We must be a nation of producers, not just consumers

Dear Mainer,

Earlier this month the House Armed Services Committee, on which I serve, approved a defense authorization bill setting the terms of the FY 2025 defense budget. Our National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) invests in the military and civilian workforce whose commitment and sacrifice protects America and safeguards our future from those who would do us harm.

I was proud to support provisions including the largest pay increase for junior enlisted servicemembers since the ‘80s and investments in child care, housing, and health care. 

But I also see the NDAA as one of the key opportunities for industrial policy — the goal of which is to develop or grow specific industries to meet a national goal. In the case of defense, that goal is clear.

NDAA invests in Maine’s production economy

For nearly my entire life, anyone you asked in the halls of power would tell you that the ability of the United States to produce things was of no major consequence. As long as our GDP was robust and we could buy whatever we needed at low cost on the global market, America was strong. 

Thankfully, most of my colleagues can see the flaw in the conventional wisdom when it comes to our national security. Take shipbuilding, for example, as a hypothetical: The old consensus would say that if America needs ships, we should look to the market and see where we can get them for the best price: Maybe Japan, or China. 

That might take care of one national goal (obtaining ships) but that’s only a part of the full picture. Viewing the shipbuilding line in the Defense budget through the lens of industrial policy makes us consider different goals, such as: 

• Control over our defense supply chain: Is our national interest better served by producing warships right here at home, rather than depending on other countries who may decide in the future that it’s no longer in their interest to sell us ships?

• Innovation and competitive advantage: As the saying goes, “Innovation happens on the shop floor.” Could we support innovation at home by focusing our defense investments domestically, gaining a competitive advantage over our rivals? 

• Keeping dollars at home to fuel local economies: Dollars spent supporting working-class jobs in America, like shipbuilding jobs, are dollars that generally stay in America, circulating through local economies and supporting communities. 

The obvious connection here to Maine is Bath Iron Works, which I fought to ensure would continue to play a leading role in warship production for the United States Navy under the new NDAA. If it becomes law, BIW will receive authorization to build another DDG-51 destroyer next year, supporting not only our military readiness but good-paying jobs in Maine. The NDAA also would invest in shipyard research and development, to spur domestic innovation for the next generation of Bath-built ships. 

I pushed for several more pieces of industrial policy in the NDAA and won the support of my colleagues on the committee. The list includes direct funding for Maine-based manufacturers, such as Lewiston-based Elmet Technologies, which produces unique materials critical for the domestic production of artillery. It also includes provisions aimed at supporting our wood products industry by encouraging the Defense Department to use domestic mass timber in military construction projects. 

You can read a full list of provisions I fought for in the bill here, but the point is this: Ensuring adequate spending levels through the NDAA is just one piece of the puzzle for how we approach national defense. We also must do everything in our power to ensure our domestic manufacturing base is strong enough to support military readiness now and in the future. 

But industrial policy must be a tool in the toolbox to achieve any number of pressing national goals, not just defense. 

Returning to our winning industrial ways

America’s strength was built on the back of our production economy. Trickle-down economics and disastrous trade policies were built on the idea that this strong backbone was no longer needed. The result has been a disaster. 

Republicans and Democrats alike were responsible. President Reagan brought trickle-down economics to the White House and the fall of the Soviet Union ushered in a wave of free-trade euphoria, a false sense that America had defeated history and could sit forever unchallenged at the top of a new global order. As the Cold War ended, President Clinton’s NAFTA sold off America’s manufacturing base in exchange for cheap foreign goods and an even longer leash for multinational investors. 

The end result is well-known in our state: Maine lost one of every three manufacturing jobs, with 25,000 jobs lost to outsourcing alone. Forty percent of those who lost jobs had to take new jobs with lower pay. In the immediate aftermath of NAFTA, income losses for Mainers far outweighed the much-touted gains from lower prices associated with imported goods. Nationally, meanwhile, our trade deficit has grown nearly 2,700 percent while foreign capture of our economy has increased tenfold. 

Now, as rival nations rise to challenge us, we find ourselves reliant on the rest of the world for the goods and products we consume and in less control of our own future because of foreign-owned debt and, increasingly, foreign ownership of American assets. 

Luckily, many of my colleagues have recognized the role industrial policy can play in solving the challenges we face. Our country has revitalized industrial policy in big ways in recent years:

• The CHIPS and SCIENCE Act is bringing high-tech research and semiconductor and microchip manufacturing back to the United States. These components are essential not only to our national defense, but to our everyday lives. 

• The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act are rebuilding and improving our country’s transportation, communications, and clean air and water infrastructure while supercharging domestic energy production and prioritizing American-made energy technologies, reducing our reliance on foreign parts and components. 

We can and should do more. For example, I’ve introduced legislation to apply tariffs on Chinese solar, wind, and battery components as well as autos to protect American workers and energy independence. 

American policymakers should be in the business of creating and sustaining good paying and productive jobs, ensuring our ability to meet the technological needs of the future on our own terms, and reducing the ballooning, linked crises of massive trade deficits and foreign-owned debt. To do it, we must be unafraid to kill the sacred cows of unfettered free trade and the unlimited financialization of our economy. 

I am convinced that revitalizing American production would reverse the damage, grow our economy, and bring new heights of innovation. I am laser-focused on this goal, but no one person can do it alone. We need leaders at the federal, state, and local levels to lead a new conversation imagining what it would look like – and what it will take – for America to once again be a nation of producers, not just consumers.

Respectfully,