Netroots Nation 2010

Manufacturing Strategy Idea Gets A Boost

Dave Johnson — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:17:55 -0400

Over the weekend I wrote about Speaker Pelosi talking at Netroots Nation about the upcoming "Making It In America" initiative that the Congress will be taking up after the summer recess. CNN's Money.com describes what's coming,

Democrats kicked off the campaign last week by passing the "U.S. Manufacturing Enhancement Act" -- a mundane vehicle for tariff breaks that the party spiffed up with a new name to fit the messaging push. On tap for this week: "The National Manufacturing Strategy Act," directing the President to create a manufacturing strategy every four years; "The End the Trade Deficit Act," creating a commission to develop strategies to reduce the trade deficit; and "The Clean Energy Technology Manufacturing and Export Assistance Act," requiring the Commerce Secretary to advise clean-energy outfits.

A key part of the manufacturing initiative is to require the administration to develop a national manufacturing strategy. H.R. 4692: the National Manufacturing Strategy Act of 2010 does the following:

Directs the President, every four years, to: (1) conduct a comprehensive analysis of the nation's manufacturing sector; and (2) submit to Congress a National Manufacturing Strategy (Strategy). Requires the President, in developing each Strategy, to convene a Manufacturing Strategy Task Force to make recommendations regarding specified matters for incorporation into the Strategy, including short- and long-term goals for the manufacturing sector. Directs that: (1) each final Strategy be published on a public website; and (2) the first Strategy be issued by February 28, 2011. Directs the Comptroller General, three years after publication of a Strategy, to review its recommendations. Requires the President to convene a President's Manufacturing Strategy Board to provide information and recommendations regarding the needs of, and opportunities for, the nation's manufacturing sector. Directs the National Academy of Sciences to: (1) conduct quadrennial studies concerning U.S. manufacturing; and (2) report each study's results to Congress and the President. Provides for additional required and discretionary studies. Requires the President, in preparing each annual budget, to include information regarding that budget's consistency with the goals and recommendations included in the latest Strategy.

The key is that the administration must develop a national manufacturing strategy. This means we will finally catch up to what our competitors in the world already do! As Rep. Lipinski of Illinois states at his website,

The legislation requires the President to consult with the private sector to produce a strategy containing a set of specific policy recommendations for strengthening American manufacturing in order to create jobs and ensure America can provide for its own defense. A poll released last month by the Alliance for American Manufacturing shows that Americans overwhelmingly favor passage of a National Manufacturing Strategy and believe more must be done to stem the loss of manufacturing jobs.

“Over the last decade, America has lost one-third of all its manufacturing jobs,” Congressman Lipinski (IL-03) said. “Contrary to what some seem to believe, these job losses were not inevitable, and I do not accept the notion that there is nothing we can do. Clearly, another decade like the last one would dramatically undermine the American middle class and, most importantly, leave us unable to produce many of the goods we require for our national security. The National Manufacturing Strategy Act will bring government and the private sector together to produce a detailed strategy for revitalizing American manufacturing that includes specific goals and recommendations on how to meet them.”

meanwhile, over at the National Association of Manufacturers Shopfloor blog NAM President John Engler is encouraging a very different approach (PDF) that unfortunately includes the tired old approach of cutting taxes for the wealthy so they get even richer, breaking unions so the rest of us get poorer, making if impossible for citizens to use the courts to get justice when big companies cause harms ("tort reform"), further deregulating big corporations so they can harm workers and the environment at will, importing workers who are paid less to force reductions in American wages, etc. Hey guys, give it up, those conservative policies already failed us! Get on board with the Making It In America initiative!

Pelosi: Congress' Coming 'Making It In America' Initiative

Dave Johnson — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 16:03:37 -0400

At the Netroots Nation convention today in Las Vegas, Speaker Nancy Pelosi talked about an upcoming Congressional initiative to help restore American manufacturing. The initiative, called “Making It In America” will include a series of bills to be introduced after the summer recess.

A few days ago Politico wrote about the upcoming initiative,

Democrats are priming the House floor for a manufacturing agenda they hope will bolster the economy, produce easy bipartisan votes and boost their chances in the midterm elections — at least if the polls they’re using are on target.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) teased the plan — sometimes dubbed “Making It in America” — after a White House meeting with President Barack Obama last week. The agenda appears to be the Democrats’ final pre-election push to clear the deck of jobs-related bills that have been sitting around for months.

Democrats plan to present the agenda as a means of creating jobs, promoting green manufacturing through tax credits and grants and enhancing national security by rebuilding the domestic manufacturing sector at a time when many Americans are worried about China’s strength, according to aides.

