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Hat tip to David Sirota.

This was going to be about another Bush Administration political scandal. About how political appointees over-ruled professionals to the detriment of the American public. About how critical facts were twisted to fit the Administration’s spin. But David Sirota lists a number of such instances above - and you’ve heard that story. A lot. Too much.

Instead of writing about the scandal, I’m writing about hope. This is a story about American opportunity.

The Bush Administration Economic Cover-Up

What do you do if Congress asks for an assessment that will show America is in serious economic decline? If you’re the Bush Administration you outsource the job from Commerce Department professionals to loyal political hacks to get “Just the Bright Side” you seek, and bury the original report (see the original Manufacturing News article here). Meanwhile, as Paul Krugman notes in yesterday’s New York Times (subscription required), our economy faces dire structural changes the Bush Administration doesn’t acknowledge, much less address.

The Job Picture in Manufacturing and Hi-Tech

American manufacturing news is bad, with millions of jobs lost over the last five years, and the outlook dire. Hi-technology jobs, many in manufacturing, were once thought to replace low-skilled, high-paying manufacturing jobs. Instead hi-tech jobs have declined along with manufacturing. The importance of this trend cannot be overstated. When pundits like New York Times Op-Ed writer Thomas Friedman, businesspeople and economists talk about how Americans can succeed in the future, they often stress a good education. Quality education is supposed to lead to good jobs, often high-tech, which pay more. If high tech jobs are in decline, we need to seriously rethink what we’re doing in America.

In Illinois “[h]igh-tech workers earned an average wage of $66,500 (16th ranked [nationally]), or 64% more than Illinois’s average private sector wage,” according to AeA (formerly the American Electronics Association), in its most recent data covering 2003. The data found 210,600 high-tech workers in Illinois in 2003 (includes Electronics Manufacturing, Communications Services, Software Services, Engineering and Tech Services). Nationally, in 2004, AeA found U.S. high-tech employment of 5.56 million jobs, a decline of 25,000 from the year before. While 25,000 doesn’t sound like a big loss in the scope of 5.56 million, it’s on top of losses year after year as the graphs below show:

Hemorrhaging jobs is bad enough - its worse when the number of job seekers continues to expand, and when the jobs you’re hemorrhaging are the ones you’re counting on to preserve middle class America.

Advancing Opportunity in America - Smart Solutions Can Save Us

Paul Krugman, caring about workers and the American standard of living, is understandably concerned about our current economic plight, and provides the right analysis:

“During the 1990’s optimists argued that better education and worker training could restore the economy’s ability to create good jobs. Mr. [Robert S.] Miller [CEO] of Delphi picked up that argument as part of his public relations campaign for wage cuts: ‘The world pays knowledge workers far more than it pays manual, industrial workers,’ he said. ‘And that’s what’s sweeping over here.’

But that’s a very 1999 sort of answer. During the technology bubble, it was easy to believe that ‘knowledge workers’ were guaranteed good jobs. But when the bubble burst, they turned out to be as vulnerable to downsizing and layoffs as assembly-line workers. And many of the high-paid jobs that vanished when the technology bubble burst have never come back, partly because they have been outsourced to India and other rising economies.

Today, some of us like to stress the depressing effect of the dysfunctional American health care system on wages. A large part of the problem facing the auto industry and other employers that still provide good jobs is the cost of providing health insurance, both to their current employees and to retired workers.

If we had a Canadian-style system - which is enthusiastically supported by the Canadian subsidiaries of U.S. auto companies - the big [wage] squeeze might be averted, at least for a while. One more reason to be angry with auto executives is that they never threw their support behind national health care in this country, even though such a system is clearly in their companies’ interest.

What if neither education nor health care reform is enough to end the wage squeeze? That’s the possibility that makes free-trade liberals like me very nervous, because at that point protectionism enters the picture. When corporate executives say that they have to cut wages to meet foreign competition, workers have every right to ask why we don’t cut the foreign competition instead.”

[Click Link Below To Continue Reading “Krugman provides us with two key points in what I believe has to be a multi-pronged approach for America to get back it’s middle class standard of living.”]

Krugman provides us with two key points in what I believe has to be a multi-pronged approach for America to get back it’s middle class standard of living.

- Better Education
- National Healthcare

We also need to improve America’s infrastructure, providing long-term competitive advantages through better transportation (an issue I address in another post with a local focus - how we likely could have better spent taxpayer money attracting OfficeMax’s headquarters to Naperville). We need a real mass transit system, including bus and rail systems, that can compete with the best in the world, and that will transport people and products efficiently.

