Both Hillary Clinton and Barack 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?

 

Barack 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 Barack 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 Barack 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.

Hillary Clinton is running a new ad in West Virginia.  The state is holding its presidential primary this Tuesday. Clinton’s ad centers on the promise that the candidate will level the playing field for America’s middle class. The ad states that Clinton would end $55 billion dollars in giveaways to corporate special interests and invest in middle class tax cuts and new jobs.The ad also promises that the candidate will get “tough on unfair trade deals and end tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas.”

The West Virginia ad is less specific than the ad on the economy that ran in Indiana, in which Clinton talked about “standing up to China.”Taking China out of her ad on the economy is a pretty big omission, considering U.S. bilateral trade deficit with China now tops $256 billion a year.  Any candidate who is serious about creating and keeping jobs in the U.S. can’t afford not to mention China.

Hillary Clinton was visiting High Point, North Carolina yesterday.  High Point is a furniture hub and show rooms
dot the streets of the town. “I will get tough on China because what they are doing is not right,” said the Democratic candidate.

Hillary rightfully singled out China for causing the loss of thousands of jobs in NC furniture industry.  A study done for AAM called “Enforcing the Rules” cited the wooden furniture manufacturers in the U.S. among its case studies of various industries affected by the unfair trade with China.

In 2001, the U.S. industry recorded shipments $2.3 billion dollars and employed approximately 33,000 workers.  At the same time, the furniture industry in China started to expand rapidly, with a large share of production targeted toward the U.S. market.  In 2003, the U.S. International Trade Commission investigated the possible dumping of Chinese-made wooden furniture on the U.S. market.

The Commission surveyed the U.S. furniture makers.  Of the 54 U.S. producers from 23 states that responded to the US ITC’s producers’ questionnaire during the investigation of dumped wooden bedroom furniture from China, ten (the most) were headquartered in North Carolina.  The firms responding to the Commission’s questionnaire indicated that between 2001 and 2003, China’s capacity to produce wooden bedroom furniture had doubled, shipments to the U.S. market increased by 147 percent, and exports to the United States accounted for approximately three quarters of these firms’ total shipments. This growth has occurred despite a high incidence of quality problems with Chinese furniture.

Despite the enormous pressure from the Chinese furniture makers and their U.S. distributors, the Commission ruled in 2003, by a vote of 6 – 0, that the U.S. industry was materially injured by dumped imports from China.

The first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging we have a problem.  Hillary Clinton says that she understands the consequences of the unfair trade with China for U.S.industries and communities across the nation.  The next President, whoever he or she may be, must take a serious look at U.S.-China trade relationship and finally take the necessary steps to benefit the American workers.

 

Hillary Clinton participated in the live TV show, “This week With George Stephanopoulos” in Indianapolis this Sunday.  The show was aired before studio audience, and the members of the audience had an opportunity to ask the candidate questions directly.  There was a question on trade.  Senator Clinton was asked by a voter: “Hillary, Alexander Hamilton said that the key to U.S. supremacy in the world is the manufacturing sector. Sens. Obama and McCain have stated that these manufacturing jobs that we’ve lost cannot be brought back to Indiana or United States. What is your position? Do you agree with Sens. Obama and McCain?” 
 

Well, Indiana’s manufacturing sector has been hard-hit in the last seven years.  Stephanopoulos did preface the question
by saying that Indiana lost 45,000 manufacturing jobs to China in that period of time.  That is true, but he didn’t mention that the total manufacturing job loss in Indiana from 2000 to 2007 was 109,800.

Senator Clinton said that she believed that the declining manufacturing base is a threat to the overall economy.  She continued, “we need to change the tax code to take out any single benefit from your tax dollars that goes to any business that exports a job out of Indiana to any foreign country. It’s outrageous. It’s unpatriotic that is still going on.” The candidate advocated for strong labor and environmental standards in our trade agreements. “if you go to work in Indiana, there are certain rules that the employers have to follow to protect your safety and your health, and there are certain consumer rules,” said Clinton,”but look what’s happening with China. You know, we get lead-laced toys and contaminated pet food and polluted pharmaceuticals, sent back into our market; they get our jobs.”  She specifically singled out the defence industry to say that: “if we are going to have a half-a-trillion defense budget, then I want to see American workers do what is necessary to produce the defense materials and good for our country.”

There were members of the Steelworkers Union in the audience.  These guys got up before dawn to hear the candidate speak about trade and other important issues.  The voters in TV studios and on the campaign trail should remind the candidates that real jobs and real livelihoods are at stake in this election.  What the candidates say matters a great deal to those who are will be voting tomorrow in Indiana and North Carolina.

