A Growing National Movement for Manufacturing
Posted by SCapozzola on November 15th, 2007The presidential debates may not be discussing it very much, but the national media can’t ignore it: U.S. manufacturing is becoming a hot-button issue.
Yesterday, Reuters’ Andrea Hopkins launched into a piece on voter concerns with this salvo:
It could be expected that Iraq would play a big role in the 2008 U.S. election campaign. But if recent populist rallies are an indication, another country may be rousing even more anger from voters: China.
And the focal point of Hopkins’ analysis? AAM’s Tuesday night Town Hall meeting in Pittsburgh—what Hopkins described as “an overflowing convention room” where “voters, union officials and company executives alike railed against unfair trade — and demanded U.S. politicians do something.”
Just what is it that AAM has hit on so explicitly?
On Tuesday night, U.S. Steel C.O.O. John Goodish said it bluntly: “It’s our job, together with the union, to make sure we keep manufacturing competitive. It’s the government’s job to make sure we have a level playing field. They’re not doing their job.”
As AAM’s Town Hall meetings build up steam, and roll toward upcoming events in New York, Virginia, and South Carolina, a critical consensus seems to be building, and one that is playing out clearly in each town. Voters are worried about losing their manufacturing jobs to China—the very country that keeps shipping unsafe food and toys to them.
Where there’s smoke, there should be fire, and as AAM’s Scott Paul noted in Tuesday’s Pittsburgh Post Gazette, “Any candidate looking for a head start to November 2008 would be wise to articulate a positive, forward-looking vision on how to strengthen manufacturing in Pennsylvania and across our nation.”
One by one, the presidential candidates are going to have to react to the public clamor. And it seems that former Senator John Edwards has become the first one to make the leap. Yesterday, Edwards released a manufacturing policy paper yesterday that cites AAM’s work several times and calls for “smart trade.” Astutely, Edwards notes that “currency manipulation, illegal foreign subsidies, bad trade deals and rising energy and health care costs” that have taken a toll on American manufacturing.” It could be a page right out of AAM 101.
ManufactureThis asks the inevitable question, then: Who’s next? Which of the presidential candidates will be next to take a proverbial look out the window and embrace the cause of strengthening U.S. manufacturing?
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