“From Lincoln to William McKinley to Theodore Roosevelt, and from Warren Harding through Calvin Coolidge, the Republican Party erected the most awesome manufacturing machine the world had ever seen. “
Oh, I see Pat is just giving the Obama version of “you didn’t build that”. Sorry to tell you Pat but the Republican Party didn’t build anything. These were the predecessor to the Country Club Republicans.
The US is still the world’s manufacturing powerhouse:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-manufacturing-dead-output-has-doubled-in-three-decades-2016-03-28
Only China exceeds the US total output but only then at 1/3 the per capita output.
Low taxes, cheap energy, and minimal regulation are the only things US manufacturers need. Republicans do not need to build or protect. They just need to get out of the way.
1) Why do we tax US production (corporate income tax) and US wages, but not imports (especially since nearly all of our exports are subject to very large VAT taxes among other tariffs). It's the exact opposite of what we should do - it's the same reason hotel taxes are MASSIVE because they are born from non-locals rather than locals even though it discourages visits - it's still better than directly taxing the populace.
2) If we are going to have wage, labor, environmental and other regulatory laws, you should have a tariff on countries that don't have similar ones otherwise you are needlessly hurting US production and still allowing companies to do whatever they want.