OpEd: Obama in Wisconsin: The Soft Economics of Low Expectations (The Nation)

February 16, 2012

By John Nichols

The message that President Obama brought to Milwaukee, a city devastated by free-trade driven deindustrialization, was a sound one—up to a point.

But the point fell very short of where a president who wants to level the economic playing field should stand.

Obama’s Wisconsin speech eschewed any discussion of the brutal battle over the future of organized labor that has played out in the state since last February, when Governor Scott Walker (who skipped Wednesday’s factory visit) attacked collective bargaining rights. That was frustrating, but hardly surprising. Obama has kept the Wisconsin union fight at arms length from the start, avoiding visiting the state from the time Walker launched his initiative until a year and a day after the first major demonstrations.

At the same time, the president said things in Milwaukee that mattered. For instance, he embraced the premise—and the principle—that there is a vital role that government can and should play in promoting job growth in general and the renewal of manufacturing in particular.

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