The Politico story referred to the impact made on members of Congress by a new poll from the Alliance for American Manufacturing. According to the poll,

A majority believe the U.S. no longer has the world’s strongest economy—a title they want to regain
Voters are anxious about the economy—specifically China debt, spending and loss of manufacturing
86% of voters want Washington to focus on manufacturing, and 63% feel working people who make things are being forgotten while Wall Street and banks get bailouts
Two-thirds of voters believe manufacturing is central to our economic strength, and 57% believe manufacturing is more central to our economic strength than high-tech, knowledge or financial service sectors
Across all demographics, voters’ economic solutions center on trade enforcement, clean energy, tax credits for U.S. manufacturing and replacing aging infrastructure using American materials, a surprising overlap between Tea Party supporters, independents, non-union households and union households.

Wednesday the House passed the first bill of the initiative, H.R. 4380, the U.S. Manufacturing Enhancement Act, to help American manufacturers by temporarily suspending or reducing duties on materials these companies use that are made abroad or opposed by domestic producers.

California Rep. John Garamendi has introduced three bills to close corporate tax loopholes that reward the off-shoring of jobs and end taxpayer subsidies for foreign-produced clean energy technology, buses, railcars, and ferries.

Garamendi says "I want to walk into Target and see "Made in America" throughout the store. We can make it in America,"

At Netroots Nation Speaker Pelosi also said that Congress is looking at addressing the China currency problem, where China is manipulating its currency to give goods made there a huge pricing advantage. She also pointed out that China imposes many other barriers to free trade, including not allowing American companies to bid on government procurement, even when the goods are made in China.

I will be writing more on this, but it is a breaking story and I want to get the news out.

"This Thing Is Not Over": There Always Has Been a Plan B For The Climate Bill

Bill Scher — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:51:14 -0400

At Netroots Nation today, Van Jones sought to rally attendees after the Senate leadership put plans for a climate protection bill on the back burner: "This thing is not over."

He's right, for one very simple reason. It is against the law under the Clean Air Act, the Supreme Court has ruled, for the Environmental Protection Agency to ignore greenhouse gas pollution. And a congressional attempt to gut the Clean Air Act and block the EPA from acting was defeated this year.

That fact has always been part of the argument to press Senators from coal, oil, manufacturing and agribusiness states to accept climate compromises: if Congress doesn't do it, the EPA will.

And that same fact has always the Obama administration's Plan B.

The EPA is not going to announce an economy-wide carbon cap overnight. But it has been and will continue to announce a rule here and a rule there, continually ramping up pressure on Congress to pass legislation that will cap carbon emissions in a way that businesses will find more flexible than what the EPA is able to do.

This is part of the reason prospects for a climate bill have remained alive far longer than anyone would have thought considering how far away we are from 60 Senate votes. Even businesses know what is around the corner.

And more and more are willing, if not eager, to cut a deal today to establish certainty on greenhouse gas regulation over the next four decades, instead of trying to tie up new EPA rules in court, which – as the recent Court ruling showed -- can't work forever.

The question of a climate bill is when, not if.

But since the climate crisis has its own clock, it's our job to fight as hard as possible to make the "when" as soon as possible.

What the President Didn't Seem to Learn From the Shirley Sherrod Incident

Richard Eskow — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 12:42:47 -0400

The "teachable moment" cliché may be overused, as Jason Linkins observed the other day, but what the White House really needed this week was a learnable moment. The Administration and other leading Democrats had an opportunity this week to understand the nature of the opposition they face. The President's remarks about Shirley Sherrod's firing suggest that this "learnable moment" may have been lost. Let's hope not.

In what might be described as a "the buck stops there" comment, the President blamed Tom Vilsack for the decision. "He jumped the gun," said the President, "partly because we now live in this media culture where something goes up on YouTube or a blog and everybody scrambles."

No, Mr. President. The problem is that there is a highly motivated, ideologically driven, and extremely well funded movement that is determined to destroy you, your party, and everything you stand for, including the proper role of government in a civil society. Their ideology lies in tatters, destroyed by the economic collapse and the ecological devastation in the Gulf. All they have left is the politics of destruction.

The problem is not blogs and YouTube,. The problem is Fox News. The Right has a very simple and very successful model: Use people like Matt Drudge or Andrew Breitbart to start phony rumors, then use the massive media power of Fox, Rush, and other outlets to spread a lie around the world before the truth can get open its mouth. Fox News.

The "media culture" locution is another one of the President's ways of trying to remain "above left and right." But to do so in this case is to misunderstand the situation. Sun Tzu said "If you know yourself and know your enemy, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles." The "media culture" frame is one that suggests he doesn't know his enemy.

