A Golden Opportunity

We now have a once in a lifetime opportunity to secure a Transatlantic Partnership Agreement (TAP), a free trade agreement with the European Union, that has been a dream of U.S. manufacturers for as long as I can remember. Both the White House and Congress are supportive...

It has been my experience over many years that our government too often approaches our most vexing problems, not with brilliant strategies or intuitive breakthroughs, or even sensible compromises, but rather by what my mother used to call "muddling through.'

A case in point is the most significant challenge facing...

There are contradictory analyses in the media about a resurgence of manufacturing - some praising it as the second coming and others insisting it is imaginary. For instance, on April 2, The Washington Post featured a front page report of European manufacturers setting up shop in the U.S. to take...

I am sometimes inclined to hyperbole when describing the creative genius of American manufacturers, but the reality on the shop floor outpaces my ability to capture in words what our factory wizards are actually achieving. An excellent case in point is the rapidly emerging field of additive manufacturing (AM) that...

Perhaps my proudest and most lasting achievement over my 14 years as President of the National Association of Manufacturers is the Dream It. Do It. program that has enabled thousands of people to acquire the skills they need to work in modern manufacturing.

The original idea came appropriately enough from...

The Internet is a perilous place where anyone can present opinions and reports on any topic without review by editors, or even self-identification. The result is a virtually endless flood of information, much of it ill-informed. A prime example is one recently relayed to me in which a fellow named...

President Obama recently put some meat on the bones of the notion of a National Infrastructure Bank that he spoke about in his State of the Union address. He essentially calls for investing $50 billion in transportation infrastructure, most of that to upgrade bridges, highways, transit systems and airports most...

The Quest for Common Sense and Growth

In its lead editorial of March 16, the estimable New York Times derided what it called "the false consensus that the deficit is an immediate problem" as it made a case for ever more federal spending on worthy social programs such as...

"I have been in many a country and they have thousands of problems," said humorist Will Rogers. "But America's problem as to 'Where to invest my money?' is unique. The whole world would give their right leg to be bothered with that problem."

Actually, I think the world has changed...

The Pension Bomb

The national debt has crested $16 trillion and state and local debts add another $2.8 trillion to the red ink, but there is yet another debt crisis out there -- unfunded pension liabilities of state and local governments, plus private corporations, that add another $2.5...

While I am out of the country for a few days, I thought to leave you this note about a couple of interesting books my colleague Hank Cox has written recently for two of our country's more inspired leaders -- one in business and the other in the U.S. Army.

I spent many years as President of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), plus two more after that as President of the Manufacturing Institute, the NAM affiliated think tank, but I have never been as excited about the prospects for U.S. manufacturing as I am today. We are entering a...

Washington insiders are chuckling over an imaginative proposal to resolve the debt ceiling crisis by simply making the debt disappear. An obscure law enacted at the behest of coin collectors authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to mint platinum coins in any denomination he may choose. Ergo, he could theoretically...

For as long as I can remember, people have been fascinated with robots. Arguably, Artoo-DeToo and C-3PO were the most compelling characters in the Star Wars movies, with all due respect to Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher. Robots have always been a staple of science fiction.

But according to...

While the immediate prospects of the U.S. economy are bleak, and nothing happening in Washington suggests an early improvement, there is more than ample reason to believe our economy can look forward to better times in the not too distant future.

In the cover story in the December issue of...

The U.S. economy is slowing sharply.

Wall Street pundits are engaged in a lot of happy talk these days about how the economy is strengthening, promising a strong recovery into 2013. Several economists confidently forecast that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth next year will hit 3...

All the economists and pundits are sitting on the edge of their seats wondering if President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner will cut a last minute deal on the federal budget to avoid going over the fiscal cliff. The widespread assumption is that going over the cliff would be...

I have been somewhat taken aback by the sudden burst of news reports and commentary in the news media about increasing revenue to reduce the deficit, with very little discussion about commensurate cuts in entitlement programs. I do believe that President Barack Obama and the Democrats are putting the horse...

All of Washington is abuzz about the new Steven Spielberg movie Lincoln, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, that focuses on the 16th President's carefully modulated strategy for prying the 13th Amendment freeing the slaves out of a reluctant House of Representatives.

Lincoln is an important story well told. Day-Lewis' impersonation of...

There is much talk in Washington about a "grand bargain" to avert plunging off the fiscal cliff, and it could happen. There is always a surge of positive feelings after an election and a narrow window of opportunity for action before people drift back into their ideological nostrums. Also, several...