Blog Post: Santorum’s One Good Idea

I'm no fan of Rick Santorum's social agenda—don't get me started—but he deserves some credit for making manufacturing a core part of his stump speech. He advocates several initiatives, including targeted tax breaks, designed to bring manufacturing back to the United States and, to coin a phrase, put America back to work. Obviously, medical device manufacturers, who have not been offshoring employment at anywhere near the levels of more traditional sectors, are tangential to Santorum’s messaging. Nevertheless, this policy also would benefit medical technology developed—and made—in the USA. And that’s worth some consideration.

John Avlon makes the case for Santorum’s “one good idea” in the Daily Beast.

So, this is a little petty and you don’t want to hit a guy while he’s down, but still, did you catch the story on CNN’s Political Ticker blog about Rick Perry visiting a medical manufacturing facility in Iowa before the holidays? It seems that he might have had another brain freeze.

During a visit of Molded Products in Harlan, the company’s owner, David Tyrrel, asked Perry if he favored a proposal to offer incentives to healthcare providers who purchase equipment from US manufacturers. According to CNN, Perry promptly changed the topic to a discussion of foreign aid. Tyrrel then explained that his company’s biggest problem was foreign-owned companies in the United States that take federal dollars but then go on to import products from their home country rather than purchase products made in America. He then reiterated his question. Perry again answered a different question, according to CNN.

Brain freeze, or was he just being cagey?