#State of the Union address. Biden says nation will recover stronger

[reasoningdaily]

President Joe Biden’s 2023 State of the Union address, recently televised to the American public as established under Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution— the annual presentation of measures for Congress to consider—came during a time of division, strife, and crisis, placing many concerned with “the time and what must be done,” into a valley of decision beyond the rhetoric of partisan politics and the ideological struggle between liberals and conservatives.

“We are the only country that has emerged from every crisis stronger than when we entered it,” President Biden said from the Speaker of the House dais before the joint session of Congress, members of the judicial branch, and his cabinet officials. “That is what we are doing again. Two years ago, our economy was reeling,” he said. “As I stand here tonight, we have created a record 12 million new jobs, more jobs created in two years than any president has ever created in four years.”

Referring to recovery from the economic impact of the COVID 19 lockdowns, the civil unrest that came at the end of the tumultuous presidency of Donald J. Trump, and what the president called threats to democracy not seen in the country since the Civil War, Mr. Biden said his administration proved the cynics and the naysayers wrong two years into his own presidency and said he defined the country with one word: “Possibilities.”

“Yes, we disagreed plenty,” the president continued. “And yes, there were times when Democrats had to go it alone. But time and again, Democrats and Republicans came together. Came together to defend a stronger and safer Europe,” he said. “Came together to pass a once-in-a-generation infrastructure law, building bridges to connect our nation and people,” while proclaiming a myriad of other projects, programs, and social agendas.

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The African American Mayors Association (AAMA), lauded President Biden’s speech, and said they shared his optimism about America’s future and “wholeheartedly believe that the state of our union is made stronger by his leadership.” Their news release added: “President Biden took office with the promise to rebuild the backbone of the country and unite and restore the soul of the nation.

These goals remain equally important today. As the only organization dedicated to representing more than 500 Black mayors across the United States, including the four largest cities in the country, AAMA knows that President Biden’s got our back and we’ve got his,” the AAMA statement read in part.

“Tonight, President Biden spoke directly to the American people by outlining his administration’s historic progress over the past two years. From tackling unprecedented crises, rebuilding the economy, and delivering results for working families, the President’s leadership has helped steer our nation in the right direction. We are grateful for the strong support President Biden and his administration has shown to mayors across the country and look forward to a continued partnership where we can focus on the core values of getting people back to work, ensuring our communities are safe, and improving the standard of living in people’s everyday lives,” said AAMA President and Little Rock Mayor, Frank Scott, Jr.

“His tagline (was) ‘finish the job,’” Dr. Leon said after President Biden’s speech. “Well, Joe, finish the job on Medicare, finish the job on Medicaid, finish the job on free college, finish the job on the $800 billion you were supposed to send to HBCUs. He made a lot of calls for things, did not offer legislation for them, and again, he knew the buttons to push, but when it comes to him following through on the things that he advocates for, he doesn’t get them done,” he said.

“He made mention of the labor issue, and last September on Labor Day, he said he wanted to be known as the greatest pro-labor president ever. And what did he do with the railway workers strike?” Dr. Leon asked. “He sided on the side of the railway companies, sacrificing the workers. There was a lot of fluffy rhetoric and as a political scientist I did not see substantive policy initiatives proposed. I heard a lot of populist rhetoric that did not have legislation tied to it.”

Regarding Mr. Biden’s position on America’s opioid crisis, Dr. Leon said the harshness with which urban addicts were handled by the criminal justice system, during the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, as opposed to the compassion with which suburban and rural fentanyl addicts are handled by the healthcare system today, the mass incarceration of Black people, for nonviolent drug offenses, is directly linked to the 1994 Crime Bill co-sponsored by then-Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.).

“Now we have the opioid crisis impacting middle and upper middle class America and it’s made its way into the homes of White Americans, young kids who, in many cases, are taking these pills from the medicine cabinets of their parents,” adding that today opioid addiction has a White face to be handled gently while crack addiction still has a Black face to be handled harshly.

On the issue of police reform, President Biden acknowledged the parents of Tyre Nichols, a Black motorist who died in a hospital three days after enduring a savage beating by five Black police officers in Memphis, Tennessee, on January 7. Expressing compassion over their son’s death during a questionable traffic stop, the president referenced his executive order regulating the behavior of federal law enforcement personnel but did not leverage his bully pulpit to restart negotiations over the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act stalled in the Senate since 2021.

