A Marshall Plan for America

I suspect many people in the US are in the same boat that I am. When I bought my house almost 18 years ago it was affordable. Now as a senior citizen I worry about whether or not I'll be able to continue to afford it and whether or not I'll be able to afford to retire.

When I was growing up as a child in the 50s the political climate was one of bipartisan consensus. Both parties believed in strong regulation of business and industry as a means of protecting workers and the consuming public from the inevitable excesses of capitalism. There was a social contract between governments, business leaders, workers and organized labor resulting in shared economic prosperity.

The intervening years have seen a change in the attitude of governments, and business leaders towards their employees and organized labor. There has been a policy tilt away from shared prosperity to one that favors the wealthy and businesses at the expense of the middle class.

Many Americans from all walks of life realize it’s time for a new direction and are calling for a national strategy that creates an industrial renaissance and global competitiveness for America. In Hedrick Smith’s “Who Stole the American Dream?” he lays out the domestic Marshall Plan that the Horizon Project CEOs are calling for, that advocates a government-led industrial policy that focuses on generating millions of new jobs, making our tax laws smarter and fairer, restores American manufacturing and legally challenges China’s unfair trade practices.