The best argument for supporting Democrat Rick Daugherty in the 15th District is that he’d vote for a Democratic Speaker of the House, and give Democrats a working majority in Congress. The next best argument for supporting him is that he’d be a vote against Republican proposals to end traditional Medicare.
These two reasons alone are good enough to support Daugherty over Charlie Dent, but beyond that it gets hard to find more reasons to support his candidacy.
Daugherty’s anti-choice on abortion, wobbly on free birth control, and opposes marriage equality.
And now we can add crank economic views to the list:
Daugherty said he believes the country’s ineffective trade policies are the root cause of most of its economic problems. In its founding, the United States imposed tariffs to encourage domestic manufacturing and that should again be the country’s priority, Daugherty said.
“I don’t believe stimulus spending, government spending or even tax cuts — none of those will work unless we stop unfair trade polices and bring jobs back overseas,” Daugherty said. “It actually undercuts everything.”
Daugherty said he sees ties between restoring domestic manufacturing jobs and the successful continuation of programs like Social Security and Medicare. Fewer workers mean fewer people paying into those programs, Daugherty said.
This is really nutty stuff. Daugherty seems to believe the Little Depression is the result of some kind of structural phenomenon, not the big demand-side shock we experienced in 2008-2009. It’s just not true. The biggest problem we face is that there’s not enough spending happening in the economy. This is definitely a problem that more fiscal and monetary stimulus can fix, and it is definitely not a problem that tariffs (tariffs!) can do anything about.
Tariffs are one of those economic policy ideas that liberal and conservative economists agree are terrible. They are essentially a tax on *some* imported goods, ultimately paid by low income consumers. It’s not crazy to want more domestic manufacturing, but the way to do it is through currency devaluation, not random tariffs on this or that industry. Currency devaluation makes all domestic manufactured goods and American labor more competitive abroad, not politically-favored manufacturers.
It’s really hard to tell if the tariffs idea is any less stupid than Charlie Dent’s claim that “tax reform” and open season for polluters are the ticket to reducing 8% unemployment in the short run. Dent doesn’t give us any specific tax expenditures he wants to cut, of course, but even if he did, the benefits of base-broadening, rate-lowering tax reform are seen long-term, not short-term. Dent doesn’t even understand how his own hand-waivy proposal is supposed to work.
Also, somebody should really tell Charlie Dent that employment in the mining and logging sector is booming. It’s not clear why he thinks environmental regulations are holding back growth, or why a Polluter Holiday would make anybody better off.
The correct explanation for the lagging economic growth continues to be that total spending is way below trend:
To close the unemployment gap, we need total spending to get back to the trend line. Neither candidate has proposed any policy that would address the drop in demand in any meaningful way, so nobody should expect either man’s proposals to do much of anything about 8% unemployment.
(Thanks: Lynn Olanoff)
I think you are wrong. Since Clinton signed NAFTA and the rest of the free trade agreements after that, our country’s manufacturing industry has fallen tremendously. What do we now make in this country? Every manufacturing job we lose, it never comes back, ever. There is a difference between free trade and fair trade. Mr. Daugherty is for fair trade. The playing fields need to be equal for the US to be competitive. It is not. Monetary policies help, but they are not the solution to this problem. Apple, the most profitable company in the world, has all of their products made in Asian countries because they pay their workers barely a livable wage, if that. How can we compete with that? Secondly, being a liberal, you should be for protecting US workers and for fair trade.
The quagmire that was created for the past twenty years by both parties created this financial mess. The unregulated, unchecked banking industry drove us to the brink. Like it or not, we are all in for a rough decade. We must increase revenue, which Mr. Daugherty has agreed needs to be addressed. Getting people back to work is the only way to do that. I don’t think you know enough about Daugherty to make these types of judgement calls. You are going off half-cocked.
Well said, agree completely.
Actually we make plenty of stuff – manufacturing output is way up in the US. Manufacturing *employment* is down, as manufacturing is increasingly automated, and will continue to be. You may not have noticed that many companies are bringing their manufacturing operations back to the US, because there’s been no surge in manufacturing employment. And there won’t be because it will continue to be automated. That’s as it should be. American workers are more educated and have more skills than Chinese workers. To wish for Americans to be assembling iPhones and jeans is to wish for a poorer America, where our workers are operating well below their actual productive capacity. We can do better than that.
We were doing better than that during the 90′s when we had a monetary policy and a fiscal policy aimed at creating enough demand in the economy for full employment. That was a great time for American workers, and we can get back to that if Congress and the Fed once again deliver enough demand for full employment conditions. That’s what Rick Daugherty should be focused on, not bad ideas like tariffs.
There’s nothing illiberal about this. You should read up on your Paul Krugman circa 1996.
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Good post and defense Jon. The only issue I have to make a point on is that congress, nor the President, doesn’t have control over the Federal Reserve. While we need to devalue the US currency, if the Fed decides not to do so, it won’t. The bright spot is that Bernanke seems to be more willing to enact inflation targets, QE and twist to help spur demand.
Jon,
You are correct that we make things in this country. However one problem is that we export very little compared to the amount that we import. I am all for economic efficiency from specialization and trade, however when you have nothing of substance to trade you are really just shifting wealth from one place to another. I am not against creating wealth in traditionally poor countries and God know that the American standard of living far exceeds that of all of the countries in question. But we have the need to create jobs, to increase household incomes. Then tariffs on select items with inelastic demand could give American manufacturers an edge that would bring capital investment back home and create jobs. The other problem I find with your statement is that American workers are quickly becoming less skilled and educated then those of almost every other industrialized country because our fumbling public education system. A system which was designed to and is still putting out massive numbers of people not prepared for a college education. These are the workers who used to be funneled into manufacturing jobs that no longer exist. Instead the are being funneled into service sector jobs. The service sector is fastest growing jobs sector. Unfortunately for workers and the government it pay less and offers less benefits then the manufacturing sector. This has resulted in decreased purchasing power and financial security for tens of millions of people. For the government the result is less government revenue and higher government spending on things people need but can no longer afford like food, homes, healthcare. (Real people that is)
Daugherty also was never opposed to marriage equality he like dent thought that the states should be allowed to decide. After an in depth conversation with Adrian Shanker from Equality PA and personal reflection daugherty came out in support of marriage equality as you can plainly see from this morning call article.
http://articles.mcall.com/2012-05-09/news/mc-gay-marriage-political-campaigns-20120509_1_gay-marriage-civil-unions-lesbian-mother
and I quote
“Dent’s Democratic challenger, Rick Daugherty, said that he supports “marriage equality” and views it as a “basic American freedom” much like the right to affordable health care.
“We should repeal the Defense of Marriage Act,” he said. “And if I’m elected to Congress, I would certainly co-sponsor repealing it.”"
Maybe you should check your journalistic/personal integrity and info.
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It seems like you are agreeing with me about trade, and are concerned about the same things I am regarding wages, benefits and job skills. However, I think that these problems are best addressed through monetary and fiscal policies that target full employment – not tariffs. We had this in the 90′s and it was awesome. Wages were rising in the service sector. Employers had no choice but to train people, as the tight labor market pulled in all kinds of people who today would be considered unemployable.
Check out Dean Baker and Jared Bernstein’s book on this, or this Rortybomb post for the full argument.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Benefits-Full-Employment-Markets/dp/1932066047
http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2011/06/23/whats-so-funny-about-peace-love-and-full-employment-lths-edition/