Supporters of Made in the USA jobs should organize a massive Labor Day march on Washington as the 2012 campaign begins in earnest. Let's take back America from the futility of punishing joblessness. Let's begin with a million men coming to Washington, alongside a million women, waving millions of American flags, supporting Made in the USA jobs on the day that honors labor.
An American jobs march could be the largest such event in American political history because it would speak for a gigantic swath of America that hungers and yearns for American jobs, and does not believe its voice is heard in Washington.
A Labor Day Made in the USA jobs march would dramatize the breadth, intensity and power of support for American jobs and send a thundering message to Washington.
A Labor Day march for jobs would bring together blue-collar workers and small businesses throughout the nation. It would unite police, firefighters, teachers, family farmers, veterans supporting jobs for troops returning from combat, leading groups from the black and Hispanic communities, voices for young people and women, organized labor, homebuilders and homeowners, major consumer groups and venture capitalists who finance job-creating businesses.
As July 4 approaches, the House and Senate will recess. The next monthly ADP jobs report will be released July 7. The government's monthly report will be released July 8. This will be the jobless July 4 and the jobless July 4 recess.
The smart political move for the president and members of Congress would be to clearly, visibly and aggressively champion red, white and blue American jobs from July 4 through Labor Day.
A massive Labor Day March on Washington for jobs would dramatize and mobilize support for ideas and proposals that can make a real difference.
A Labor Day march would ignore bogus proposals to reward giant global conglomerate jobs exporters that are hoarding some $2 trillion of cash and "investing" in machinery that replaces human beings. It would support the real job creators, such as small businesses on Main Street, Made in America manufacturers, companies that repatriate jobs to America, new homegrown startup companies and demand-creating American consumers loyal to job-creating American firms.
I propose a standing ovation for the "patriotic millionaires" who recently held a press conference proposing they give up their Bush tax cuts. Let's promote the patriotic capitalism for America that a Labor Day march for Made in the USA jobs would stand for and inspire.
A Labor Day march would not only inaugurate the 2012 campaign by putting jobs at the top of the agenda in Washington, as it is in America. It would begin to rally voter and consumer confidence going into the 2011 holiday season. The cavalry is coming. We the people are the cavalry.
The common sense of the deficit issue is clear. The prime directive is to promote jobs and growth in 2011 and honest, credible deficit reduction starting in 2012. This is the deal that makes sense. The job-creation initiative must be real and not bogus. The long-term deficit reduction must be real and not bogus.
The American people must be brought into the center of the process and not insulted as bystanders while insiders keep negotiating backroom deals and keep forcing our people, and members of Congress, to repeatedly choose at the eleventh hour and 59th minute between a fait accompli, government shutdown or global crash.
A Labor Day March on Washington for Made in the USA jobs will send a powerful and resounding message that Americans want American jobs, that we are not a banana republic doomed to permanently punishing joblessness that dramatically adds to permanently crippling deficits.
We Americans are a great nation and a good people with an entrepreneurial drive and unity of patriotic purpose. Let those who stand for Gilded Age greed and the impotence of believing there are no fixes stay home, while those ready to restore the economic greatness of America come to Washington to speak as one, and make our voices heard.
This column was originally published at The Hill.