Currently viewing the tag: “America”
Sign on the door of the Kauffman Foundation building in Kansas City:
In the liberal precincts where I’ve spent my whole life, this tends to go without saying.
The NRSC helpfully provides President Obama with his first campaign ad of the 2012 cycle:
The NRSC helpfully provides President Obama with his first campaign ad of the 2012 cycle:
Try to remember how you felt on the days after the horrible events of September 11, 2001. I remember our country experiencing something close to Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s famous stages of grief. Except instead of “acceptance” being the final stage, our nation swelled with an enormous sense of patriotism and resolve best represented by the bi-partisan members of Congress singing “God Bless America” on the steps of the Capitol, President George W. Bush’s rallying rescue workers on a pile of rubble, and flags being flown on almost every porch in America. Do you remember those days and those feelings? Now, ask yourself: What kind of person would instead take the occasion of the day after the attack to lead a rally condemning America and holding the terrorist murderers up as martyred heroes?
Van Jones is that kind of person.
In a recently discovered video, the former White House appointee and current hero of the liberal elite and de-facto Huffington Post/AOL editorial director is seen telling the adoring crowd, “It’s the bombs that the government has been dropping around the world that are now blowing up inside the U.S. borders.” He said this after a whole host of speakers from the radical fringe fringe denounced our country and her policies and hijacked the tragedy to justify unloading a laundry list of cliched, left-wing reasons to blame America for the acts perpetrated by radical Islamist totalitarian terrorists.
Remember, this rally was taking place while the bodies of 3,000 Americans were still smoldering in the rubble of the World Trade Center and American heroes were putting their lives at risk at ground zero in a massive humanitarian effort. What kind of monsters would use this occasion to turn Americans against one another?
It’s no wonder that this man is embraced and honored by groups like the once-relevant, now-radical NAACP and was given the high honor of holding a Presidential appointment in the first year of the Obama Presidency. He speaks the revolutionary “blame America first” rhetoric of Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright and Malik Zulu Shabazz.
What is curious and confounding is that a major corporation like AOL is allowing a person with this kind of record to influence the content of their influential website through the intimidation tactics of Color Of Change, the anti-free speech organization he founded.
In light of this latest video revelation, Mr. Jones needs to finally explain, fully, his position on 9/11. Was it American bombs that caused the World Trade Center to fall as he suggested at this rally? Was the American government behind the attack as he once signed a petition purporting? Does he agree with his co-speaker that evening that the terrorist murderers were “heroes” or does he condemn that hateful rhetoric?
And finally, what is the AOL/HuffPo’s position on Mr. Jones’ contribution to their site? Does his hateful attack on America rise to their new editorial standard used against me?
Take a moment and sign our petition demanding that the Huffington Post not buckle under to the intimidation tactics of this man and the anti-free speech organization he founded. Make your voice heard. Speak truth to power.
Try to remember how you felt on the days after the horrible events of September 11, 2001. I remember our country experiencing something close to Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s famous stages of grief. Except instead of “acceptance” being the final stage, our nation swelled with an enormous sense of patriotism and resolve best represented by the bi-partisan members of Congress singing “God Bless America” on the steps of the Capitol, President George W. Bush’s rallying rescue workers on a pile of rubble, and flags being flown on almost every porch in America. Do you remember those days and those feelings? Now, ask yourself: What kind of person would instead take the occasion of the day after the attack to lead a rally condemning America and holding the terrorist murderers up as martyred heroes?
Van Jones is that kind of person.
In a recently discovered video, the former White House appointee and current hero of the liberal elite and de-facto Huffington Post/AOL editorial director is seen telling the adoring crowd, “It’s the bombs that the government has been dropping around the world that are now blowing up inside the U.S. borders.” He said this after a whole host of speakers from the radical fringe fringe denounced our country and her policies and hijacked the tragedy to justify unloading a laundry list of cliched, left-wing reasons to blame America for the acts perpetrated by radical Islamist totalitarian terrorists.
Remember, this rally was taking place while the bodies of 3,000 Americans were still smoldering in the rubble of the World Trade Center and American heroes were putting their lives at risk at ground zero in a massive humanitarian effort. What kind of monsters would use this occasion to turn Americans against one another?
It’s no wonder that this man is embraced and honored by groups like the once-relevant, now-radical NAACP and was given the high honor of holding a Presidential appointment in the first year of the Obama Presidency. He speaks the revolutionary “blame America first” rhetoric of Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright and Malik Zulu Shabazz.
