This is where McCain's narrative of what ails our economy -- indeed, all the Republicans' narratives of what ails the economy -- is woefully off point. Like his fellow GOP candidates, McCain stresses the need to aid American business in getting our economy back on track.
This is unexceptionable as far as it goes, except that it's the offshoring proclivities of American big business that to a large degree landed us in this fix in the first place. Tax breaks to businesses must be conditioned on their using those funds to stimulate Cincinnati, not Shenzhen. And if we really wish to create good jobs at home, the kind of "mega-greening" projects that the Democrats are talking up are far more likely than across-the-board corporate tax cuts to deliver the goods. (To his credit, McCain favors creating green jobs; to his discredit, he favors those across-the-board corporate tax cuts.) The larger question -- one that Americans have never had to consider -- is this: What constitutes national security at a time when the American economy may be declining while the economies of such nations as China and Saudi Arabia, whose values are quite distinct from ours, are expanding at our expense? Is a national security candidate, or a national security party, really one that keeps us in Iraq while lagging behind in supporting research and development of alternative energy sources? Is it in our national security interest to say and do nothing when U.S. multinationals in China actively oppose granting labor rights to Chinese workers, something that could create a crack in the Communist Party's control?
Out here in the Midwest we know the effects of offshoring - even if the shore is the Mexican side of the Rio Grande. Last year, the talk in Kokomo was of Delphi shuttering its plants and moving to China.
Without the money to pay for soldier's pay and the ships and tanks and arms, we have no military. That money comes from people and businesses paying taxes. People without jobs cannot pay taxes. Companies can always offshore themselves. National security includes the economy and not just machismo posturing.
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