“I don’t see any real traction coming out of it now, because Republicans tend to be more pro-police and pro-blue than the Democrats, but the one line Joe Biden gave that I thought was interesting and powerful was when he said: “When a police officer pins on this badge in the morning, he deserves the right to come home in the evening,’” Dr. Leon continued. “And then he said: ‘so do the people in the community,’” adding that as minor as it was, it constituted a powerful statement from a sitting president. But at the end of the day, it remains unlikely to bring substantive change to police behavior in Black neighborhoods.

As Merciless as Ancient Nineveh?

“Though the whips and the clubs of their enemy are heard night and day upon the heads and backs of the prey (so-called Negroes), they still do not desire to depart from America,” the Honorable Elijah Muhammad wrote. “Ancient Nineveh, according to her history, was full of chariots that made much noise and the prancing horses carrying the chariots in full speed that the prophets described them as ‘jumping chariots,’” he said. “So, it is in America today: her cities are filled with automobiles and the noise of them is heard every hour of the day, rattling past our doors. She is full of blood from murdered people,” he wrote of America’s hubris and violence prone culture.

“Black people must organize themselves and have what I describe as an unapologetically Black agenda, then they should coalesce with recent immigrants, veterans, women, the Hispanic community, and even poor Whites to form, in fact or by association, what the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan described as a Justice Party,” Student Min. Muhammad explained.

“We should convene town hall meetings across this country to flush out the public policies that would be fair and just toward our people and to those who have been marginalized in this society,” Student Min. Muhammad said.

 “Given the make-up of the House of Representatives and the slim margin that Mr. Biden’s party has in the Senate, and the upcoming elections in 2024, I really don’t think the opposition party is going to allow him to accomplish anything, even in a bipartisan manner,” he added. “Our destiny is not totally tied to whether they give us justice or not, our destiny is tied to our submission and obedience to Allah (God), His Christ and the Messiah. We should not fall for liberal lies, conservative cons, or moderate myths. Let us rely on Allah and make Allah sufficient for us in all our affairs and let us build a future for our children.”

[expatimes]

Trump v Biden: Competing plans to bring back manufacturing jobs

Bob, a manager at a personal care product manufacturing plant in northeast Pennsylvania, is one of the voters who may decide the outcome of the United States presidential election in November.

A 50-something-year-old resident of a crucial battleground state, Bob, who asked Al Jazeera to withhold his surname to protect his privacy, is not affiliated with either the Republican or Democratic party.

Since 2000, he has voted for candidates from both sides of the political spectrum. In 2008, Barack Obama won Bob over. In 2016, it was Donald Trump. In both cases, his decision pivoted on the candidate he felt would do the most to protect US manufacturing jobs like his.

“I had hoped that with the Obama administration, we would see positive change,” Bob told Al Jazeera. “But for me and most people I know, it was a disastrous period. In addition to my very good healthcare plan being gutted and now more expensive, I lived through thousands of jobs in the company I work for either becoming eliminated, consolidated or moved out of the US. ”

Bob kept his job, he said, but many of his colleagues did not.

“The last four years of the Obama administration were particularly devastating to manufacturing. The trade deals and regulations only added cost, and the main offset to the additional cost meant fewer people, ”he explained.

The last four years of the Obama administration were particularly devastating to manufacturing

Bob, Pennsylvania factory manager

'Blue-collar boom'

Manufacturers in the US employ nearly 13 million workers, but from 2000-2010, those jobs were slashed by a third as China surpassed the US as the world's leading manufacturer, according to Indiana University's Manufacturing Policy Initiative.

Trump was partly elected on his promises to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US. But what was a relatively healthy US manufacturing landscape during Trump's first year in office started to turn sour in 2018 - the year his administration began unleashing a string of punitive tariffs against major trading partners, most notably China.

Thoughts manufacturing output and employment started to fall in 2018, Bob said he has witnessed growth in his industry that he credits to tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks initiated by Trump.

“We've had to increase our wages to attract good people,” he said of the plant where he works.

Bob plans to cast his vote for Trump again this November because “he has added jobs, and we still need more”.

His experiments speak to the “blue-collar boom” Trump espoused during his 2020 State of the Union address when he highlighted the roughly 500,000 US manufacturing jobs created after he took office and before the coronavirus pandemic sent the economy off the rails.

But some dispute whether Trump is deserving of a victory lap for that pre-COVID strength in US factory employment.

