Barak Obama continued his tour through the swing states in Michigan yesterday.  He gave a speech outlining his economic proposals that could specifically help economically distressed communities like Flint.

For a few moments Senator Obama sounded a lot like, Senator John McCain: “I believe in free trade,” said Obama, “It can save money for our consumers, generate business for U.S. exporters, and expand global wealth.”  However, Barak Obama emphasized that there are significant problems with the trade deals that have been negotiated recently, trade deals without environmental and labor standards, or the agreements that undermine the long-term interests of the American industries. 

Obama stated: “Allowing subsidized and unfairly traded products to flood our markets is not free trade and it’s not fair to the people of Michigan. We cannot stand by while countries manipulate currencies to promote exports, creating huge imbalances in the global economy. We cannot let foreign regulatory policies exclude American products.” 

Senator’s long-term plan to ensure America’s continued economic growth and prosperity includes investments in secondary and higher education to create a work force that is able to compete globally; a new energy strategy that weans America off foreign oil and invests in research and development, and the manufacturing of “green” technologies in the U.S.; a more efficient health care system that ultimately costs less and allows American businesses to stay competitive; investment in scientific research and in our infrastructure to meet our current and future needs.
 

Both Presidential candidates, Sens. John McCain and Barak Obama delivered remarks that outlined their approaches to fixing the economy this week. American voters are understandably concerned about the economy the most, and many will be choosing the candidate they believe would offer the best solutions to alleviate the country’s economic woes.Sen. McCain spoke yesterday to the National Federation of Independent Business, a group of small-business owners in Washington.   He presented no alternative to the tired old “supply-side economics” model, championed by every Republican President since Ronald Reagan. McCain’s economic agenda items are: reduced regulation; cuts in corporate tax rate and government spending; and–no surprise to anyone who follows the issue,–more free trade agreements. To McCain trade is about “the ability of American workers to benefit from exports to other nations.” Of course, had that been the story on trade, there would be no opponents to free trade agreements. However, our staggering $700.3 billion trade deficit, and the millions of American jobs displaced as a result of it, show that Americansdon’t so much benefit from exports to other nations, as they become disadvantaged because of the avalanche of imports from other nations.

The Primary process is inevitably winding down (who would have thought that was going to happen?). The last primaries will take place on June 3 in Montana and South Dakota. A recent AP article claims that “free trade issue dropped as race finished in Montana.”  The article explains that trade is not a crucial issue in Montana and South Dakota because both states rely on agricultural exports and therefore need open overseas markets.

However, trade is a complex issue and you can not ignore the losers of free trade just because trade has benefited some.  Manufacturing is a significant component in all states’ economies.  Manufacturing contributes $1.5 billion to Montana’s GSP; and $3.1 billion to South Dakota’s GSP.  Unfortunately, since 2000, these states lost 1,500 and 1,100 manufacturing jobs respectively.

The fact is both Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama have clearly stated their positions on trade and that record is available to the public.  The voters will be voting their economic interest comes November and the candidates’ positions on trade will play an important part in the voters’ decision-making.

Senator Obama continued yesterday on his campaign tour of Florida. Obama touched upon several important topics at his first campaign rally in St. Petersburg, FL.  He talked about foreign policy, he talked about gas prices, and he talked about economic proposals in his election platform.

If elected, Obama would establish a $1,000 per family tax cut paid for by closing corporate tax loopholes and a $4,000 yearly college-tuition credit to every student in exchange for community service.  He would eliminate income taxes on Social Security payments and change corporate bankruptcy laws to protect worker pensions.  Senator Obama would make a $150-billion investment over 10 years in alternative energy sources such as solar and wind power, and biodiesel fuel.
Barak Obama contends that investing in alternative energy will create new jobs, protect the environment and lessen our dependence on foreign oil. Another way to create jobs in the U.S.?  Obama also said he would put 2-million people to work by investing in improvements to roads, bridges and mass transit. “If we can spend $10-billion a month in Iraq we can spend $10-billion a month right here in the United States of America,”
he said.

Undoubtedly, America’s infrastructure needs a comprehensive upgrade program.  We need to build up America’s manufacturing base, so that our economy is a net exporter and not a net importer.  We’ll employ more Americans at home and borrowing less overseas to pay for the things our nation needs.

Both Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama were campaigning in Florida yesterday.  This is the first serious attempt to campaign in the state for Senator Obama, but Hillary is a familiar face here.

Senator Clinton held her “Solutions for America” rally in Boca Raton on Wednesday.  However, her remarks contained nothing whatever about Florida’s economy or what solutions for economic problems our country is currently facing Hillary would champion as President.

Instead, Clinton focused solely on building a case for counting the votes cast in the Florida primary.

Certainly, this is a pressing issue for her campaign right now.  And she gave a good speech.  But, at an event devoted specifically to the economy, shouldn’t the candidate talk about the fact that Florida lost 72,000 manufacturing jobs lost during the Bush Administration (from 2000-2007), or that as a result of our trade deficit with China, the state lost 71,900 jobs in all sectors between 2001-2006, equaling 1.0% of the total state employment in 2001?

Yesterday’s Democratic primaries in Kentucky and Oregon delivered expected results: Senator Hillary Clinton won Kentucky, and Senator Barak Obama won Oregon.

Another predictable result of the primaries: Democratic voters were casting their votes for change.

The exit polls showed that, the voters of Kentucky, a state that is overall less educated, less economically prosperous and more socially conservative than Oregon, were voting for the economic change; and Oregonians in their majority were voting for the change in the U.S. involvement in Iraq, with less than half of the Democrats in that state citing economy as their primary concern.

