John Nichols: Paul Ryan's map misses Janesville

John Nichols  —  6/08/2008 9:01 am

On May 21, 10 days before GM announced that it would suspend production at the factory that for 90 years has been the backbone of Janesville's economy, the congressman from Janesville wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal.

Was the article about the failure of the United States to develop European-style industrial policies that have helped manufacturing concerns in Germany and other countries remain viable in an era of globalization? No.

Was the article about the Bush administration's flawed approach to international trade, which actually encourages corporations such as GM to move production overseas? No.

Was the article about the need for the U.S. government to help U.S. auto manufacturers modernize facilities to produce greener and more fuel-efficient vehicles at factories -- like the one in Janesville -- that have been producing SUVs and gas-guzzling trucks? No.

So what did U.S. Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, write about in the Wall Street Journal?

Privatizing Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid.

To be sure, those are popular topics with a lot of the corporate CEOs, investment bankers and stock traders who would stand to profit mightily from the diversion of more federal tax dollars into the country's unstable financial markets.

And Ryan was telling Wall Street what it wanted to hear.

"(There) is a growing, bipartisan consensus about the greatest threat to our nation's long-term economic prosperity: the explosion of entitlement spending," wrote Ryan, who conveniently neglected the fact that AARP and other groups say that entitlement programs can be kept strong without embarking on radical privatization projects.

So Paul Ryan thinks that "the greatest threat to our nation's long-term economic prosperity" is Social Security?

That is, of course, his right.

Unfortunately for Janesville, Ryan is wrong.

The greatest threat to the nation's long-term economic prosperity is the rapid loss of family-supporting industrial jobs like those at the GM plant -- and like those at other factories in the historically industrialized 1st District, such as Chrysler's engine plant in Kenosha and the J.I. Case facility outside Racine.

What workers in communities like Janesville, Racine and Kenosha need is the sort of serious representation that comes from a congressman who keeps his eye on the economic prize that matters to Main Street rather than Wall Street.

Paul Ryan is a smart, sincere member of Congress. But he is misguided. Instead of using his skills and his position of influence to develop the expertise and the ideas that might preserve jobs in Janesville, he has focused his attention on satisfying the demands of bankers and stock brokers in Manhattan.

Now that the hammer is coming down, Ryan is saying a lot of the right things.

But up until now, he was busy promoting the privatization schemes contained in his "Road Map for America's Future."

The problem is that, while Manhattan is on Ryan's map, Janesville is not.

John Nichols is associate editor of The Capital Times, Wisconsin's progressive daily news source, where his column appears regularly.

John Nichols  —  6/08/2008 9:01 am