Researchers from the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive-leaning think-tank based in Washington, DC, points out that the 500,000-manufacturing job “boom” heralded by Trump is actually on par with the numbers seen throughout the country's continuing economic recovery since the 2008 crash, which amounts to about 166,000 manufacturing jobs gained every year between 2010 and 2019.

But Trump's claims, and what his rival, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, plan to do to protect jobs like Bob's, remain a major issue this election cycle.

The high price of 'Made in America'

Trump made “Made in America” one of his catchphrases on the 2016 campaign trail, and it has figured prominently in many of his administration's “America First” initiatives, including an August executive order mandating essential medicines and medical countermeasures be produced domestically.

Biden has touted his own “Made in All of America” plan on the 2020 campaign trail, promising $ 400bn in federal procurement investments for products, materials and services made in the US. Biden claims his plan would be the largest "mobilization of public investments in procurement, infrastructure, and R&D since WWII."

President Donald Trump arrives to speak at a rally at Xtreme Manufacturing on Sunday, September 13, 2020, in Henderson, Nevada [File: Andrew Harnik/AP]

But while onshoring seems like a noncontroversial platform - both candidates broadly agree on plans that prioritise US-made goods - the programs may come at a hidden cost to taxpayers, some economists say.

Gary Hufbauer is a nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, an independent think-tank in Washington, DC. Hufbauer's research modeling suggests that sticking to an exclusively “Buy American / Made in America” government procurement plan could cost taxpayers up to $ 250,000 per job “saved.”

“It's an eye-opening number,” Hufbauer told Al Jazeera. "When you cut out national bidding, you cut down the number of competitors and enable remaining competitors to charge higher prices than they otherwise would, not only in areas where they might have competition but also in areas where competition may be less intense."

The results, Hufbauer said, are increased costs that are likely to benefit manufacturing firms without trickling down to workers.

The fact of the matter is supply chains have evolved to flow through China

Tom Guevara, director, Indiana University Public Policy Institute

Looking past the trade deficit

Supply chain concerns and Trump's trade war with China have also made it increasingly critical that US manufacturers are able to pivot their supply chains quickly in case of shortages or escalating tariffs, experts say.

“The fact of the matter is supply chains have evolved to flow through China,” Tom Guevara, the director of the Indiana University Public Policy Institute, told Al Jazeera.

That means even if more products are manufactured in the US, any shortage in key components or ingredients sourced elsewhere could also cause things to grind to a halt.

Many of those key components are also part of the US trade deficit with China, which Trump campaigned heavily in 2016 on reducing. But it is a promise that has not been fulfilled, experts say, making it a topic that is likely to come up between Trump and Biden during the upcoming presidential debates.

And while it is a hot-button issue on the campaign trail, some economists say reducing the trade deficit will not necessarily help US manufacturers.

“Say we did get the trade deficit down to zero. We would get a one-time increase in jobs, but tech, as far as we know it, will roll on, ”Hufbauer said, explaining that even if jobs are brought back to the US, automation and technological advances may eliminate others.

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event on manufacturing and buying American-made products at UAW Region 1 headquarters in Warren, Michigan [File: Patrick Semansky/AP]

But, Guevara counters, “balance of trade does matter”.

“It can increase employment, but challenges also include increased productivity and fewer employees needed to achieve the same goals,” he added, explaining those factors could ultimately lead the number of US manufacturing jobs to decline.

That is why, Guevara said: “Regardless of the next administration, the COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated certain weaknesses in the manufacturing sector that need to be shored up,” potentially through private and public partnerships.

Both candidates have their own proposals on that, too. The Trump administration is creating incentives for private-level apprenticeships. Biden's platform involves investing in vocational training and partnerships between employers and community colleges.

Economists agree the next administration has a crucial role to play in the future of US manufacturing, particularly as the country recovers from the economic fallout of the pandemic.

“It's not realistic to expect that we will go back to the same levels we once had where the manufacturing level was double the GDP than it is now, but we can be stronger and more competitive,” Guevara said.

For Bob, Trump's manufacturing report card factors heavily into his vote. He said he worries Biden's proposed corporate tax rise could end up hurting workers like himself.

“I worked for eight years under the progressive policies of the Obama and Biden administration,” he said. “But I've seen job growth with Trump. How is that not good for the working class? ”

#world Read full article: https://expatimes.com/?p=11024&feed_id=7694