‘Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected,” observed President Obama this week, enjoying a nice chuckle about the unhappy fate of his near–$1 trillion stimulus. To be sure, Obama has also been promoting a less amusing remedy for anemic growth and high unemployment: exports. In this year’s State of the Union address, he proclaimed a national goal of doubling exports by 2014.
One obvious way to increase exports is through free-trade agreements. But unions don’t like them. No surprise then that for two years Obama has been sitting on three free-trade agreements — with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea — already negotiated by his predecessor.
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Under the pressure of dire economic conditions and of the consequences of stiffing three valued allies, Obama appeared ready to relent — only to put up a last-minute roadblock. He’s demanding an expansion of Trade Adjustment Assistance — taxpayer money (beyond unemployment compensation) given to workers displaced by foreign competition, something denied to Americans rendered unemployed by domestic competition. It’s an idea of dubious fairness but nicely designed to hold up ratification while placing blame on Republican heartlessness rather than on political sabotage by Democrats beholden to unions for the millions they pour into Democratic coffers. (A deal reportedly may be near. But the years of delay have been costly.)
Nothing new here. In 2009, Obama pushed through a federally run, questionably legal bankruptcy for the auto companies that robbed first-in-line creditors in order to bail out the United Auto Workers. Elsewhere, Delta Air Lines workers have voted four times to reject unionization. A federal agency, naturally, is investigating and, notes economist Irwin Stelzer, can order still another election in the hope that it yields the answer Obama’s campaign team wants.
But Democratic fealty to unions does not stop there. Boeing has just completed a production facility in South Carolina for its new 787 Dreamliner. The National Labor Relations Board, stacked with Democrats — including one former union lawyer considered so partisan that he required a recess appointment after the Senate refused to confirm him — is trying to get the plant declared illegal. Why? Because by choosing right-to-work South Carolina, Boeing is accused of retaliating against its unionized Washington State workers for previous strikes.
In fact, Boeing has increased unionized employment by more than 2,000 at its Puget Sound plant. Moreover, the idea that a company in a unionized state can thus be prohibited from expanding into right-to-work states by a partisan regulatory body is quite insane. It violates the fundamental principle in a free-market economy that companies can move and build in response to market conditions, rather than administrative fiat. It jeopardizes the economic recovery, not only targeting America’s single largest exporter in its attempt to compete with Airbus for a huge global market, but also threatening any other company that might think of expanding in any way displeasing to unions and their NLRB patrons.
Obama has been utterly silent in the Boeing affair. Which is understood by all as tacit approval. He’s facing reelection next year. And Democrats need unions.
Of course, unions need Democrats — who deliver quite faithfully. In last year’s nationwide “shellacking” of Democrats, for example, Wisconsin gave Republicans control of both legislative chambers and elected a Republican governor who made clear his intention to rein in public-sector union power.
When the Republicans tried to do as promised, Democrats, lacking the votes, tried to block it by every extra-parliamentary maneuver short of arson. State Senate Democrats fled Wisconsin to prevent a quorum. Demonstrators filled the statehouse for days and nights on end. And when the bill finally passed nonetheless, Dane County’s Democratic district attorney went to court to have it thrown out on procedural grounds.
They found a pliant judge to invalidate the law. A famous victory, but short-lived. On Tuesday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court overturned the ruling, upbraiding the judge for having “usurped the legislative power which the Wisconsin Constitution grants exclusively to the Legislature.” The law is reinstated.
Instructive cases all, demonstrating how those who lose popular support — Democrats at the polls, unions in their declining membership — can subvert and circumvent the popular will by judicial usurpation (Wisconsin) or administrative fiat (Boeing).
The Wisconsin maneuver ultimately failed, as likely will the assault on Boeing. In the interim, however, there is collateral damage — to U.S. exports, to the larger economy, to bankruptcy law, to free trade, to a constitutional system wherein the legislatures make the laws, rather than willful judges and partisan regulators.
But what are those when there are unions to appease and elections to win?
"Shovel ready" was always a lie, and that is one thing that Obama, as a former state senator, should have known. Here in Georgia, an average highway project has money spread across seven fiscal years.
And unions aren't the only force of liberalism that forces delays. There's the "community comment" period. The endless "environmental impact statements. "Minority and Female-owned contractor set-asides. Don't forget OSHA
You can get more than just unemployment if you are displaced by foreign competition?
And how is this proven? Or is it like an Islamic divorce? You just say, "Free trade killed my job!" three times in the presence of two witnesses and a priest appointed by the NLRB?