It also suggests he doesn't know his friends. I'm here in Las Vegas at Netroots Nation, where progressive bloggers gather to share ideas and hear from their leaders. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will be taking questions tomorrow, but I don't see any Administration representatives in attendance (except Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who took part in a panel yesterday). The President likes to disparage progressive bloggers - no doubt egged on by Rahm Emanuel, who's extremely unpopular in this crowd. And he likes to lump progressive bloggers in with their counterparts on the Right, as part of the "media culture" he disdains.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I have heard high-level, educated, detailed discussions of policy topics that range from biofuels to counterinsurgency. This group represents a pool of talent the Administration and Congress could use to their advantage, if it weren't for their fear of "outside the Beltway" resources. And not a single one of the thousands of people here has ever doctored a video in order to ruin a career or discredit a Presidency.

The truth is, this "above left and right" routine has never served the President or Democrats particularly well. It's what led the President, a brilliant and gifted man, to make one of the silliest statements he's ever uttered: "Ultimately, there's no dividing line between Main Street and Wall Street. We rise or fall together as one nation. " Sadly (and unequivocally), that is not true. It's great to rise above the battle when you can. But sometimes there are battles, and they are battles worth fighting.

With the passage of the new financial bill, Wall Street reform has just begun. Banks are marshalling their resources to influence upcoming regulations and the actions of the regulators themselves. Lobbyists and the Right will be fighting to roll back the progress that's been made so far. The Administration and Congress are going to need all the help they can get. And now the Right is gearing up to dismantle Social Security, the successful embodiment of a social compact that has worked for generations. To strike a "bipartisan" pose in the face of this threat would be both callous policy and foolish politics.

As for the President's "media culture" comment, it reflectso the same "above the fray" posture as those Wall Street/Main Street comments, and is equally likely to fizzle. Here's an idea: Don't hide your opponents in a verbal cloud, Mr. President. Name them. Call them out. If you don't want to go "left and right," just say that "there are those who would spread misinformation because the facts and the arguments aren't on their side." The ideology of deregulation and unfettered market rapacity is discredited, so they are using racial hatred and smear tactics to distract the public from the failure of their ideas. Remember, know your enemy and you need not fear a hundred battles.

And a hundred battles are certainly coming.

Kick the Old and the Disabled to Show We're Serious About Deficits?

Robert Borosage — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:22:42 -0400

In the deficit hysteria now sweeping Washington, Social Security has emerged in the bull's-eye as a target for cuts. Perpetually tanned Republican House Minority leader John Boehner, called for hiking the retirement age to 70. The Democratic House Majority Leader, wrong-way Steny Hoyer, argued for hiking it to 69. Various proposals float to change the cost of living adjustments to lower benefits substantially over time.

And kicking the old, the disabled, the widowed is now elevated into a machismo measure of credibility on reducing the debt. In a New York Times column on tension between President Obama and the business community, former Clintonista Roger Altman, a Democratic financier, argues that Obama must overcome business "skepticism" about his "commitment to reducing the huge and dangerous budget deficits" by "undertaking the difficult task of trying to fix Social Security."

The clownish former Republican senator Alan Simpson, now ensconced as co-chair of the president's deficit commission, characteristically adds salt:

"You have two [sic] choices...you either raise the payroll tax or decrease the benefits or start affluence testing. The rest of it is B.S. And if the people are really ingesting B.S. all day long, their grandchildren will be picking grit with the chickens. This country is gonna go to the bow-wows unless we deal with entitlements, Social Security and Medicare."

Simpson's animus towards "greedy geezers" and Social Security is infamous. More importantly, the influential liberal John Podesta, head of the Center for American Progress and close adviser to the president, endorses the same "credibility" test. He agrees that the long term Social Security imbalances are not "a main driver of long term federal deficits," and that "any reasonable reforms will have virtually no impact on the 2015 fiscal picture." But, he writes, "reforms could starkly demonstrate to skeptical debt markets that the U.S. is willing to take on a politically difficult fiscal issue."

Social Security isn't a problem and "fixing" it will have "virtually no impact" on long-term deficits, but cutting the modest guaranteed insurance payments for the elderly and the disabled will show bankers we mean business.

Now this makes no sense in policy, politics or morality. Social Security works. It is America's great family protection program, insuring that workers can retire with some dignity out of poverty, helping to insure that parents are not a burden on their children, insuring against disability or the sudden loss of a mate.

It isn't lavish by any means. The average benefit is little over $1,000 a month. Yet it is the largest source of retirement income. Only half of married couples and one-third of single women have any income from pensions or annuities other than Social Security.

Moreover, Social Security is financially the most solvent of any government program. It is in surplus now and will remain so until 2016. The trust fund that has been built up by boomers "pre-funding" their retirements won't be exhausted until 2037. In the long term, Social Security adds a negligible amount (less than 1 percent of GDP) to current projections of soaring national debt, which are driven overwhelmingly by soaring health care costs. (If the U.S. spent the same per capita as other industrial nations that have better health care results, we'd be looking at surpluses as far as the eye can see, not deficits).

