President Obama met with Senate Democrats today and Senator Sherrod Brown (OH) pressed him on why the United States does not have a manufacturing policy.   Brown was right to raise the question because manufacturing is critical to the U.S. economy.  As the New America Foundation points out:

Manufacturing has the largest multiplier of all sectors of the economy. Every dollar in final sales in manufacturing products supports $1.37 in other sectors of the economy. By contrast, the financial services sector generates only about 50 cents for every dollar of activity.

At the same meeting, Sen. Arlen Specter also weighed in on the United States' unbalanced trading relationship with the world:

We have lost 2.3 million jobs as a result of the trade imbalance with China between 2001 and 2007.  The remedies to save those jobs are very ineffective -- long delays, proceedings before the International Trade Commission, subject to being overruled by the President.  We have China violating international law with subsidies and dumping -- really, a form of international banditry.  They take our money and then they lend it back to us and own now a big part of the United States.

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