“Jobs, money, jobs, money, jobs, money…”

It starts to sound like a broken record.  But what’s really broken is the understanding among our elected officials that they need to take direct action to strengthen America’s economic backbone. 

New Commerce Department figures released today show that the monthly U.S. trade deficit reached a 14-month high of $63.1 billion in November 2007.  Our bilateral trade deficit with China also continues to clip along at a record pace. 

In a brief statement, AAM’s Scott Paul noted that the growing trade deficit “underscores the urgent need for Congress and the Administration to reform America’s trade policy and hold trade partners like China accountable for their unfair practices.  Manufacturing jobs continue to disappear at an alarming rate.  Voters understand the urgent need to fix this problem.  The real question is whether or not Washington will catch up before it is too late.”

Voter concern seems to suddenly be top-of-mind for pols and pundits, if for no other reason than the candidates are finally remembering that they need to court voter approval.  The Washington Post’s Peter Baker commented on this in a piece appropriately titled “The economy slumps to the top of the campaign agenda.”  As Baker observed, in both New Hampshire and Iowa, “exit polls showed that the economy has overtaken all other issues as the top concern for Democrats and Republicans alike.”

Baker’s piece included a quote from AAM: “The economy’s number one,” said Scott Paul, director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a coalition of manufacturers and the United Steelworkers that has found deep apprehension about the economy at town hall meetings in early-primary states. “It’s organic. It’s not an organized effort. But it’s something the voters, Republicans and Democrats, are fretting about.”

Scott Paul had said as much earlier this week in a Huffington Post piece.  It seems that AAM’s message—that our elected officials need to stand up for American workers—is finally taking hold.

One way would be for Congress and the administration to take strong, effective action against the market-distorting practices employed by China.  AAM senior analyst Kerri Houston discussed this in-depth yesterday in an interview on Texas radio, and pointed out that the U.S. already has laws on its books to address illegal subsidies and currency manipulation.  It’s the 2008 presidential candidates who need to talk loudly about employing these remedies.
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This entry was posted on Friday, January 11th, 2008 at 6:54 pm and is filed under Manufacturing in the U.S., Enforcing Trade Laws, AAM. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.