However, a nation-wide Reuters/Zogby index that “measures the mood of the country” released today indicates that there is a deep and growing anxiety about economy among the majority of the Americans.   The current leadership, President Bush and the Congress, have the lowest approval ratings in history as the polling indicates, at 23% and 11%, respectively.  And only 16% of Americans believe that the country is on the right track the “uncertainty about the economy and rising gas prices” increasing the population’s doubts about the future.

This fall, Americans will certainly be voting for change and most of them will be voting on the pocket book issues.

John McCain made a quick stop in Chicago yesterday to speak to the National Restaurant Association members.  He promised the group that they would fare better under his administration than under either Barak Obama or Hillary Clinton administration.
“Your plans for growth and their plans for taxes are going to be hard to square, because you can’t raise taxes by a trillion dollars without hurting American workers,” said McCain.

McCain singled out Obama specifically for his expressed views on trade.  McCain insisted that criticizing U.S. trade policy as Obama has done “plays on fears of foreign trade” marking Obama as the politician who practices “old-style politics.”  At the same time, Senator McCain did acknowledge that global trade comes at a cost and vowed to expand and improve federal aid for displaced workers.

McCain said U.S. exports and trade agreements create jobs and income that otherwise would not exist.  He also said that “Senator Obama has a habit of talking down the value of our exports and trade agreements. He even proposed a unilateral re-negotiation of NAFTA - our agreement with Canada and Mexico that accounts for 33 percent of American exports, and 17 billion dollars’ worth of exports last year just for Illinois.”

Surely, Senator McCain realizes that exports are only one half of the trade story and no serious discussion can omit the fact that we import much more from our trading partners, including NAFTA countries, than we sell to them.  The U.S. Census Bureau indicates that in 2007 alone our trade deficit with Canada and Mexico was almost $139 billion.  Our trade deficit with China was nearly twice that, at over $256 billion.

Omitting half the truth, Senator McCain?  That certainly sounds like the “old-style politics” to us.

John McCain got his crystal ball out yesterday to outline what he will have achieved as President by the year 2013 in a speech in Columbus, Ohio. 

Predictably, the first “achievements” are in the area of the National Security, important, but not the number one issue for the voters anymore, as polls indicate.  But not to worry, John McCain predicts “several years of robust economic growth” as well, brought about by (what else?) a “reduction in the corporate tax rate from the second highest in the world to one on par with our trading partners.” McCain did say that he would eliminate “tax loopholes” and “corporate welfare,” and that would encourage companies “to keep their operations and jobs in the United States.”

John McCain’s 2013 administration has blissfully ratified new free trade agreements that lead to “substantial increases in both exports and imports.”  However, Americans who “lost jobs in the global economy they once believed were theirs for life, are assisted by reformed unemployment insurance and worker retraining programs.”  McCain is concerned about the older workers who accept lower paying jobs: he wants them to “acquire new skills” while they are “provided assistance to make up a good part of the income they have lost.

Barak Obama returned to Michigan to campaign here with an eye on the general election.  Obama visited Macomb Country and toured the Chrysler Stamping Plant in Sterling Heights.  The symbol of America’s manufacturing strength for the better part of the 20th century, Michigan’s auto industry has been struggling to stay profitable and relevant in the era of outsourcing and rising oil prices.  The state served as a perfect backdrop for Barak Obama to unveil his Manufacturing Agenda that outlines his priorities for this crucially important sector of our economy.

Obama began by acknowledging the struggles of the industry.  The auto industry lost 300,000 jobs in the past eight years - about a third of which were lost in Michigan.  “That’s hundreds of thousands of workers who will no longer be able to count on a paycheck to pay the rising costs of health care and college; gas and groceries,” said the candidate. Obama noted that manufacturing supports one in six American jobs, and that we’ve lost nearly 4 million of them in the last eight years.

Here are the main initiatives of the manufacturing agenda that Barak Obama highlighted in his speech:

• $150 billion investment in “green energy sector” that will create “up to five million” new green jobs in the U.S.;
• 10 billion a year investment in Clean Technologies Deployment Venture Capital Fund that will assist with bringing breakthrough technologies invented in America to production also here in America;
• Advanced Manufacturing Fund to invest in “innovation and job creation in places that have been hard hit by the decline in manufacturing”;
• Double the funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership;
• $60 billion infrastructure fund to rebuild highways, bridges, roads, ports, air, and train systems, lower transportation costs for manufacturers and spur job growth in manufacturing;
• Fix the health care crisis and investing in science and math education from kindergarten through graduate school; and
• Reform our trade policy to ensure our workers can compete on a level playing field and to create good jobs at home and real markets for American products abroad.

Obama said that he believes in trade, but we need to make sure t that our workers are competing on a level playing field, and that countries like China aren’t breaking the rules and putting American workers at a disadvantage. “Fighting for our workers isn’t bad for business; it’s good for our economy,” concluded the candidate.  Now, that’s the spirit.

After the Clinton win in West Virginia primary the Democratic nominating contest still goes on.

According to the exit polling, economy once again mattered most to the WV voters.  More than six in ten West Virginia voters said the economy was the most important issue facing the country, and two-thirds of them backed Clinton. Nine in ten voters said the economic slowdown had affected them, including nearly half who said they were affected a great deal. Clinton was supported by about three-quarters of those most affected.

The U.S. economy has experienced the structural changes since the 1980s that, despite the robust economic growth, innovation, and increased productivity of the American workforce, prevented the vast majority of Americans from moving up on the prosperity ladder.  Real hourly wages for most workers, for instance, have risen only 1% since 1979. 

The voters have a sense of pessimism about the economy and about their future because despite working hard, they are
not living better.  That’s what matters to them now and that’s what will matter to them in the general election in November.