Save American Manufacturing
August 11, 2010
Politico (Opinion)
By: Robert Borosage
These days, Republicans can’t suppress the gloat. The “Party of No,” leading in most polls, is said to be on the verge of taking the House and possibly the Senate in November.
The irrepressible Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) calls the midterms a “dress rehearsal” for 2012, posing a fundamental choice for voters: “Are we going to be an opportunity society with a safety net or a cradle-to-grave society with a welfare state?”
Put aside that Republicans scorn safety nets as incipient socialism; they even balked at extending unemployment insurance. Ryan’s choice — opportunity over welfare — has been a GOP standard since Ronald Reagan proved its popularity.
But will that old refrain play today? Democrats are trying a different tune: “Making It in America .”
When they return in September, the Democratic majority plans to push a legislative agenda that takes the first steps toward reviving U.S. manufacturing. Specific elements are still being determined but are likely to include new tax incentives for creating jobs, subsidies and tax credits for investment in renewable energy and a tougher stance on trade — probably featuring a challenge to Chinese currency manipulation.
Politically, the power of this message was foreshadowed in the Pennsylvania special election for Rep. John Murtha’s seat. Mark Critz, the Democratic candidate, won an upset in a conservative, white, ethnic district, with a campaign attacking the free-trade policies of his businessman opponent.
Democratic leaders were also electrified by a Mark Mellman poll for the Alliance for American Manufacturing, which showed that large majorities believe manufacturing is the most important industry for our economy and national security and support action to revive it.
Two-thirds of Democrats, Republicans and independents reject the
view that “high-tech and services” industries can
replace manufacturing in a strong U.S. economy.
When Mellman put a message calling for action to secure our
manufacturing base against a conservative line disparaging Big
Government and the auto bailouts and invoking the free market, the
former won by almost two to one — 60 percent to 32
percent.
More than 75 percent of Americans support a “national
manufacturing strategy to make sure that economic, tax, labor and
trade policies work together to help support manufacturing in the
U.S. ”
Not surprisingly, the Democrats’ lead initiative now is the
National Manufacturing Strategy Act, introduced by Rep. Daniel
Lipinski (D-Ill.). It calls for quadrennial review of U.S.
manufacturing policy — including assessing strategic
industries, reviewing tax and trade subsidies and requiring
agencies to coordinate strategies.
Here, good politics is also good policy. A bold initiative for
reviving U.S. manufacturing is overdue. Since 2000, we’ve
lost nearly one-third of all manufacturing jobs — more than 5
million. We’ve racked up $6 trillion in global current
account losses, borrowing as much as $2 billion a day to cover our
trade deficits. Rising deficits now sap the faltering
recovery.
This isn’t just globalization. This is a matter of ideology
and policy. In the past three decades of conservative dominance,
Americans embraced what George Soros calls “market
fundamentalism.”
Government was scorned; markets, exalted. It translated into
cutting taxes and spending, deregulating, freeing up trade,
weakening unions and worker protections, celebrating CEOs, keeping
the dollar strong — and letting it rip.
We know the results. Manufacturing went into long-term decline.
Wages stagnated. The United States became the world’s largest
debtor. Families took on greater debt to make ends meet. Financial
speculation thrived, contributing to Gilded Age inequality. As
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has argued, the global
imbalances contributed directly to the financial collapse.
Now, Americans are worried about jobs and deficits, furious at
big-bank bailouts and sensibly suspicious of a government that
seems more responsive to lobbyists than to citizens. But
Ryan’s choice offers no way out. Most Americans agree with
President Barack Obama when he argues we can’t go back to
that old economy.
It’s easy to dismiss the Democrats’ new message as a
deathbed conversion. But if seriously pursued, it would represent a
fundamental break with conservative policies.
Manufacturing is central to a strong economy and a broad middle
class. And rebuilding a manufacturing sector with good jobs
requires new policies in a global economy.
Obama’s “new foundation” for the economy offers
first steps: public investment in 21st-century infrastructure, in
education and training, in research and development. Yet these,
slighted in years of conservative control, are necessary but not
sufficient.
To ensure products are “made in America ” requires
hardheaded steps to balance trade and challenging the mercantilist
countries, starting with China .
This administration is allergic to the term “industrial
policy,” dismissed as “picking winners and
losers.” But the president — and Mother Nature —
have already picked a winner, capturing a lead role in the green
industrial revolution, beginning with what Obama calls
“jump-starting a new American clean energy
industry.”
Competition is already fierce, with Germany , Spain , China and
others subsidizing strategic industries.
Meeting the competition is likely to require U.S. renewable
energy standards that ensure a growing market for alternative
energy, aggressive use of government procurement to help domestic
producers, tax credits and other subsidies to help start-ups,
expanded investment in science and technology and, finally, setting
a price on carbon emissions.
A national investment bank could mobilize the public and private
investment in new energy and infrastructure projects.
This forward-looking manufacturing strategy is vital to rebuilding
a broad middle class — as other nations have demonstrated.
Germany , for example, maintains a large manufacturing trade
surplus that is now fueling its recovery, even as its workers
receive higher pay and better benefits and work far fewer hours
than Americans.
Against the backdrop of mass unemployment, a faltering recovery,
deficit hysteria and bailout fury, this agenda may be too little
and too late for many Democrats.
But it addresses a challenge that America cannot duck. A U.S.
manufacturing strategy represents a dramatic conceptual break with
the market triumphalism of the past decades.
By abandoning the Republicans’ “opportunity vs.
welfare” refrain, Democrats’ “Making It in
America ” may trump conservative scorn for government —
and offer the party a lifeline this fall.
Robert L. Borosage is president of the
Institute for America’s Future and co-director of its sister
organization, the Campaign for America ’s
Future.