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The Road to Recovery is Slow…Very Slow

Wednesday, September 3rd, 2003

Apparently President Bush has decided to stimulate the economy by creating one job at a time. In 2001, he was able to create a job for struggling Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge. Now he’s thinking of creating a new job for some other similarly struggling politician or CEO: assistant secretary of commerce for manufacturing and services. Let’s see, one new job every 2 years–unemployment could be at zero in a mere 18 million years! Now that’s economic leadership.

Slate explains it like this:

Whoever accepts the new post should demand hazard pay and a three-year contract. The job is essentially to explain that the job is impossible. The new assistant secretary must persuade American workers that broad, immensely powerful forces are at work against manufacturing in the United Statesâ??forces that are beyond the control of even the most powerful government in the world. Instead of trying fruitlessly to save manufacturing jobs, the nominee should propose ways to turn the job losses into opportunities. We’d be better off devoting resources to retraining auto and textile workers to become nurses, veterinarians, funeral-home employees, and beauty-salon workersâ??four service fields that, according to today’s Wall Street Journal, are hot. Retraining may not win votes in the Ohio factories, but at least it’s a policy that makes sense.

Is this government growth I can support? A new government post to explain to the people why more government is not the solution? Or has Slate’s Daniel Gross painted it all wrong? What if Bush decides that during a campaign, a new appointee should actually try to rebuild America’s ailing manufacturing sector, a sector made obsolete and inefficient by globalization? Sounds like a golden opportunity for government waste.

At the very least, Bush’s strategy of making manufacturers happy probably won’t bode well for proponents of free trade, unless, perhaps, the point of the entire endeavor is to intentionally fail at protectionist measures in hopes of making market competition an easier pitch. But that would be strategery of an unprecedented level.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2003 at 2:41 pm by Mystery Man and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Responses to “The Road to Recovery is Slow…Very Slow”

  1. #1 |  Jon H |  September 3rd, 2003 at 9:49 pm

    Given Bush’s track record of working for corporate donors at the expense of just about everything else in all of creation, “helping manufacturers” will probably turn out to mean “helping the largest manufacturers send jobs offshore to increase profits”.

  2. #2 |  Chip Taylor |  September 4th, 2003 at 4:59 am

    Or, if he does for manufacturing what he did for the steel industry, “helping manufacturers” will turn out to mean “helping the most inefficient manufacturers avoid competition.”