Isaiah J. Poole

We learn that 90 percent of the parts of an iPhone are made outside the U.S. Then we hear Jobs (as in Steve) say: "those jobs aren't coming back." But wait a minute. The parts we are talking about are microprocessors, memory chips, displays, circuitry, and chip sets. These are all the kind of advanced, high-tech, capital intensive, knowledge intensive, not cheap-labor intensive products in which economists, business leaders, and political leaders always say America has a comparative advantage because it is the technology leader. Why are South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan supplying the memory chips and micro-processors and displays instead of the United States? As a leading U.S. negotiator on these issues for some time, I can tell you.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama has a compelling story to tell the country about the importance of health security to America's middle class and why we have to stop the Republican assault on Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. The president has plenty of examples to make his case.

Who should have the primary strategic responsibility for making American workers globally competitive – the private sector or government? This will be a defining issue in the 2012 campaign. In his State of the Union address, President Obama will make the case that government has a vital role. His Republican rivals disagree. Mitt Romney charges the President is putting “free enterprise on trial,” while Newt Gingrich merely fulminates about “liberal elites.”