congress have reached tentative agreement on an extension of the payroll tax cut through the end of the year, a measure that would provide an average worker with an addition $40 per paycheck. The Milwaukee visit is part of a three-day, three-state tour for Obama, who will attend fundraisers in California and tour a Boeing facility in Seattle.