What is curious and confounding is that a major corporation like AOL is allowing a person with this kind of record to influence the content of their influential website through the intimidation tactics of Color Of Change, the anti-free speech organization he founded.
In light of this latest video revelation, Mr. Jones needs to finally explain, fully, his position on 9/11. Was it American bombs that caused the World Trade Center to fall as he suggested at this rally? Was the American government behind the attack as he once signed a petition purporting? Does he agree with his co-speaker that evening that the terrorist murderers were “heroes” or does he condemn that hateful rhetoric?
And finally, what is the AOL/HuffPo’s position on Mr. Jones’ contribution to their site? Does his hateful attack on America rise to their new editorial standard used against me?
Take a moment and sign our petition demanding that the Huffington Post not buckle under to the intimidation tactics of this man and the anti-free speech organization he founded. Make your voice heard. Speak truth to power.
Conservatives are logical people that ask logical questions about themselves, of themselves and about the world around them. A great failing of conservative thought on a mass scale is an inability to understand non-conservatives, or more specifically, anti-conservatives. These are groups of people like Jihadist Moslems who work to force Shariah compliance on others, leftists of all stripes: tyrannical atheists, American liberal democrat voters who really understand the democrat party’s plans for the nation and are okay with these plans, socialists, collectivists, communists and other people who have no faith save for their faith in big government solutions for all of a society’s challenges baffle the average conservative’s ability to understand what makes these people tick.
Why would anyone have a problem with conservatism? Even if you are not a conservative, conservatives don’t try to convert or coerce others, they try to convince others. The principles of conservatism are simple, clear and ethical: the civil society, individual liberty, respect for private property, limited government, the free market and the rule of law are not threatening ideas. These basic conservative tenets are welcoming and inclusive ideas. Unlike Jihadist Islam and communism, the conservative does not seek world domination so why can’t free societies just be left alone and in peace by those who have a differing world view to conservatism? Conservatism naturally “coexists” just by being itself.
At the forefront of conservative “un-“(or “mis” or ”non”) –understanding of anti-conservative thought is the question that if you are a fanatic adherent to Islam or leftism living in a free society, why can’t you just find a nice country that offers that system of government you would prefer to live in and move there rather than trying to destroy Israel or fundamentally transform America and Western civilizations into nations with the type of dystrophic governance that Islamic and leftist tyranny offer? North Korea and Iran welcome people with open arms who wish to be tools of the state. Why don’t people who have a corresponding worldview to these tyrannies just move there rather than trouble themselves with agitating here?
Although many on the left and in the Moslem world argue otherwise, the truth is that America’s and Israel’s very existence precludes the ultimate long term success of this kind of governance elsewhere. For instance, in the case of communism, one of the core tenets is total world domination (as in Islam) this is because the communist knows that if one nation were to remain with a free market economy, those forced to live under communist tyranny would inevitably relocate themselves to a place that had the benefits, pleasures, luxuries and conveniences of a free market and/or would sooner or later agitate in the communist country for free market reforms to bring these things to that society. The bottom line is that free market principles eventually win out over economic tyranny just by existing elsewhere.
Islamic countries experience that identical dynamic. There is no way for a Shariah compliant society with all of it’s idiocy, violence, torture, misogyny, murder and antithetical moral values surviving in the long term if even a small portion of that society learns that there is somewhere else to live on the planet that offers a lifestyle that is more pleasant. People would eventually question all the teachings about Allah the Mullahs espouse because there is something sacred and invincible in the human spirit that always and quite naturally yearns for freedom and pleasure. This natural component of the human spirit will eventually reject everything that virulent Islam, Jihadist and Shariah compliance force on people.
So, the answer to the questions: why can’t the leftist and/or the Moslem fanatic coexist with America and Israel? And why can’t these types of people just find a nice leftist and/or Moslem fanatic society to live in for themselves? Has a very simple answer. No. They cannot make this choice because it is impossible for them to coexist with us without eventually being destroyed by our existence. Even a passive democracy, like say France, will surely attract a number of apostates from these two faiths and these apostates will collapse all the hard work the leftist or Islamic tyrant did to make the perfect leftist or Islamic society. This is why we who are free will always be targeted for death, destruction, conversion and submission by those who are our ideological enemies. Just in case you haven’t noticed, this destruction is exactly what Islam and leftism is unleashing on France as you read this.
