Sen. McCain visited Martin County, KY on the third day of his “It’s Time for Action Tour.”  He stopped to deliver his remarks in the town of Inez, where President Lyndon Johnson kicked off his War on Poverty in 1964. 

McCain acknowledged the persistent economic difficulties in this area: Martin county median household income is $22,768, with over 30% living below the poverty line.  And, just like he did in Michigan, McCain told the residents of Inez who gathered to hear him speak that the “manufacturing jobs are gone forever.”

Inexplicably, McCain focused majority of his discussion about how to help this distressed Appalachian area on providing broader access to high-speed internet services.  The Senator is talking about a county of just more than 12,000 where many residents still lack access to sewer systems and public water.  The high school dropout rates are higher than in the rest of the state, the county lost almost 4% of its population, while Kentucky gained over 4% in the span of 6 years, and the young people are leaving because there isn’t any future for them in towns like Inez.

Was McCain’s “straight-talk express” going by Inez too fast?  That must be it, because his proposals once again failed to match the reality on the ground.

And … it’s the second day of John McCain’s tour of “forgotten” America.  The Senator was in Youngstown Ohio today delivering remarks at Youngstown State University.  John McCain tried to connect to his audience, telling them that “men and women of Youngstown know what it feels like to be counted out,” just like John McCain himself felt earlier in his Presidential campaign.  Well, this kinship with Youngstown residents John McCain claims is a bit of a stretch, unless he knows what it’s like to be unemployed. 

In the last 10 years the state of Ohio lost 270,800 manufacturing jobs.  And Youngstown area in particular has suffered unemployment rates averaging 6.3% in the last 10 years.  February unemployment rate was 2% higher than the national rate. 

John McCain was a lot more empathetic than usual towards his Youngstown audience.  He told them that he saw serious economic troubles in the state.  He even mused that “people in the know like to discourse about the new global economy–it’s always “global” this and “global” that.”  Funny, but McCain might as well have been talking about himself.  In his last major speech on the economy just a week ago, McCain said the following:  

“…I object when Senators Obama and Clinton and others preach the false virtues of economic isolationism. Senator Obama recently suggested that Americans are protectionist because they are bitter about being left behind in the global economy. Well, what’s his excuse for embracing the false promises of protectionism? Opening new markets for American goods and services is indispensable to our future prosperity. We can compete with anyone. Senators Obama and Clinton think we should hide behind walls, bury our heads and industries in the sand, and hope we have enough left to live on while the world passes us by.”

So what is John McCain’s answer to the “heads-in-the-sand” economic policies of his opponents?  His answer is software and tech companies, startup companies in alternative energies like wind and solar power, small businesses, and Youngstown’s “green space” initiative.  The Senator admits that these new industries “are a long way from matching the importance of the plants and factories that built the economies of this region” in the next paragraph.  Thanks, for making our case for us, Senator.  And please, try again.

Today, John McCain has embarked on a weeklong journey to discover “forgotten places in America,” also known as a “It’s Time For Action Tour.” After the first stop in Selma, Alabama, Sen. McCain will make several more stops in the state, and will continue on to the other “forgotten” parts of the nation including Youngstown, Ohio; the Appalachian region of Kentucky; New Orleans and Little Rock, Arkansas.

These economically struggling areas have large African American populations.  Selma, for instance, is 70% African American, with $28,000 a year median family income and 27% of the families living below poverty line.  Some have referred to the area that McCain’s tour will cover as “The Black Belt.” 

And what solutions does John McCain offer for these economically depressed communities?  According to Carly Fiorina, McCain’s economic advisor, the candidate will discuss his proposals for a summer gas tax holiday, which would save about 18 cents a gallon, and his “HOME Plan,” in which the government would help the owners of primary residences who meet certain qualifications pay their mortgages.

How about proposing some real changes on which to build a long-term economic policy, like reviving the industrial base in The Black Belt that create good-paying union jobs?  Studies show that unionized African Americans continue to make more money (on average, 12 percent more) and are much more likely to have health-insurance benefits and a pension plan than their non-union peers. 

If John McCain is serious about lifting people out of poverty in some of the “forgotten” areas of our country, instead of resorting to quick-fixes with unrealistic timelines, he should give some serious thought to a long-term economic policy solidly based on reviving the U.S. manufacturing base.

We’ll be watching the candidate debate tonight and grading both the candidates and ABC on whether they discuss the issues that really matter to voters– jobs, the economy, and enforcing our trade laws.

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Today, AAM hosted a presidential forum in Pittsburgh to give the candidates an opportunity to fully discuss their stance on trade, China and the state of the domestic manufacturing.