I must say I am awed by Obama & Co.'s obvious faith in the American financial system. It is far stronger than my faith.
They believe America can overcome any barrier they put in its way and continue to provide tax revenues for their patronage programs and jobs numbers that help them win reelection.
And this green tag captcha business? Can't you find a cigar vendor or somebody instead of something that should be lampooned on "Planet Gore"?
Nice column. And there sits the national media. Unable -- or unwilling -- to muster the courage to confront the President on this issue at a time when this country needs job creation and quality products to combat global competitors. It's just another example of how committed those in the MSM are to getting their man re-elected. Then again, I might be underestimating their ineptitude as well.
What we are witnessing is the stark difference between management in private industry and management in government. In private industry, if a President or CEO knows that they way they have been leading and operating the country is not working, and in fact is doing more harm than good, they will change their approach to try to make things better. The private manager is not invested in the process or method, so much as in the result...he or she wants a healthy bottom line...because he or she knows that the only way to keep their job is to achieve SUCCESS and make a good profit. Contrast this with Obama and his management of government. Profit is not the goal, re-election is the goal. Therefore image, process, and methods trump results. I assure you that Obama KNOWS his processes, policies, and methods are flawed and need to be changed. However, he can NOT change them. Why can't he change them? Because the entire rationale for electing him was HOPE and CHANGE, and doing things differently than Bush, and nowhere is that more important than in domestic policy. So, he made changes which are turning out to be ruinous for the country, and he knows it. He also knows that if he acknowledges it now, and admits that his policies are a failure as he KNOWS they are, and that he is going to change course and do what he knows will create a vibrant economy and create public sector jobs, his chances of getting re-elected drop to zero. Why? Because the changes he need to make would result in policies which his left liberal base abhors. Such policy changes would result in less government, fewer government employees, less regulation of private citizens and private industry, lower taxes, a less ridiculous nanny state, and an admission that the U.S. free market, unchained, can create those jobs much better than a boatload of government commission, czars, and government bureaucrats. So, unlike the President or CEO in private industry, Obama, the President of the U.S., must stubbornly continue on the same path which is destroying our country, because if he admits this is a bad path the man is scared to death that his base will abandon him and he won't be reelected. The bottom line that results in a CEO keeping his/her job is a good profit, the bottom line for Obama keeping his job is now the necessity of continuing with the same process. Nero is playing golf while Rome burns.
For all the nonsense about how smart liberals are and how dumb conservatives are (Eisenhower, Reagan, Bush I etc.) can anyone name me 1 intellectually honest liberal commentator / writer (Camile Paglia excluded - she is brilliant and honest.)
Reading between the 2008 campaign lines, BO never committed himself anywhere, but committed himself everywhere. Having posted that, WHO CAN WIN 2012?? Time to re-focus intellect and energy on a solid candidate. The Constitution Party needs to be either GOP, or renamed as a 3rd party.
Radical liberals have inculcated themselves into multiple levels of government. The damage they do via delay, regulation, etc is obvious.
Worse because its government, this gives left wing agenda/tactics the aura of legitimacy.
These practices now are so pervasive and ‘established’ that I fear even if moderates take over these positions, the system is already indoctrinated with the leftist ideology and will maintain the leftist inertia, change will be very difficult.
I disagree. Radical leftists are a minority masquerading as moderates. The mask has come off. People will vote them out and return to the Constitutional Republic our Founders blessed us with.
Judge Sumi should be brought up on charges - there must be something she did that can be construed as malice aforethought. She had to know she over-stepped her bounds right from the beginning.
Until these crooks start to do jail time this overstepping will continue. See NLRB. They have no right to drag Boeing through the costly legal system just to prove their point.
“One obvious way to increase exports is through free-trade agreements. But unions don’t like them. No surprise then that for two years Obama has been sitting on three free-trade agreements — with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea — already negotiated by his predecessor.”
And just how well has “free-trade” agreements worked for the US?
Krauthammer needs to read “Free Trade Doesn’t Work, Ian Fletcher.
It looks like Obama and the unions are inadvertently doing something good for America. If O realized this he might actually go against the unions.
The really sad thing is that the Columbia agreement gives Columbia very little in the way of new access to the US market. (They got that in an earlier agreement.) This agreement opens up Columbian markets to the US.
The liberals are holding up this agreement largely because they dislike to politics of the Columbian govt.
The problem with pronouncements about the impact of NAFTA and other such agreements is that there appears to be little agreement among economists and others about what happened.
Here is a perfect example. One would truly struggle to find a politician more owned by the unions that Ohio's former govenor Ted Strickland. During his re election campaign against John Kasich he made a wild claim about job losses due to NAFTA and normalized trade with China. This claim was roundly refuted.