Sure, after getting attacked, terrorized or seeing crimes against humanity, our society inevitably fights evil regimes with military force too but it is not the military action America, Israel or the West takes that causes our enemies consternation, it’s our freedom, harmony and very existence that threatens evil regimes and causes them to attempt to destroy us in order to keep their own people in line with the ideologies the leaders have forced on the people to retain power.
This truth completely dispels the illogical myth of “coexistence.” An idea ironically pushed by those on the left and Islam who will never choose to coexist with a free society no matter how well their Utopian ideas of nation wide communes, workers’ paradises, gulags, terrorist training camps, Madrassas, mosques, compact fluorescent light bulbs, solar panels, windmills, smart cars and capped carbon emissions succeed in their own nations in the short term, eventually those flimsy ideas will be washed away by the powerful flow of freedom’s natural watershed. The leftist and Islamic fanatic has only one course of action to take which is to attempt to parch the spring of human yearning and poison the well of human freedom wherever it exists by forcing his sick ideology on all others to give any chance these backwards ideologies have at long term survival.
Try to remember how you felt on the days after the horrible events of September 11, 2001. I remember our country experiencing something close to Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s famous stages of grief. Except instead of “acceptance” being the final stage, our nation swelled with an enormous sense of patriotism and resolve best represented by the bi-partisan members of Congress singing “God Bless America” on the steps of the Capitol, President George W. Bush’s rallying rescue workers on a pile of rubble, and flags being flown on almost every porch in America. Do you remember those days and those feelings? Now, ask yourself: What kind of person would instead take the occasion of the day after the attack to lead a rally condemning America and holding the terrorist murderers up as martyred heroes?
Van Jones is that kind of person.
In a recently discovered video, the former White House appointee and current hero of the liberal elite and de-facto Huffington Post/AOL editorial director is seen telling the adoring crowd, “It’s the bombs that the government has been dropping around the world that are now blowing up inside the U.S. borders.” He said this after a whole host of speakers from the radical fringe fringe denounced our country and her policies and hijacked the tragedy to justify unloading a laundry list of cliched, left-wing reasons to blame America for the acts perpetrated by radical Islamist totalitarian terrorists.
Remember, this rally was taking place while the bodies of 3,000 Americans were still smoldering in the rubble of the World Trade Center and American heroes were putting their lives at risk at ground zero in a massive humanitarian effort. What kind of monsters would use this occasion to turn Americans against one another?
It’s no wonder that this man is embraced and honored by groups like the once-relevant, now-radical NAACP and was given the high honor of holding a Presidential appointment in the first year of the Obama Presidency. He speaks the revolutionary “blame America first” rhetoric of Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright and Malik Zulu Shabazz.
What is curious and confounding is that a major corporation like AOL is allowing a person with this kind of record to influence the content of their influential website through the intimidation tactics of Color Of Change, the anti-free speech organization he founded.
In light of this latest video revelation, Mr. Jones needs to finally explain, fully, his position on 9/11. Was it American bombs that caused the World Trade Center to fall as he suggested at this rally? Was the American government behind the attack as he once signed a petition purporting? Does he agree with his co-speaker that evening that the terrorist murderers were “heroes” or does he condemn that hateful rhetoric?
And finally, what is the AOL/HuffPo’s position on Mr. Jones’ contribution to their site? Does his hateful attack on America rise to their new editorial standard used against me?
Take a moment and sign our petition demanding that the Huffington Post not buckle under to the intimidation tactics of this man and the anti-free speech organization he founded. Make your voice heard. Speak truth to power.
Try to remember how you felt on the days after the horrible events of September 11, 2001. I remember our country experiencing something close to Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s famous stages of grief. Except instead of “acceptance” being the final stage, our nation swelled with an enormous sense of patriotism and resolve best represented by the bi-partisan members of Congress singing “God Bless America” on the steps of the Capitol, President George W. Bush’s rallying rescue workers on a pile of rubble, and flags being flown on almost every porch in America. Do you remember those days and those feelings? Now, ask yourself: What kind of person would instead take the occasion of the day after the attack to lead a rally condemning America and holding the terrorist murderers up as martyred heroes?
Van Jones is that kind of person.
In a recently discovered video, the former White House appointee and current hero of the liberal elite and de-facto Huffington Post/AOL editorial director is seen telling the adoring crowd, “It’s the bombs that the government has been dropping around the world that are now blowing up inside the U.S. borders.” He said this after a whole host of speakers from the radical fringe fringe denounced our country and her policies and hijacked the tragedy to justify unloading a laundry list of cliched, left-wing reasons to blame America for the acts perpetrated by radical Islamist totalitarian terrorists.
