WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats and Republicans don’t agree on much, but they share a conviction that the government should help American manufacturers, one way or another.
Democratic President Joe Biden handed out subsidies to chipmakers and electric vehicle manufacturers. Republican President Donald Trump is building a wall of import taxes — tariffs — around the U.S. economy to protect domestic industry from foreign competition.
Yet American manufacturing has been stuck in a rut for nearly three years. And it remains to be seen whether the trend will reverse itself.
The U.S. Labor Department reports that American factories shed 7,000 jobs in June for the second month in a row. Manufacturing employment is on track to drop for the third straight year.
Don’t forget medical expenses as well. The cost of living in the US has been on the rise for decades while wages have remained flat. The simple reality is while the US economy has continued to improve, only the rich have benefited from that and it’s approaching the point where the majority of the US population literally can not afford to live in the US. The oligarchs are going to be forced to share that wealth or the entire US economy will collapse and they won’t like what happens when a large, angry, and very well armed population decides they’re tired of living off the crumbs that fall off the plates of an incredibly tiny group of the ultra wealthy.