Social Security isn't broke; there is no need to "fix" it.

The public overwhelmingly believes Social Security is important. As a USA Today/Gallup poll showed once more, Americans oppose raising the retirement age or cutting benefits. The only reform proposals to gain majority support are lifting the cap on the payroll tax so that folks who make over $106,800 a year pay the same rate as everyone else and paring back benefits for the wealthy.

But the campaign against Social Security has succeeded in scaring the bejesus out of folks. The same USA Today poll shows that six of 10 non-retirees don't believe Social Security will be able to pay them a benefit when they stop working, as do fully three-fourths of those 18 to 34. Even a majority of current retirees are terrorized, with a majority believing their current benefits will be cut.

Consider this the culmination of the decade-long campaign by billionaire Peter G. Peterson and others to target Social Security and America's relatively modest entitlement programs. It's Peterson's fondest strategic dream come true. Build hysteria about deficits. Convince people that Social Security is going bankrupt and won't be there for them. Step in and claim to be "saving" Social Security by raising the retirement age and cutting benefits over time. Emerge a hero to the very seniors and disabled that you are skewering. It is not for nothing that Herman Melville's "Confidence Man" is an American classic.

What can stop this juggernaut aimed at the old and the disabled? We can. We can challenge the lies, rouse people to understand the sham, strengthen Social Security, and focus reform on what is broken—our health care system, our bloated military budget, our regressive tax system, our feckless trade and industrial policies.

Already folks are organizing to challenge the attack on Social Security. The Campaign for America's Future, which I co-direct, has joined with 50 other organizations (and growing) representing 35 million Americans to form a coalition. Its purpose is expressed in its title: Strengthen Social Security, and its tag line: don't cut it. The formal launch will come later this month, but a web site is already up and running. The initial members of the Coalition are here. The seven principles that they sign onto are here. And on the site, you find a remarkable YouTube video that deftly lays out the facts on Social Security with clarity and humor. It is worth a watch.

On Thursday this week at Netroots Nation in Las Vegas, I'll join a panel led by Nancy Altman, co-director of Social Security Works, and chair of the Pension Rights Center board. We'll be inviting the bloggers across the country to help fend off the assault on Social Security, and join the debate about priorities over the next years. Also on the panel will be Laura Clawson, a contributing editor of the Daily Kos, and Eric Kingson, the co-director of Social Security Works.

This country has big decisions to make in the months and years ahead. We've still got a long way to go to get people back to work and to get this economy going. We've got to build a strong foundation for a new economy that will provide shared prosperity and rebuild a broad middle class. We need to:

Address global warming and capture a leading role in the green industrial revolution that will transform our lives.
Fix our broken health care system whose soaring costs will be unaffordable for businesses, families or government and get our budgets back in order.
Redress our growing domestic public investment deficit -- in basic infrastructure like sewers, roads, an efficient electric grid, in education and training, in research and development.
Balance our trade, and revive manufacturing in America.
End two wars and stop spending as much as the rest of the world combined on our military budget.
Clean up our politics, curb the influence of money, and reform the dysfunctional Senate.
Empower workers and fix our broken immigration system.

The daunting checklist can go on.

But one thing we don't need. We don't need politicians demonstrating their "credibility" by kicking the elderly and the disabled. We don't need to fix a Social Security program that isn't broken. The best "fix" for Social Security is simply to tell the truth about it.

Netroots Nation Panel: The 2010 Elections: Channeling the Power of Jobs, Populism and the Angry Voter

Dave Johnson — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:27:20 -0400

Will you be at Netroots Nation in Las Vegas later this week? I will be on a panel, The 2010 Elections: Channeling the Power of Jobs, Populism and the Angry Voter, Thursday at 10:30am. Come on by and attend the panel!

Here is the complete description:
The 2010 Elections: Channeling the Power of Jobs, Populism and the Angry Voter
THURSDAY, JULY 22ND 10:30 AM - 11:45 AM, PANEL, BRASILIA 6

"The rising tide of populist anger in the face of Wall Street bailouts and continued high unemployment threatens to take an ugly reactionary turn unless it is channeled to more progressive policies of job growth. This panel will address current public attitudes and ideas for steering opinion and action more progressively."

Also on the panel will be:

Scott Paul, founding Executive Director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM).
Annabel Park, documentary filmmaker, political activist and community volunteer. Founder, Coffee Party USA.
Mark Mellman, one of the nation’s leading public opinion researchers and communication strategists. He is CEO of The Mellman Group and recently named "Pollster of the Year" by the American Association of Political Consultants.