Throughout the 2008 presidential election is was very clear that the Obama campaign ran under the premise of helping the middle class. Unfortunately, it appears that he has ignored the middle class employees in the manufacturing industry. Today, in The New York Times, Louis Uchitelle wrote an article concerning Douglas Bartlette’s manufacturing firm, Bartlette Manufacturing Company.
Bartlette recently closed down his printed circuit board factory in Cary, Illinios because the property taxes were just too high. He has laid off 87 employees and has begun to auction off his capital (machinery). Basically, he is now sitting on an empty chunk of land.
While China has been producing goods at low costs with minimal troubles entering the US market, Bartlette has not been so fortunate. The high tariff’s in China have made it almost impossible for small manufacturing companies to sell to China. The US has been importing many cheap products from China, but China won’t let us do the same there.
He agrued that the administration has spent so much on bailout’s for General Motors and Chystler, but his company was destined to fail. Other manufacturing companies have been subsidized by our government. With the newly found interest in “going green”, the US has made it simple for these companies to enter the market and grow at rapid rates, but not your average manufacturing company.
It only seems unreasonable for the Obama administration to leave so many manufacturing jobs high and dry when proposed goal was to help the middle class. The Bush administration certainly has contributed to the boost in the “green era”, but nonetheless, manufacturing is the backbone of America. It is the sector for high school graduates seeking a decent paying job; one that can fulfil the American dream.
In response, I beckon President Obama to increase tariffs on Chinese imports so that the US manufacturing industry can survive. With the middle class being on Obama’s docket, it only seems necessary to solve the problem.
The administration must cease the stimulus package, pay-off as much of our deficit to China and get back in the game.
Agreed
Unfortunately, tariffs on Chinese goods, while tempting and perhaps even useful, would really just mask the true problem. All tariffs would do is to BLOCK a free market in a way that would help us. In the long run what needs to be done is to reduce taxation and regulation in order to help us COMPETE in a free market.