Ian Fletcher resides at a "think tank" of sorts that doesn't reveal its funding source. I don't think that does them any good. And I have doubts about thier impartiality. These doubts are further fueled by the link to a clearly very liberal web site found on the tank's home page.
Unions are heavily invested in thwarting free trade. Their agenda is simple: protect American jobs. What they won't tell you is that this protection comes at a price. Just imagine how much a car would cost us, for example, if only UAW boys built them.
President Obama's refusal to push for ratification of the treaties that reciprocally reduce tariffs between the U.S. and Colombia, Panama, and South Korea make political sense. The people who will lose as a result of freer trade will lose a lot, they know that they will lose a lot, and they will do their best to help any politician who prevents treaty ratification. Whereas, the beneficiaries of free trade or evenly dispersed across the U.S. and have no idea that they are benefitting from freer trade with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. Consequently, this issue does not resonate for the beneficiaries politically despite the fact that the winners collectively win much more from freer trade than the losers lose. This is a conventional political calculation that has been done for two hundred years in our Republic.
Unfortunately, it probably makes political sense for Obama to screw Boeing into preventing it from creating jobs in South Carolina. I suspect Obama's approach enjoys wide-spread approval in Washington State, and this state leans Democrat in national elections but is winnable by the Republicans in 2012. Whereas, South Carolina is a solidly Republican state that is not winnable by Obama in 2012. The only question in my mind is whether people in some of the swing states will see what Obama is doing to Boeing and South Carolina and decide that this episode is another example of Obama's fecklessness with our national economy. Intentionally harming one state to benefit another state, while not unknown during our nation's history, is unusual in our Republic. Obama is playing with fire here.
CD Scott, you are spot-on with your last point. I live in Charleston, and the general consensus is that this is political payback for the state being so diametrically opposed to the policies of Obama and his minions. Clinton did the same thing with base realignment and closure: shut down services on existing bases in red states and moved them to yet-to-be-constructed bases in blue states. Again, we've seen it in the Federal Executive's lack of follow-on support in the Gulf Coast States now that the oil spill crisis is no longer front-page news. The executive branch has completely extracted itself from trying to mitigate between BP and Gulf Coast residents and businesses. Here is one example where the Federal government could actually be of some service on a local level by ensuring some accountability, and they've washed their hands of the matter and walked away. Why? Again, because these are red states.
It would be good if the media were repeating over and over the comment made by Robert Rubin on the Lehrer News Hour opposing "shovel-ready" projects. He said they never turn out to be ready or "shovel-ready." And, of course, it turned out that way this time also. Pope John Paul II called for a kind of separation of unions and state or government. In the Communist nations of East Europe, the unions were creatures of the government. (Once some separation from the government was attained with Solidarity in Poland, the trajectory turned out to be the collapse of the Evil Empire.) Many liberals object to the Supreme Court decision upholding the right of corporations to make political donations. One can argue that not only was this partly to respond to the political financial power of unions, but also that it is at least and likely more important that unions separate themselves from being beholden to and supporting mainly one political party: separation of unions and only one political party (which is the main point Pope John Paul was making).
John Durskey, while we don't disagree at all in principle, I'm not sure I can agree with this pronouncement: "The private manager is not invested in the process or method, so much as in the result...he or she wants a healthy bottom line..." You cannot achieve bottom line by overlooking the method. Arguably the best college football coach in the business today, Nick Saban, is obsessed with his players having the mental and physical discipline to intensely focus on the process day in and day out, doing the little things every day that make a player (and a team) successful. He's a firm believer that if you get all goo-goo eyed thinking about the results, you don't take care of the details--the process--that will actually get you those results. Saying, "I want to be rich" won't get me a plug nickel unless I understand and daily follow the process of growing wealth. I think that's part of the problem with this president: I have to believe he genuinely wants results (i.e., a good economy--I'm being generous here, I understand) but he's generally clueless about the disciplined process (and sacrifice) we as a nation must undergo to achieve the desired result.
Hi, just to clarity, I think we are in agreement. When I wrote, "...The private manager is not invested in the process or method, so much as in the result..." all I meant was that a manager in a company will change processes/methods if they aren't working and try something else that will...they usually aren't blindly following a given process if it's not producing the desired results. Also, you have kaizen (continuous improvement) philosophies which basically ensure that you should always look for better ways to do things. Taking that one step further, I'm certain Obama knows his methods aren't working, but won't change them for the reasons I wrote. In short, he's a poor manager.
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