Obama Picks Two To Lead Manufacturing Push -- But The Right Two?

WASHINGTON -- President Obama on Monday charged two of his senior advisers with pursuing policies to strengthen the American manufacturing sector, a move progressives have long argued was overdue.

But his two picks to run a White House Office of Manufacturing Policy -- Commerce Secretary John Bryson and National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling -- raised some of the same concerns that arose when Obama named General Electric CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt as his top adviser for job-creation efforts.

Ron Bloom, a former senior official for the United Steelworkers who had also served as Obama's "car czar," stepped down from his job as assistant to the president for Manufacturing Policy in August.

"It is gratifying to see, after such a long wait, replacements being named for Ron Bloom, who so honestly and well represented the manufacturing sector as the President's Manufacturing Czar," Leo Hindery, a former CEO who heads the US Economy/Smart Globalization Initiative at the New America Foundation, and is one of the foremost advocates of a U.S. industrial policy, said in an email.

"However, it is disappointing that it couldn't be people whose bona fides re: the manufacturing imperative are clearer and more established," Hindery wrote. "How is this so much different than having Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric head the President's Jobs Council when GE under Mr. Immelt's stewardship has offshored many more American jobs than it has created?"

Bryson previously led Southern California Edison, a massive utility company, and served as Boeing's longest-serving director. Sperling, who has held a series of senior economic policy jobs in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, is a lawyer by training. In between the two Democratic administrations, he did lucrative consulting work that in 2008 alone netted him $2.2 million, including $887,727 from Goldman Sachs for a part-time job advising it on its charitable giving and $158,000 for speeches mostly to financial companies.

Obama said in a statement on Monday: "At this make or break time for the middle class and our economy, we need a strong manufacturing sector that will put Americans back to work making products stamped with three proud words: Made in America."

These days, Buying American isn't so easy. As Richard McCormack wrote in the American Prospect in 2009, over the previous decade or so, "Americans stopped making the products they continued to buy: clothing, computers, consumer electronics, flat-screen TVs, household items, and millions of automobiles."

Just last week, the Council on Competitiveness, a nonpartisan business and labor group, became the latest group to criticize the U.S. approach, concluding that "policy prescriptions for manufacturing are in disarray."

Indeed, the nation currently lacks any unified industrial policy, which could entail such things as a sustained program to encourage homegrown industry, a more assertive trade policy, the chartering of a national development bank, ending the favorable treatment of foreign investments, creating new tax credits for research and development, and actively discouraging offshoring.

Bloom, reached by The Huffington Post on Monday, did not join the criticism of his successors. "Everybody brings a different set of skills to the party," he said. "Obviously I had a bunch of background in labor."

"There are multiple good ways to attack this problem," Bloom said. "I don't know if this one is going to work. No one can know." But he added: "I think this president has demonstrated more commitment and interest to manufacturing than any president has in a long time."

House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (Md.) responded enthusiastically to the news. "By appointing Commerce Secretary John Bryson and National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling to co-chair the White House Office of Manufacturing Policy, the President again demonstrates his commitment to expanding U.S. manufacturing," he said in a statement.

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Dan Froomkin is senior Washington correspondent for The Huffington Post. You can send him an email, bookmark his page; subscribe to his RSS feed, follow him on Twitter, subscribe to him on Facebook, and/or become a fan and get email alerts when he writes.

Comments

[ChimpestryII]

05:59 PM on 12/13/2011

Let the industrial revolution begin! Now the government has created an official White House Office and tapped teo crony-corporatists to run it, the US should become the manufacturing mecca of the globe. If only the Founders had had the foresight to create such a government bureau, we probably would have became the leader in virtually every area of manufacturing! We might have built great steel plants, ship construction yards, automotive factories and jetliner plants. Well, now that the political class has taken a real interest, we will become that great manufacturing juggernaut we should be!

[cost estimating]

12:23 PM on 12/13/2011

MTI Systems is trying to help the manufacturing initiative by offering class room licenses of Costimator, cost estimating, quoting and process planning software to educational institutions nationwide.

--Jay Snow, Marketing Manager, MTI Systems, Inc. http://www.mtisystems.com

[Cindy Orellana]

11:12 AM on 12/13/2011

Secretary John Bryson directs the Manufacturing Extension Program, a program the U.S. Department of Commerce National Institute of Standards and Technology, over the past 23 years MEP has been a catalyst for strengthening American Manufacturing. MEP has reached over 34,000 manufacturing firms and completed over 10,000 projects this past year alone. Creating an economic impact in both jobs (created and retained 72,000 jobs) and sales (create and retained $8.4B in sales). That being said Secretary John Bryson is indeed the right candidate and will do a great job as co-chair.

[Ma Lucille]

10:26 PM on 12/12/2011

Grow Hemp - it has 1000's of uses
http://naihc.org/hemp_information/hemp_facts.html

[jgthomas]

10:39 PM on 12/12/2011

hmmmm not really as economically sound as they make it out to be.

[loki]

09:44 PM on 12/12/2011

I see it as there are only about 2 options for getting jobs back in America. First, and most wanted by the ruling class is to make 2 cents an hour the mandatory highest wage and benefits dont exist, no safety, no epa, no intervention by gov except when it helps to remove competition or increase profits or use taxpayer money to make up their losses due to their own mistakes, with a profit of course.

the other option is to remove the Ruling Class, and create a minimum wage that the average family can live on in todays economy, as well as universal health care, increase education while lowering cost to the students through a 4 year degree, prosecute those who commit crimes or unethical acts in the name of "profits" and greed, and actually enforce the rules, and remove the money from politics.

which would you think could win out in todays America? Something that would benefit everyone? Or something that would benefit those who already have it all?