Remember, this rally was taking place while the bodies of 3,000 Americans were still smoldering in the rubble of the World Trade Center and American heroes were putting their lives at risk at ground zero in a massive humanitarian effort. What kind of monsters would use this occasion to turn Americans against one another?
It’s no wonder that this man is embraced and honored by groups like the once-relevant, now-radical NAACP and was given the high honor of holding a Presidential appointment in the first year of the Obama Presidency. He speaks the revolutionary “blame America first” rhetoric of Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright and Malik Zulu Shabazz.
What is curious and confounding is that a major corporation like AOL is allowing a person with this kind of record to influence the content of their influential website through the intimidation tactics of Color Of Change, the anti-free speech organization he founded.
In light of this latest video revelation, Mr. Jones needs to finally explain, fully, his position on 9/11. Was it American bombs that caused the World Trade Center to fall as he suggested at this rally? Was the American government behind the attack as he once signed a petition purporting? Does he agree with his co-speaker that evening that the terrorist murderers were “heroes” or does he condemn that hateful rhetoric?
And finally, what is the AOL/HuffPo’s position on Mr. Jones’ contribution to their site? Does his hateful attack on America rise to their new editorial standard used against me?
Take a moment and sign our petition demanding that the Huffington Post not buckle under to the intimidation tactics of this man and the anti-free speech organization he founded. Make your voice heard. Speak truth to power.
A recent New York Times article points out that divorce rates—once highest in metropolitan, big city areas—are now creeping upward in Middle America:
Forty years ago, divorced people were more concentrated in cities and suburbs. But geographic distinctions have all but vanished, and now, for the first time, rural Americans are just as likely to be divorced as city dwellers.
And it’s not just an upswing in divorce rates. Middle America is also experiencing another dramatic family shift: the rapidly increasing rate of children born to single mothers.
Recent research by Professor Brad Wilcox highlights these trends. He reports that in 1982 only 13 percent of babies born to women in the “moderately educated middle” (non–college graduates who completed high school) were born to single mothers. Today, that number is 44 percent. This calculation much more closely mirrors the 54 percent rate among women without a high school diploma and is far beyond the 6 percent rate among well-educated women.
And the implications are tragic. A child born to a single mother is over five times more likely to live in poverty than a baby born to married parents, and 80 percent of long-term poverty occurs in single-parent homes. Furthermore, approximately three-quarters of all poor families in the U.S. are headed by a single parent.
Lest one think the divide between poverty and wealth in single- and married-parent families is simply a matter of educational discrepancy, consider the findings of Heritage policy analyst Robert Rector: “The poverty rate for a single mother with only a high school degree is 31.7 percent, but the poverty rate for a married-couple family headed by an individual who is only a high school graduate is 5.6 percent.” Based on these rates, he concludes that “marriage drops the odds of being poor by 80 percent.”
The poverty created by single-parenthood is not only debilitating to women and children; it places a significant burden on taxpayers, who are subsidizing these households with an ever-increasing amount of tax dollars as the out-of-wedlock birthrate and the cost of federal welfare programs have soared over the last five decades.
Considering the debilitating effects of poverty—as well as a variety of other increased risks associated with fatherlessness—Wilcox sums up the implications of the “retreat from marriage”:
The disappearance of marriage in Middle America … endanger[s] the American Dream, the emotional and social welfare of children, and the stability of the social fabric in thousands of communities across the country.
Local, state, and national policymakers must consider the impacts of the eroding “social fabric” of marriage and seek policies that promote strong families. Furthermore, policies that penalize marriage must be eliminated. Strong marriage and family in all parts of the nation are crucial to maintaining a thriving, prosperous, and truly independent America.
A recent New York Times article points out that divorce rates—once highest in metropolitan, big city areas—are now creeping upward in Middle America:
Forty years ago, divorced people were more concentrated in cities and suburbs. But geographic distinctions have all but vanished, and now, for the first time, rural Americans are just as likely to be divorced as city dwellers.
And it’s not just an upswing in divorce rates. Middle America is also experiencing another dramatic family shift: the rapidly increasing rate of children born to single mothers.
Recent research by Professor Brad Wilcox highlights these trends. He reports that in 1982 only 13 percent of babies born to women in the “moderately educated middle” (non–college graduates who completed high school) were born to single mothers. Today, that number is 44 percent. This calculation much more closely mirrors the 54 percent rate among women without a high school diploma and is far beyond the 6 percent rate among well-educated women.
