President Obama shut down his infamous “jobs council” at the end of January after very desultory efforts and no substantive outcomes. Reuters reports on what comes next:
In place of the jobs council, the administration said it will begin an expanded effort to work with the business community and other groups to boost economic growth, cut debt and fix a broken immigration system.
“It’s a broad engagement strategy to make sure the president’s message is getting out to the American people, because with their voices involved we think that we can still do big things,” Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, his point person on working with business, told Reuters in a recent interview.
This sounds like political flim flam to me. President Obama’s team should look to Australia for example and focus on rebuilding and strengthening America’s manufacturing core. This is not an easy task, but manufacturing was the nation’s economic engine for 100 years, and it has been left to languish and be exported offshore.
Australia faces many of the same challenges that America’s manufacturers face. Here are some snippets from the report of the non-government members of the Australia Prime Minister’s Manufacturing Taskforce on what to do:
