Both parties should make factory job growth a priority.
This is it, folks. We’re just a few weeks away from the 2016 political conventions.
Republicans will soon gather in Cleveland, where they will (probably) officially nominate Donald Trump for the presidency. The next week, Democrats will head to Philadelphia to (probably) give the official thumbs up to their pick, Hillary Clinton.
The conventions themselves are a lot of political theater, but ahead of the big event both parties are doing something that actually matters quite a bit: Putting together their official party platform.
The platforms are essentially a set of goals the parties release every four years to help sell their party’s agenda. Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal started as a political platform that he unveiled in 1932 upon accepting the nomination, for example.
Both parties are currently taking ideas from the general public on what should be in their official platforms, and here at the Alliance for American Manufacturing, we think policies to promote factory job growth should be in both. As our President Scott Paul wrote in an email to AAM supporters:
It’s no secret that the decline of good-paying factory jobs is one of the big issues driving the 2016 campaign.
Americans on both sides of the aisle are tired of factories closing and jobs heading overseas. They want to see smart policy enacted to take on trade cheats like China, rebuild our domestic manufacturing base and create more middle class jobs. …
There’s already been a lot of talk this election cycle about the loss of manufacturing jobs. Now it’s time for us to make sure both parties are focused on the solutions."
And some of the solutions include:
- Stopping unfair trade: Our leaders should hold countries like China accountable when they break the rules, including by dumping their goods into our market and manipulating their currencies.
- Strengthening our defense: America relies on nations like Russia and China for many key materials used by the military. We need to take immediate steps to ensure our troops are ready to respond with high-quality, American-made products.
- Investing in infrastructure: Our nation’s roads, bridges, railways, ports, airports and water systems are in terrible shape. Investing to fix them would create millions of jobs and provide a big economic boost — and using Made in America materials whenever possible would be a win-win.
Now’s the time to make our voices heard.