[jgthomas]

10:44 PM on 12/12/2011

hmmm those who do not need it. The greed junkies. butttt wait if we made so little money where would tax dollars come from?

I agree with you 100%

We need to increase the tariffs on imported products to mach what the charge our companies to import to them. We need to impose penalties on companies that have to many of there jobs and manufacturing outside the US. And we need to reward companies who expand and spend on R&D as long as it shows job creation for the long run. We all like to think short term. Just of ourselves and our comforts we need to start thinking into our childrens future as well.

[Nutcase]

09:43 PM on 12/12/2011

Manufacturing is not the answer. Manufacturing is extremely subject to automation; eliminating jobs. It is also vulnerable to relocating to non-union states or off-shore. We need to quit trying to recapture the past. We need to get past the thinking that centers on manufacturing. No one ordered the world to stop.

[Lauralics]

09:50 PM on 12/12/2011

You're right, manufacturing will not bring back those higher paying positions. IMO, the Domestic Energy Industry is the answer, a do everything approach.

[StopThePlanet]

09:43 PM on 12/12/2011

The only thing that will help manufacturing is changing trade policy. Obama has demonstrated his commitment to globalists by supporting every free trade agreement that has come across his desk.

[loki]

09:55 PM on 12/12/2011

politicians today, are just puppets. The ruling class pull the strings with their bankrolls, and the puppets act. Party affiliation doesn't mean a thing. Both parties only owe allegiance to the United States of the Ruling Class overlords. We are nothing more than a nuisance to them all.

[StopThePlanet]

10:04 PM on 12/12/2011

We need to be a nuisance en mass by expanding OWS.

[BoycottFox2]

09:35 PM on 12/12/2011

Baggers don't want jobs....they llike feeding off of Mamma...

[loki]

09:46 PM on 12/12/2011

but what are they going to do when they finally help the ruling class turn the US into a 3rd world slave labor country, and the Koch brothers cut off the teat they now milk from?

[gogogadget]

09:12 PM on 12/12/2011

Obama and Jobs? He knows how to destroy,not create. Remember, he is a community organizer pretending he has a clue. Unfortunately for our country, he doesn't.

[quantumhockeypuck]

09:41 PM on 12/12/2011

Any and all presidents have no ability to create private sector jobs. This whole argument is empty. You could eliminate all taxes, fire all of the public sector employees and there is no guarantee that a single job would be created.

[johnblack53]

09:43 PM on 12/12/2011

He knows how to destroy not create.........................Oh really?......................http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/68965.html

[petergard]

09:05 PM on 12/12/2011

Lets see what policies, plans and programs emerge before leaping in to criticize. Who is heading something is far less important than what they do or try to do.

[ProgressiveGatorFan]

09:04 PM on 12/12/2011

Don't know if his picks are correct for the job but they have to overcome 30 years of conservative gutting and outsourcing to restore even a portion of American manufacturing.

[The 5 Percent]

09:02 PM on 12/12/2011

Obama's plan is not designed to work. He hires people from goldman sachs and leahman brothers to be his financial advisers and backed out on Elizabeth Warren at the first sign of trouble. He is doing the bidding of the corporate elite like most other politicians in washington. This is all a big game. Both parties play golf together and figure out how to screw the American people together. Both parties are for the rich and decide how many crumbs they will throw the peasants!!

[loki]

09:57 PM on 12/12/2011

republicans hired people from Enron , goldman sachgs, leahman brothers, and more during their reign of terror with Bush. So what is your point? Both parties only do what is good for the rich, they just pander to the rest of us so we feel like they like us.

[The 5 Percent]

09:40 AM on 12/13/2011

Maybe you did not read my whole comment. I said both parties are for the rich. I think you may have aproblem with me calling out Obama on doing the same things as republicans. Both parties have been doing this for decades so Obama is not off limits to be called out. I dont lean left or right. I lean toward justice for the voters that are being robbed by politicians that do the bidding of corporations!!

[Califishing]

08:56 PM on 12/12/2011

Start building submarines, tanks, airplanes etc.. Build high speed rail, repair roads.. There has to be jobs that don't need higher education.. start ramping up healthcare..

[loki]

09:58 PM on 12/12/2011

problem is, if they dont need higher education, employers will just hire illegals for a dollar a day.

[Barry Harper]

08:39 PM on 12/12/2011

Anyway you look at it .It will be easier said than done ,because most of the old run down manufacturing buildings have been torn down or abandoned for years ,like steel mills ,Westinghouse's , Auto plants you name it . Just look around Pa. ,Ohio,and Mich. just a few of the top .

[pottedferne]

08:55 PM on 12/12/2011

true and China started up instead of re-building. Who knows we have to start somewhere or bend over.

[Barry Harper]

09:09 PM on 12/12/2011

The big business will try and find away to BS the tax payer to pay the tab for the new plants . The foreigner owed Co. are doing it now.

[loki]

09:50 PM on 12/12/2011

some of the mills and factories have been turned into high priced condos, which now sit vacant.

[susanbsbi]

08:24 PM on 12/12/2011

It doesn't matter to me who is put in charge of it, as long as it creates jobs.

[loki]

09:51 PM on 12/12/2011

I totally agree. But I wouldn't hold my breath thinking that anyone we will be told we can choose from will create any jobs for the masses.