What if Gene Sperling, director of the White House’s national economic council, declared that a manufacturing renaissance would be strongly in America’s interest? Imagine he added that the US’s manufacturing decline was an aberration that should be reversed. Suppose he came close to breaking a real taboo by saying industrial policy may now make sense. Since Mr Sperling is President Barack Obama’s chief economic adviser – and thus speaking on his behalf – people would take notice, wouldn’t they?
That is precisely what Mr Sperling said in a carefully researched speech in Washington 10 days ago. Almost no-one paid attention. The lack of interest may stem from it being an election year – nothing diverts eyeballs like a horse race. Poor White House marketing may also not have helped. In addition, few observers would expect Mr Obama to get anything important through a gridlocked Congress this year – let alone something unorthodox. And they would be right.
Yet Mr Sperling’s words offered evidence of what is starting to sound like a change of world view in the White House. It is true that Mr Obama has created a few incentives here and there for favoured types of manufacturing – the 2009 stimulus contained boons for battery makers and clean energy. He entitled his state of the union address “An America built to last”. In his largely hypothetical 2013 budget proposal (Congress will almost certainly not pass a budget for the fourth year running) he offered incentives for manufacturers to “reshore” to the US.