The Ongoing Dangers of Exporting America's Future

We all know the United States has a jobs crisis. President Barack Obama further acknowledged it when he made manufacturing a top priority in this year's State of the Union address. He has his eye set on fixing the tax code to keep jobs onshore, training young people to fill them, reforming immigration to retain workers once trained and setting new standards to drive innovation and create more jobs. That's all good news for the nation; it's practically an industrial policy. In all this, though, there's a worrisome undercurrent. The United States didn't just suddenly find itself in this crisis. Our nation has worked long and hard to get here, after decades of so-called free markets while other nations tilted the playing field, of American jobs going offshore, of politicians, economic advisers and industrialists finding common cause in letting manufacturing move to Asia and Latin America.