It’s true that the number employed is declining. Right now 12 million people are in the manufacturing industry, down from almost 20 million in 1980. The last time that was below 12 million was 1940, when the U.S. population was less than half of what it is today. As a percent of the workforce, the number falls every year.

But President Obama is wrong when he says that the manufacturing base is in decline. Total output by the manufacturing industry continues to grow, as does productivity. In this way we manufacture more goods, but require fewer people to do it. It’s a good thing, as long as we can help those who lose their jobs to transition into better ones.

We have a lot to be proud of in American manufacturing. In 2007 we made $1.6 trillion worth of goods, and exported a huge chunk of them. Think about it this way: the amount of goods manufactured in the United States equals the total output of Russia’s economy, and the amount of goods exported equals the total output of India’s economy. We do that with less than a tenth of our labor force. That’s pretty incredible.

We lose manufacturing jobs because we learn how to do them more efficiently or because it’s cheaper to do them elsewhere. President Obama wants these jobs back, but we can’t get them back. In fact, we don’t want them back. We want better, higher paying jobs to take their place. Most of the time, those jobs are in service or technology sectors of the economy. We’ve gone from manufacturing everyday items and simple electronics to figuring out how to make computer chips and airplanes. Instead of looking backward to the jobs Americans used to do, let’s focus on the jobs Americans do better than anyone else.

Republicans should embrace universal healthcare by supporting the Wyden-Bennett Healthy Americans Act. There is no another viable way to get rid of the tax-free treatment of employer-provided healthcare benefits that is severely distorting the healthcare market. Once you throw in on top of that greater benefits than those currently offered for families and individuals, consumer choice among competing healthcare plans, portability of health insurance, and (adding in the inevitable under-estimate of total cost) a price tag that costs a trillion dollars less in the next decade than any Democratic plan, you end up with the best bill in either chamber.

Now if only it could gather some momentum – or even get talked about. Prominent Democrats brush off the proposal completely. As far as I can tell Robert Reich, President Clinton’s Secretary of Labor, frequent healthcare blogger, and champion of the public option, has not even mentioned the Wyden-Bennett bill. Neither has the prolific Paul Krugman. It’s a plan that is revenue neutral, improves incentives, and offers universal coverage.

So what gives? In Professor Krugman’s case, I can think of two possible answers. The first possibility is that it would move so far away from a single-payer system that eventually having such a system would be extremely unlikely, and he would rather not give it any publicity. After all, it is a very attractive sounding bill. The other possibility is that he hasn’t come across it. I strongly suspect the former. (Come on professor, comment on the bill.)

Republicans on the other hand seem to want nothing more than to have President Obama’s healthcare agenda fail. In their eyes, death to healthcare reform equals victory for Republicans in 2010 and possibly 2012. But encouraging President Obama to fail is only half of the equation to electoral success. Most American voters see Republicans as bankrupt idea-wise, and many of them think that our system is broken. Republicans would win back an incredible amount of voters by uniting behind a plan that offers universal coverage, no public option (how can it be an option if we mandate it?), and a price tag that doesn’t add any red to the budget. Republicans could claim the anti-single payer system. They could demonstrate to American voters that Republicans have workable ideas, and that President Obama does not.

To read other contributions to this symposium, click here.

If the Obama administration were more serious about growing the economy than just growing government, the stimulus would have been front-loaded into this fiscal year.

Rove’s logic is standard Republican thinking – Democrats want big government! After all, what other motivation could they have for spending money?

Even Keith Hennessey thinks the explanation for the time-lag between the stimulus bill and the actual effect is ignorance, or even just distaste for any Republican solutions, regardless of how quick or efficient they may be.

By focusing on typical talking points or assuming ignorance, Rove and Hennessey ignore the political explanation. Take a look at that line again: “If the Obama administration were more serious about growing the economy…”

I’d argue the Obama administration isn’t serious about growing it this year. It’s serious about growing it next year, when Democrats face elections at a national level. And history strongly suggests that when the economy does well, the incumbent party wins.

Think about it. Does anyone actually think there was a problem with finding programs to spend money on?

If the Obama administration really wanted to spend hundreds of billions of dollars this year to “jump-start the economy,” it would simply ask the Senate, the House, and state governments for requests for projects. There would be trillions of dollars of proposals.

It’s incredible that this hasn’t been brought up. Perhaps Republicans don’t think Democrats are that crafty. Democrats succeeded in making the issue about the merits of tax cuts versus spending when attempting to get the bill passed, not about when the spending would affect the economy. It’s quite ironic that they argued that tax cuts are longer-term and go toward saving, while spending affects the here and now (the national savings rate has shot up from 0% to 5%).

The need to be re-elected informs most decisions politicians make. President Obama started out with a lot of political cover on the economy. For a few more months, the country will continue to allow him to blame everything on President Bush. And for a few more months, very little of the stimulus bill will be spent. Then popular opinion will change and President Obama and Democrats will finally be assigned credit (or blame) for how things are going. And that’s when most of the spending will occur.