Making It In America
Making It In America
"The fight for American manufacturing is the fight for America's future", President Obama has declared—one that will require a fundamentally different economic strategy for ensuring a sustained, widely shared prosperity. The "Making it in America" project exists to foster a broad public debate about this strategy, with an emphasis on reviving manufacturing as a key element of the new economy.
Blogs and Opinion
THE LATEST
BLOGS AND OPINION
How Homeownership Has Changed in America And Why You Shouldn't Give Up on Buying by Sara Robinson, alternet.org | May 24, 2012
Obama has to Explain Why Fairness is Essential to Growth (and Why Some Democrats Have to Stop Believing Otherwise) by Robert B. Reich, robertreich.org | May 24, 2012
Billion Dollar Bait & Switch: States Divert Foreclosure Deal Funds by Paul Kiel and Cora Currier, propublica.org | May 22, 2012
American Manufacturers Ask President To Address Currency In Trade Agreements by Dave Johnson, OurFuture.org | May 22, 2012
Will Conservatives Support American Companies ... or Chinese? by Dave Johnson, OurFuture.org | May 18, 2012
The Return of the Man From Bain by Terrance Heath, OurFuture.org | May 14, 2012
The Human Disaster of Unemployment by Dean Baker and Kevin Hassett, cepr.net | May 14, 2012
The Trade Deficit Keeps Draining Money From Our Economy by Dave Johnson, OurFuture.org | May 11, 2012
If Governments Weren't Firing People by Michael Tomasky, thedailybeast.com | May 10, 2012
Romney says Obama "Takes His Marching Orders" From Unions by Dave Johnson, OurFuture.org | May 10, 2012
Governing on Empty
December 21st, 2011
The Senate, having struck its compromise, has gone home. The House, controlled by delusional Republicans, has gone home. Payroll taxes are slated to rise, and unemployment insurance is set to expire before they return in January. The compromise wasn’t just between the two parties in the Senate, apparently. According to Wednesday’s Washington Post, House Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor met with Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell on Friday and told him they’d get the votes to pass the two-month extension deal he’d worked out with Harry Reid. But Boehner, who is turning out to be the weakest speaker since the House was first gaveled to order in 1789, couldn’t hold his troops, whose caucus meetings, by numerous accounts, increasingly resemble the pep rallies of cults that have lost all feel for how other humans think.
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Battling Messages: Democrats Need to Enter the Fray
March 23rd, 2011
New polling with the same results:
more »China Currency, U.S. Jobs
The decision by China to keep the value of its currency artificially low has a direct impact on jobs in the United States. But that's just one of a host of issues the Obama administration and Congress must address to rebuild America's job base and reestablish its global competitiveness. We're calling on the administration and Congress to call out China on its currency manipulation—and to forge an industrial policy that strengthens our economy.
» Find articles and resources on our China Currency Showdown page
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Why We Need To Revive American Manufacturing
For more than three decades, we have been shedding factories and manufacturing jobs—as well as the suppliers, contractors, shippers, trainers, managers and other jobs that go along with them. Here are some basic facts you should know about the state of American manufacturing, as well as the outlines of a progressive approach that will create new jobs for a 21st-century economy.
ALSO Read Scott Paul on the urgent need to revitalize American manufacturing.
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Pay Teachers More
March 14th, 2011
From the debates in Wisconsin and elsewhere about public sector unions, you might get the impression that we’re going bust because teachers are overpaid. That’s a pernicious fallacy. A basic educational challenge is not that teachers are raking it in, but that they are underpaid. If we want to compete with other countries, and chip away at poverty across America, then we need to pay teachers more so as to attract better people into the profession.
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MAKING IT IN AMERICA
Under Debate: The State
Of Manufacturing
There's no disputing that America's manufacturing sector is on the ropes—or is there? Some experts argue that manufacturing in the U.S. is healthy; it's the workers who have to adjust, not our industrial policy. We present the argument, then take it apart. For anyone concerned about how we are going to create new, stable jobs with living wages, this is a debate that matters. Join it »
The Return of Sanity
November 9th, 2011
The common thread in yesterday’s unbroken string of Democratic and progressive victories was the popular rejection of right-wing overreach. The series of elections held across the country yesterday weren’t supposed to yield a coherent narrative. Yet a common theme emerged: Radical-right Republicans hit a wall last night all over the country, even on a conservative social issue in what may be the most socially conservative state in the nation. So can Democrats take some hope from last night’s results? Provisionally; sort of. If Barack Obama can make next year’s election a choice between his ineffectual moderation and the Republicans’ wacked-out lunacy, the Democrats should do well. If next year’s election is a referendum on his stewardship of the economy the Democrats will likely get clobbered. It’s clear that Americans have had it with Republican extremism. Whether that will be a decisive issue in 2012 is not yet apparent.
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