And the implications are tragic. A child born to a single mother is over five times more likely to live in poverty than a baby born to married parents, and 80 percent of long-term poverty occurs in single-parent homes. Furthermore, approximately three-quarters of all poor families in the U.S. are headed by a single parent.
Lest one think the divide between poverty and wealth in single- and married-parent families is simply a matter of educational discrepancy, consider the findings of Heritage policy analyst Robert Rector: “The poverty rate for a single mother with only a high school degree is 31.7 percent, but the poverty rate for a married-couple family headed by an individual who is only a high school graduate is 5.6 percent.” Based on these rates, he concludes that “marriage drops the odds of being poor by 80 percent.”
The poverty created by single-parenthood is not only debilitating to women and children; it places a significant burden on taxpayers, who are subsidizing these households with an ever-increasing amount of tax dollars as the out-of-wedlock birthrate and the cost of federal welfare programs have soared over the last five decades.
Considering the debilitating effects of poverty—as well as a variety of other increased risks associated with fatherlessness—Wilcox sums up the implications of the “retreat from marriage”:
The disappearance of marriage in Middle America … endanger[s] the American Dream, the emotional and social welfare of children, and the stability of the social fabric in thousands of communities across the country.
Local, state, and national policymakers must consider the impacts of the eroding “social fabric” of marriage and seek policies that promote strong families. Furthermore, policies that penalize marriage must be eliminated. Strong marriage and family in all parts of the nation are crucial to maintaining a thriving, prosperous, and truly independent America.
A recent New York Times article points out that divorce rates—once highest in metropolitan, big city areas—are now creeping upward in Middle America:
Forty years ago, divorced people were more concentrated in cities and suburbs. But geographic distinctions have all but vanished, and now, for the first time, rural Americans are just as likely to be divorced as city dwellers.
And it’s not just an upswing in divorce rates. Middle America is also experiencing another dramatic family shift: the rapidly increasing rate of children born to single mothers.
Recent research by Professor Brad Wilcox highlights these trends. He reports that in 1982 only 13 percent of babies born to women in the “moderately educated middle” (non–college graduates who completed high school) were born to single mothers. Today, that number is 44 percent. This calculation much more closely mirrors the 54 percent rate among women without a high school diploma and is far beyond the 6 percent rate among well-educated women.
And the implications are tragic. A child born to a single mother is over five times more likely to live in poverty than a baby born to married parents, and 80 percent of long-term poverty occurs in single-parent homes. Furthermore, approximately three-quarters of all poor families in the U.S. are headed by a single parent.
Lest one think the divide between poverty and wealth in single- and married-parent families is simply a matter of educational discrepancy, consider the findings of Heritage policy analyst Robert Rector: “The poverty rate for a single mother with only a high school degree is 31.7 percent, but the poverty rate for a married-couple family headed by an individual who is only a high school graduate is 5.6 percent.” Based on these rates, he concludes that “marriage drops the odds of being poor by 80 percent.”
The poverty created by single-parenthood is not only debilitating to women and children; it places a significant burden on taxpayers, who are subsidizing these households with an ever-increasing amount of tax dollars as the out-of-wedlock birthrate and the cost of federal welfare programs have soared over the last five decades.
Considering the debilitating effects of poverty—as well as a variety of other increased risks associated with fatherlessness—Wilcox sums up the implications of the “retreat from marriage”:
The disappearance of marriage in Middle America … endanger[s] the American Dream, the emotional and social welfare of children, and the stability of the social fabric in thousands of communities across the country.
Local, state, and national policymakers must consider the impacts of the eroding “social fabric” of marriage and seek policies that promote strong families. Furthermore, policies that penalize marriage must be eliminated. Strong marriage and family in all parts of the nation are crucial to maintaining a thriving, prosperous, and truly independent America.
Richard Florida delves into the data:
Conservatism, at least at the state level, appears to be growing stronger. Ironically, this trend is most pronounced in America's least well-off, least educated, most blue collar, most economically hard-hit states. Conservatism, more and more, is the ideology of the economically left behind. The current economic crisis only appears to have deepened conservatism's hold on America's states. This trend stands in sharp contrast to the Great Depression, when America embraced FDR and the New Deal.
