The real hand-waving nonsense, is ignoring the 23% unemployment, rate while chanting that a manufacturing base isn't important in a free market economy.
Wasn't it Einstein who said that insanity is repeating the same actions over and over again and expecting a different result.
We've tried free trade with unequal trading partners such as communist china and it didn't work. It strengthened our enemies and weakened and indebted us.
Let's try what the founding fathers did, and use tariffs to fund our government and protect our markets except where free trade really is in both countries benefit and not just the underdeveloped one.
Your post is almost completely incoherent, and where it isn’t it is flat out wrong.
I did not say that a manufacturing base was unimportant. What I said is that manufacturing should not be subsidized. You can’t tell the difference between these two ideas because you are stupid.
You claim that high unemployment shows we need manufacturing jobs. This is stupid. What we need is jobs. If a company cannot stay in business without handouts then those jobs aren’t really jobs, they are welfare programs.
You say that “we’ve tried free trade with unequal trading partners such as communist china and it didn’t work”. If you were smarter you’d realize that this statement is utterly meaningless since you don’t define “free trade”, “unequal”, and “didn’t work”. If you actually have an intelligent observation to make about our trade with China then do so already.
Protectionism is an idea that has come and gone. The only reason Santorum is bringing it back (though in an underhanded way) is because he is trying to win votes through pandering. That and he’s an economic ignoramus like you.