Barack Obama made his remarks to the audience first.
He spoke of Chicago’s shuttered steel mills and the laid-off workers he helped as a community organizer. His heavy criticism went to the “Washington insiders”: the Bush administration and the elected representatives who, influenced by lobbyists, put the interests of wealthy corporate CEOs above the interests of their constituents when voting in favor of trade deals like NAFTA, CAFTA and the PNT with China.

Obama promised to “finally confront the issue of trade with China.” His solutions were to “use all the diplomatic avenues open to me to insist that China stop manipulating its currency,” if elected President; and to not “ignore violence against union organizers in Columbia, or the non-tariff barriers that keep U.S. cars out of South Korea” in the trade agreements that he will negotiate as President. Obama added that his administration “won’t just negotiate fair trade agreements, we’ll make sure they’re being fully enforced.”

To stop the bleeding of American jobs overseas, Obama proposed that the Patriot Employer Act must be enacted “so we can stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas, and start giving them to companies that create good jobs with decent wages here in America.” He added that “we’ll modernize our steel industry, strengthen our entire domestic manufacturing base, and open as many markets as we can to American manufactured goods when I’m President.”

Obama stressed that rebuilding America’s infrastructure and investing in the “green energy” sector will create additional opportunities to have good-paying jobs in the U.S. that “can’t be outsourced.”

When Hillary Clinton took the podium, she too criticized the Bush administration for its failure to effectively enforce our trade laws. “For seven years, the Bush Administration has ignored or under-utilized legitimate trade enforcement tools as countries like China have violated trade rules and hurt U.S. manufacturers,” Clinton said. “It has also dragged its feet in addressing China’s currency manipulation and actively worked against efforts to provide legitimate relief to threatened U.S. industries.” She noted that the trade deficit has nearly doubled to $708 billion and China’s holdings of U.S. public debt have risen to almost $500 billion. “President Bush has allowed China to become America’s banker, making it harder to promote our interests and push back against their unfair trade practices.”

To address the unfair trade practices that countries like China are for now able to engage in with impunity, Clinton unveiled a new plan to strengthen trade enforcement.

She proposed that we need to better use and strengthen the trade enforcement tools that we already have in our arsenal. As President, she would fully utilize the WTO dispute settlement mechanism to challenge practices that violate WTO commitments; work toward establishing WTO rules and policies that respect and strengthen workers’ human rights and protect the environment; and push to speed up the decision making process at the WTO.

Among her other proposals, Clinton mentioned a new Intellectual Property Enforcement Network that would improve inter-agency coordination and create a new international task force to work with foreign governments on IPR enforcement.

Hillary Clinton promised that she would “crack down on China’s unfair trade practices,” if elected President. Her proposals on Chinese currency manipulation were specific: adjust export prices to account for the price distortion caused by currency misalignment; disallow the federal government to purchase products or services from China; direct U.S. banks to pause in issuing loans to China; pressure the IMF to consult with China; and/or impose a 27.5 percent tariff on all Chinese goods. She would also provide “Section 421” relief for U.S. industries hurt by surges of Chinese imports and apply countervailing duties to non-market economies like China, who subsidize their export industries.

By the way, Sen. McCain was invited to today’s Candidates’ Forum on Manufacturing in Pittsburgh, but was unable to
attend.

Next time John McCain will be in Pittsburgh…? Tomorrow. Meanwhile, “enjoy” the sound of the crickets chirping.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said the United States should build on the North American Free Trade Agreement by negotiating a new free-trade deal with the 27 member states of the European Union.

“I am an unashamed and unabashed defender of NAFTA. I am an unabashed supporter of free-trade agreements. In fact, it would be interesting … to have a free-trade agreement between ourselves and the European Union,” McCain said in a speech to the World Affairs Council.

The United States and the EU already have low tariffs on most of the manufactured goods that cross the Atlantic. However, the U.S. and Europe have opted to deal with contentious agricultural issues within the context of World Trade Organization’s Doha Round of trade talks, rather than negotiate a bilateral trade deal that would phase out tariffs on each other’s farm goods.

-From ‘Pacific Shipper’

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In Memphis this past weekend, Hillary Clinton proposed a cabinet position for a “Poverty Czar.” She suggested that the job would be “solely and fully devoted to ending poverty as we know it, that will focus the attention of our nation on this issue and never let it go.”

Mrs. Clinton could help to do this by creating good paying manufacturing jobs, and should start by saving the ones that we still have in the U.S. Step one would be strong enforcement of U.S. trade law.