Liberalism, which is stronger in richer, better-educated, more-diverse, and, especially, more prosperous places, is shrinking across the board and has fallen behind conservatism even in its biggest strongholds. This obviously poses big challenges for liberals, the Obama administration, and the Democratic Party moving forward. But the much bigger, long-term danger is economic rather than political. This ideological state of affairs advantages the policy preferences of poorer, less innovative states over wealthier, more innovative, and productive ones. American politics is increasingly disconnected from its economic engine. And this deepening political divide has become perhaps the biggest bottleneck on the road to long-run prosperity.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says that a new transportation and jobs infrastructure plan “will help revive manufacturing. It means jobs.”
The America Fast Forward initiative has bipartisan and labor/management support. At the Capitol Hill press conference announcing the new initiative today, Trumka joined U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas J. Donohue, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Rep. John Mica (R-Ohio), Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Mesa, Ariz. Mayor Scott Smith.
America Fast Forward will improve the way transportation projects are financed so that cities and states can access and disseminate funds directly to projects, creating a faster and more efficient system. The plan could create nearly 1 million jobs, produce $ 158 billion in economic output, and generate $ 51 billion in worker income.
The plan is a national extension of Villaraigosa’s 30/10 initiative for transportation in Los Angeles County. He told the Los Angeles Times’
We’ve also won the support of 105 mayors—20 percent of them Republicans — because they understand the prospect of getting federal assistance through the traditional channels is now remote… This is a program that puts people to work now at little cost, since 98 percent of the federal dollars would be repaid from local sources. This is more than a step we’re proposing; it’s a leap forward.
Boxer said using the Los Angeles initiative as a model,
we can create jobs, reduce pollution and ease traffic congestion across the nation. This is the kind of initiative that I believe the House and Senate can work together on.
Trumka noted that the U.S. has $ 2.2 trillion infrastructure deficit and that “Too many roads, bridges and schools are quite literally falling apart.”
Too many opportunities are simply passing us by. Meanwhile, countries like China and India and Germany are investing in infrastructure, green technology and high speed rail. Their infrastructure investment rates are double ours and more.
We cannot afford delay. Infrastructure investment means national competitiveness. It will help revive manufacturing. It means jobs. The millions without jobs cannot wait. Our children will pay the price for our failure. It’s time to choose long-term economic security and maintain America’s place in the world—not embrace decline.
The plan calls for a combination of public and private investment and, said Donahue,
by leveraging public and private investments, we can create jobs in the near term and the long run. And the bang for the budgetary buck is tremendous: One dollar in federal resources leverages $ 10 in investment, and $ 30 when other sources of funding and financing are added.
Click here for a fact sheet on America Fast Forward.
Recently, the Organization for International Investment released a report showing that the United States received $ 194.5 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2010. This FDI is responsible for millions of jobs, billions of dollars in exports, and higher wages for U.S. workers.
FDI occurs when someone in another country directly builds a facility in the U.S., like the $ 1.5 billion Toyota Tundra plant in San Antonio, Texas, that employs nearly 1,700 people. FDI does not include the billions of dollars that foreigners invest in the U.S. each year by buying stock in U.S. companies or loaning money to the federal government.
Critics say that companies prefer to invest in low-wage countries, causing job losses in the U.S. However, the U.S. is the world’s largest recipient of FDI. As such, the U.S. receives the many benefits associated with foreign direct investment, including job creation, higher wages, increases in exports, and increases in research and development.
- Job creation. Inflows of foreign direct investments create good American jobs. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, in 2008 U.S. affiliates of foreign companies accounted for 4.7 percent of the total private-sector workforce, a total of 5.5 million jobs. Of those 5.5 million jobs, approximately 40 percent are in American manufacturing, accounting for 15 percent of all of our manufacturing jobs.
- Higher wages. These affiliates also tend to pay their employees higher wages—as much as 30 percent higher—than resident U.S. companies. With a payroll in the U.S. of $ 408 billion, the average compensation for each worker is $ 73,000 a year.
- Increases exports. Since by definition FDI comes from foreign-owned companies, it is only natural that many of their products are shipped elsewhere, boosting U.S. exports. In fact, U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies accounted for 18 percent of all U.S. exports in 2008, amounting to $ 232.4 billion.
- Increases research and development. In 2008, foreign companies invested over $ 40 billion in research and development and spent $ 187 billion on plants and equipment.
As the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom shows, countries that do the best job of promoting investment freedom are the most likely to prosper. FDI, like any investment into the economy, spawns economic growth and opportunity. Therefore, maintaining a welcoming environment for FDI is one way to help jumpstart the economy again.
Aaron Walling is currently a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation.