- Mass Transit

As Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean recently suggested, we need to invest more in the production of bio-fuels and alternative energy. Fossil fuels are finite. Solar and bio-fuels are renewable, and (for our purposes) pretty much infinite.

- Renewable Energy

Finally, we need to strictly enforce better standards for overseas factories that want to sell their products in the United States. This isn’t economic protectionism, it is self-preservation. Let me explain. Recently parents throughout the United States have been purchasing huge numbers of lead test kits. Why? If you don’t have a child you may nonetheless be horrified to hear that many popular children’s vinyl lunch boxes, toys (including for infants) and other products have lead in them - and that it’s an ongoing problem. We should have better enforcement of health and environmental standards before such products get sold - not after - and Americans from all economic walks of life should be enraged that their family’s health and safety is put at risk because of lax trade standards. Better product health and safety standards would likely help foreign workers who get exposed to these products during their manufacture as well. Basically, it’s about Fair Trade - not just for farmers and artisans, but for manufacturing workers as well. If you play by the rules and have decent wages, environmental and working conditions for your employees, then you can sell products that meet health and safety standards in American markets. If you don’t, you can’t.

- Fair Trade

That’s five smart solutions. It may not be everything, but it’s a real start to a better American economy. My optimism that Americans will embrace this type of reform springs from the knowledge that we are close to hitting bottom. People are simply not making it. Americans are ready for real change that makes real sense.

- Better Education
- National Healthcare
- Mass Transit
- Renewable Energy
- Fair Trade

With serious effort to employ these five smart solutions, we could regain the middle class standard of life in America. For those who argue that this is “pie-in-the-sky” and how can you pay for it - my response is simple, point-by-point:

- Better education and job prospects are cheaper than what we spend on prison cell costs - and that’s true even for people who are already in the criminal justice system.

- National healthcare is cheaper than coverage (or lack of it) through thousands of private plans, with people being underinsured and uninsured. Countries like Canada that have national healthcare at about half the American cost are gaining good manufacturing jobs from G.M. and Toyota because of our costs. G.M. has been paying about $1,525 in America per car just in healthcare - it’s a real issue, and one that won’t go away with a Band-Aid approach. Our current healthcare mess affects real working Americans.

- Take part of the road budget to pay for mass transit, which is a lot cheaper, and will save road wear, congestion and the need for new roads. High oil prices are taking their toll on real Americans - and our current transportation system costs taxpayers, businesses and consumers real money. The Chicago area economic cost of congestion in longer commute times, extra fuel costs, freight delays, etc. is over $4 billion a year, a number that has grown 13% annually for two decades and continues to grow (this year it’s $4.3 billion).

- Renewable energy economics are partially explained in “mass transportation” above, but this is also an area for employment. If we’re going to spend money to attract jobs - as our towns, cities, states and federal government already do (including federal subsidies for oil exploration) - then we should spend the money smarter, with better productively.

- Fair trade, as I describe it, will permit Americans to benefit from safer and healthier products, while American companies can compete better with foreign countries required to play by the rules. It’s not protectionism, it’s self-preservation and fairplay.

If you care about America, you can make measurable achievements to some degree at the local level and do even more at the state and national level in these five areas. All it takes is the political will to get the job done - and that starts with you. Are your wages stagnant or in decline? What about your family, friends and neighbors? What about America’s youth - our future? Are you worried about the quality of our education system and what it means for our children - or for your further education? What about healthcare - can you and those you know and care about afford it? What about gas prices - can you afford your commute - and are there reliable, quality mass transportation alternatives? Are you ready for the cost of heating your home this winter? Do you care about your safety and that of your family? Do you think it’s a good idea to have middle class paying jobs in America? In short, should America be a middle-class nation - a “land of opportunity” for us all?

Too many of us are close to hitting bottom economically. We need to demand elected officials live up to our standard, the American standard of living, and if they don’t we should get rid of them. In the immortal words of Woody Guthrie, “This land was made for you and me.”

[Editor Note: Some New York Times readers may think I read Bob Herbert’s Op-Ed yesterday, “Get It Together, Democrats” (subscription required), and wrote in response. Actually the truth is better. I read Herbert’s piece after I had written most of this blog entry - which reinforces my belief that I’m headed in the right direction. It’s time to change for the better.]