Allied Approaches

President Obama set a goal of 1 million new manufacturing jobs in his second term. Last month we added zero. Not one. Nada. Zip. We did add low-wage jobs, though. Maybe we can talk about a national manufacturing strategy now?

Republicans in Congress have renewed their decades-old attack on the 40-hour work week. Once again, they are pushing so-called “comp time” legislation that would allow employers to stop giving workers any extra pay for overtime work.

What fun! The latest political game sweeping the nation is called “Pee on the Poor.” Republican lawmakers in some 30 states – including Florida, Georgia, Indiana, and (of course) Texas – are competing to be national champions of this X-treme right-wing sport.

The big lie in American politics today is that “America is broke” or “in this time of austerity we have to tighten our belts.” America is not broke. We are not in a time of “scarcity” and when we buy into this fallacy, we contribute to political decisions that actually will do damage to our standard of living and that of our children.

President Obama picked the very day that new job creation collapsed to propose a deflationary budget deal featuring cuts in Social Security and Medicare. This is perverse economics and worse politics, on several grounds.

The rising American electorate is sinking together in this economy. The faltering jobless recovery isn’t working for most working families. Over 20 million are still in need of full-time work. Wages and family income are falling.

Here’s an outrage that must be changed: Big Pharma has been systematically price-gouging the Medicare program for seniors and people with disabilities — and raking in billions in excessive profits. The 11 largest global drug companies made an astonishing $711 billion in profits over the 10 years.

Why do policymakers focus so intently on the deficit issue? Because the small minority of wealthy individuals that see the deficit as the nation’s priority have more clout than the majority that didn’t.