PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.
I have often wondered why “jobs” was not a more potent political issue for many candidates for public office.
For me, perhaps too simplistically, creating jobs – or, more accurately, creating a solid environment for jobs to be created by the private sector – should be part of any candidate’s campaign. But, no, the jobs issue often falls to the back of the pack.
Not so for President Donald Trump and, while I will continue to have major questions about Trump as a person and Trump as a president, I applaud the early commitment to creating jobs.
Consider these developments.
- Early on, Trump made headlines by jawboning with Carrier Corporation to keep its jobs in the United States instead of moving them to Mexico. Critics railed that this was no business for a president and, in a way, for me, point taken, because there would be no time for a president to be so involved given the range of issues any president confronts.
But, from the view of the general public, Trump’s action underlined a key point: He was going to work hard to create a positive job creation environment, or in this case, keep jobs in the U.S.
- This from Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan: “More important than the orders (the executive orders Trump signed last week) were the White House meetings. One was a breakfast with a dozen major CEOs. They looked happy as frolicking puppies in the photo-op, and afterward talked about jobs. Marillyn Hewson of Lockheed Martin said she was ‘encouraged by the president’s commitment to reduce barriers to job creation. In a statement after the meeting, the glassmaker Corning whose CEO attended, announced plans to expand its U.S. manufacturing base significantly over the next few years.”
- Trump also met with U.S. automobile manufacturers and asked them – perhaps a better word would be “told” them – to keep their car-making business in the U.S. That means jobs American citizens.
- Trump ordered resumption of movement toward two pipelines – Keystone and Dakota Access – that will create jobs, both to build the installations and then to operate them. Both had been stopped arbitrarily by the Obama Administration. Of course, there will be legal challenges from the enviro left, but, to Trump, jobs hung in the balance, an estimated 40,000 alone with the Keystone project.
- As a new kind of populist, Trump also met with union leaders. The columnist Noonan described the meeting this way. “More important still—the most important moment of the first week—was the meeting with union leaders. Mr. Trump gave them almost an hour and a half. ‘The president treated us with respect, not only our organization but our members,’ said Terry O’Sullivan, general president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, by telephone. ‘The whole meeting was about middle class jobs, how do we create more?’ Mr. O’Sullivan believes the Keystone pipeline will eventually generate more than 40,000 jobs. Mr. O’Sullivan said he hopes fixing ‘our crumbling transportation infrastructure’ will be ‘the largest jobs program in the country.’”
Critics will continue to say that issuing executive orders alone will not achieve the objective. They are right. Good government requires more than orders from an imperial top. But, at same time, such orders do two things: First, they give clear instructions to the bureaucracy, and, second and perhaps more importantly, they appeal to the public.
As Peggy Noonan put it this week, “It actually looked as if someone was doing something.”
My view is that creating an environment for job creation is not just good economic business – it is good business period. And, having a job often is the best social policy, giving those who have them a sense of self-worth as they provide for their families and themselves, not to mention getting them off government programs.
So, I hope politicians at all levels will find ways to adopt a jobs policy. It will be good for America.