Post Election Thoughts

I must admit I was pretty worn out after the November 4 election. I had worked many hours on both a volunteer and paid basis for the election of Barack Obama and also for the passage of Issue 5 (the pay day lending interest cap) in Ohio and was pleasantly surprised by the relatively wide success of both campaigns. I can only hope that Americans will grant President-elect Obama a grace period to begin attacking the major problems which face our nation today and into the future.

I am relatively satisfied with many of the Cabinet picks we are hearing about as it appears the the Obama-Biden team is putting together a group of talented professionals to help lead our country out of the present abyss which the incompetent Bush administration has left its successor to clean up after 8 dismal years. I would like some more "new blood", but I understand the need for some experience. And at least we are getting experienced people from a relatively prosperous time in our country's recent history, the 1990's.

I'm not sure what the correct answer is to the current debate over the American auto industry and the proposed bailout idea, but I do agree at minimum that the "Big Three" should have to submit and adhere to some sort of business plan, before we commit billions of dollars to saving the industry. That being said, I can't envision a good method of "letting" these companies fail, as I believe the outcome of the mass layoffs we would then see would be catastrophic to our overall economy.

Off on another tangent, I was helping my seven year old get ready this morning, picking out her clothes from a popular children's clothing outlet and I took a quick look at where these garments were made: Indonesia, Egypt, and China. I then spent a few minutes looking for anything made in the good old USA, and the pickings were slim to none, unfortunately.

When I first met my future wife in the late 1980's, there was still at least some clothing we could find made in the USA and I remember her telling her extended family to make sure whatever they bought for me was made in the USA as that was my policy back then. Now, however, it is increasingly difficult to find domestically made products, however the prices have not gone down to reflect the cheaper labor costs these companies are incurring.

With respect to the "Big Three", when my wife and I were last shopping for vehicles in 2003, the domestic producers were selling products that were 60-70 % made in the USA and that was the option for "Made in the USA". In many cases, the products from Honda and Toyota had a higher content of domestic parts than their US counterparts. I can't imagine it is much different today.

I guess the point is that with our trade deficits growing, our jobs fleeing overseas and to Mexico and Latin America, we have gotten to the point when many folks can't afford to buy the autos, clothing, and other household products which are on the market today. That has led to the glut of products on the lots of auto dealers across the country and also to the turmoil in the overall auto industry and America in general.

This is not a call for protectionism, but rather a call for fixing unfair trade agreements, and policies which reward companies which are shipping our jobs overseas with tax breaks at the expense of our well qualified American workers. We need to level the playing field! A systematic plan to reverse some of the negative trends of the past 10-15 years is necessary and hopefully we'll see some of this out of the new administration.

And, lastly, even though fuel prices are lower now than in the recent past(thank God for small favors), we must forge ahead with development of alternative sources of energy, to reduce our dependence on foreign sources of oil, create jobs in wind, solar and other technologies which cannot be exported. President-elect Obama's plan for 5 million jobs in these industries with 80,000 of these jobs in Ohio must move forward. Let's not get sucked back into the complacency of the last thirty years. We must move forward for our sake and the sake of our children and grandchildren. Wouldn't it be great to look back 15 years from now and see an America which has eliminated its dependency on middle east oil, thus reducing our exposure in that troubled region? We can participate in writing a new future for the United States if we seize the day.