Industrial Policy

 A couple of days ago, I argued that we shouldn't romanticize manufacturing jobs.  There was a poll out this week that said roughly 80% of Americans felt we should have more manufacturing in the US, but only 20% wanted to work in a factory. In other words, no one yearns for the factory floor. There are other ways to earn a good living without a college degree, as Krugman reminds us here.

The other thing Krugman suggests is that there really is a compelling argument for reducing our dependence on supply chains, especially to China. The proper way to address this is through what we can broadly call industrial policy. The general idea is that you target a specific industrial product - say computer chips - and subsidize those industries.

Which is what Biden did.

And it worked.

And Biden and Democrats did not get enough credit for it.

We did have some comical moments where Mike Johnson promised to repeal the CHIPs Act and he was quickly disabused of the notion by a Republican House member whose district has benefited from it. 

The problem is that Republicans cannot admit that industrial policy if the best solution to genuinely solving the issue of supply chains. There are two reasons. The first is Cleek's Law. If Democrats support it, it must be bad.

The second goes back to the second basic organizing principle of the GOP: Government can't do anything right. This is the impulse behind DOGE, but really it's true of almost anything besides policing and national defense. To the degree that a "compassionate conservative" advocates for something to help actual humans, you have someone like Mitt Romney using the tax code to help poor children. It tends to be the absences of burdens rather than the presence of positive policy.

Krugman is right that Democrats need to shut the fuck up with "Trump has a point on tariffs, but..." because that's bad policy and bad politics. I do wonder if making the argument for industrial policy will be a heavy lift, given the overall American attitudes towards government support. Of course, farmers, homeowners, the elderly and children already are supported by the the government in various ways, but that rarely registers.

And not for nothing, but the Trumpist assault on university research is actively counter to any effort to retain America's economic security.