 

When Barak Obama met with the Indianapolis Star’s Editorial Board, he too was asked about the U.S.-China trade in the context of the larger U.S.-China relationship.  Barak took his time getting around to talking about trade, but he acknowledged that there are some “indisputable” problems in our trade relationship with China. 

China manipulates its currency; maintains non-tariff barriers; subsidizes its export industries; and has a hugely problematic environmental record.  We in the

U.S., on the other hand, said Obama, have a problem with our own inability to ensure the safety of Chinese imports through inspections.

In Senator Obama’s view, negotiating effectively with the Chinese is not only a question of maintaining a strong economy, but also a matter of securing our own future as a strong nation.  “There’s never been a nation on Earth that saw its economic standing decline relative to the rest of the world and maintained its military pre-eminence,” said Obama.  Senator Obama said that “we’ve been taken to the cleaners” in out negotiations with the Chinese and that, if elected President, he would have a meeting with China’s President Hu to set our economic relationship with China on an equal footing. 

Obama agreed that even though low-cost goods have been helpful in keeping the inflation in the U.S. down, in his words “it doesn’t do you much good to pay $10 less on some sneakers, or $100 less on a flat screen TV, when you don’t have a job.”

Hillary Clinton met with the Editorial Board of the Indianapolis Star yesterday.  She talked about the U.S. economic relationship with China at length, emphasizing that it is our national responsibility to hold China accountable. 

The Senator pointed out that “our companies are not competing with individual companies, but with the whole national agenda [of China].”  In Senator Clinton’s view, China’s agenda is to grow its economy as fast as possible without creating political unrest and, eventually, to dominate the world economically and politically.  Clinton added that there’s no question that China manipulates its currency; sends low-quality and unsafe imports to our market; and has a history of counterfeiting, theft of intellectual property, and industrial espionage. 

Hillary Clinton brought up the case of Magnequench, a company in Valparaiso, IN, that was shuttered in 2003 with all equipment and know-how moved to China.  The story was used in one of Clinton ads running in Indiana.  Magnequench used to make magnets for military applications.  Its production capacity along with sensitive military technology is now lost.  Clinton asserted that we allowed cases like Magnequench and others to occur because we haven’t been effectively protecting our own strategic and economic interests vis-à-vis China.

“I’m 100% in favor of free trade, but I’m not in favor of being taken advantage of,” concluded the candidate.  And she promised that “We are not going to stand idly by and lose our standard of living.”   We’ll keep following Senator Clinton’s position on this issue.  Stay tuned for Senator Obama’s view on China issues.

As crude oil almost reached a record $120 a barrel in trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange yesterday, Hillary Clinton joined John McCain in advocating for a summer federal gas tax holiday.  Talking about reducing the prices Americans pay at the pump is definitely good politics.  But are the voters being pumped instead?

The difference between the two proposals is that while Senator McCain’s plan aids consumers it also decreases the funding for the Highway Trust Fund, Senator Clinton’s plan will not affect the Highway Trust Fund because she is proposing to pay for it by imposing a windfall profits tax on oil companies. 

There is no question that higher gasoline prices are now forcing the food and other consumer goods price hikes, and American consumers and businesses are hurting.  The truth is, we will have to live with higher energy prices for years to come.  The long-term pressure on oil prices comes from the increased demand for energy from countries like China that subsidize the energy costs for its manufacturers, fueling both the rabid production of goods and the wasteful allocation of energy resources.  

It’s time for the candidates to show that they can think strategically and address the real causes behind soaring gas prices that will, unfortunately, be hurting American voters way past the Election day.

Hillary Clinton campaign has launched a new ad in Indiana.

 

The ad states that Sen. Clinton is ready to “to turn our economy around.” In order to accomplish this, she would: stop tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas; fix unfair trade deals; stand up to China; and create five million new jobs.

 

It’s certainly a tall order for any candidate to explain how they would fix the economy in 30 seconds. Sen. Clinton is on target with her ad.

 

Barack Obama has been running his own ad in Indiana since March 28, focusing on jobs and the economy.

He also promises to fix our trade laws and end tax breaks for companies that outsource jobs overseas.  Sen. Obama proposes to give the tax breaks to those companies that create jobs in America, instead.  

 

These are good proposals, but we can not ignore the role countries like China play in thousands of manufacturing jobs lost in the U.S. and the devastation this causes in communities across our nation.

China undervalues its currency, violates labor and environmental standards, and illegally subsidizes exports. Any serious discussion about fixing our economy, especially in states, like Indiana, must include candidates’ stance on our trade with China.