Create jobs here, not there

When I heard that President Obama was going to address the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and all the news commentators said that it was his effort to get back in the good graces of the business community, I cringed.

The U.S. Chamber doesn’t represent the business community. It represents the BIG and multi-national business community. The President has done a good job for small business (even if many still don’t realize it).

So I was relieved and pleased to hear that the President had this message earlier today for the U.S. Chamber:

Now is the time to invest in America. . . If we as a nation are going to invest in innovation, that innovation should lead to new jobs and manufacturing on our shores. The end result of tax breaks and investments cannot simply be that new breakthroughs and technologies are discovered in America, but manufactured overseas.

Corporate (not small business) profits are soaring but as Harold Meyerson points out the huge profits for big business are not being invested here at home. The GEs, Apples, Intels and Hewlett-Packards and other big businesses of their ilk (once America’s business icons to be admired), now create more jobs in other countries than they do in the United States.

Meyerson writes in The American Prospect:

With each passing year, and even more so during the recession, America's leading corporations grow more and more decoupled from the American economy. Their interests grow increasingly detached from those of our workers, our consumers -- and our economic future.

Making this situation even worse is that we give tax incentives to big manufacturers to export jobs. Our foreign competitors must roll in laughter as our American dollars fuel their job growth.

Obviously, this must end.

This week I’ll be in D.C. talking about the need to promote American manufacturing, truly a small business sector in South Carolina. I’ll be on a panel at the Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference and the next day meeting with Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.

If we’re going to invigorate manufacturing in this country to create the jobs we need, our efforts should be targeted to small manufactures. If the big boys want to keep sending jobs out of the country, they need to start doing it without the American taxpayer’s help.