Jersey Offshore

Manufacturing jobs from Jersey going offshore that is, and from the other 49 states too.  WaPo's Harold Meyerson hits upon the most basic of job creation strategies for the Democrats:  make jobs that make things.

The Democrats have a doctrinal problem: They (well, many of them) believe, with good reason, that the government must step in where the private sector fears to tread, boosting consumer demand through stimulus, subsidizing health insurance for millions of Americans who otherwise would go without. But the administration's failure to jolt a structurally dysfunctional economy back to health has discredited the very idea of governmental activism with much of the public, and not just the far right. That leaves the Democrats not as the party of government so much as the party of paralyzed government. That the Republicans are largely responsible for the paralysis isn't a big problem for a minority-status GOP so long as the public has concluded that activism per se is a bad idea.

So how do the Democrats defend and improve their brand? Is there a type of governmental activism that still retains public support -- and actually extricates us from the deepest hole we've been in since the '30s?

There is. If the Democrats focused on boosting manufacturing, with a corollary upgrade to our infrastructure, they'd tap into the only area in which the public wants a more activist government.

Several recent polls have called the Democrats' attention to what should have been obvious to them: That helping America regain its industrial preeminence is one government activity that wins support across the board. One recent survey by Democratic pollster Mark Mellman found 78 percent support for having a "national manufacturing strategy," while 92 percent said they supported infrastructure improvements using only American-made materials. Another survey from Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg found 52 percent of respondents preferred government investment "in the future," while just 42 percent favored the alternative course of large spending cuts.

He's right on both accounts, the Republicans are making government not work on purpose so the Dems get blamed, even if it hurts us economically as a country, and that people take pride in our manufacturing sector.

Or we used to. Republicans have done everything they can to stigmatize government and manufacturing as evil, and they've done it through demonization of union employees.  Republicans have done everything they can to shrink the power of unions.  The success of GM's turnaround is amazing, all done by union employees, but Republicans continue to ignore it.

We need a GM turnaround in our entire manufacturing sector.  Meyerson puts forth this idea:

Democrats have responded to these numbers by throwing together some modest pro-manufacturing legislation, but it's all fairly small beer. A bolder and more effective proposal is that of Intel's legendary former chief executive Andy Grove, which ran in Bloomberg BusinessWeek last month: Tax the products of off-shored labor, and put the proceeds in a fund that can be tapped by American businesses increasing their American hiring. 

It's a solid and simple idea...an idea that Republicans will never allow to happen.   The Republicans are at this point effectively stonewalling any legislation and scream like wounded animals any time the Executive or Judicial branches do anything, too.

Government by nihilism is fun, isn't it?