It’s easy to forget that life goes on when the President comes to visit but guess what? Life goes on.

The Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act continues to move apace (that would be the Senate version of “apace”). It should go to a crucial cloture vote on Monday, with a vote on final passage either late Monday or Tuesday. In other words, we’re down to the short strokes. The Wall Street Journal had a great editorial on it yesterday entitled, “Drilling Bits.” Said the Journal in conclusion:

“If even $3 gasoline and expensive natural gas don’t cause Congress to allow more US drilling, the politicians deserve whatever retribution voters deliver in November.”

We couldn’t agree more. Please click here to weigh in if you’ve not already done so.

For most groups, a visit from the President of the United States is the biggest thing that’ll ever happen to them. We inhabit Washington DC so we are lucky enough to intersect with the White House more than most, but it’s still a huge thrill and honor to have the President come to visit.

There are, at times like this, special moments. Two small manufacturer NAM Board Members got to meet the President backstage, Sandy Westlund-Deenihan and Jim Dyer. Sandy is fast becoming one of our favorites. She’s from tiny but mighty Quality Float Works outside Chicago, a small company that exports all over the world. You’ll never hear her whine — she only bears down, works harder, finds new markets and innovates. Jim Dyer of Metal Products Co. of McMinnville, Tennessee has been on the Board a while and is just as solid as they come. They were thrilled and so were we.

It was great to hear the President of the United States smile broadly at the outset and say,

“I want to thank John Luke for his Chairmanship of the National Association of Manufacturers. I appreciate you hiring my buddy, the former Governor of Michigan, John Engler — (laughter) — who is doing a fine job, I might add.”

That’s the boss he’s talking about, and he is doing a fine job.

All in all, it was a big thrill, a big day for us. To host the President was great. To hear him talking passionately about the importance of manufacturing and standing foursquare with us on our issues was just that much better.

Here again is the link to the full transcript, and here’s a link to the video.

Further to our post of yesterday on the obvious benefits of free trade agreements, the President said:

“I’m also a big believer in trade…But I’m — what I’m for is trade that opens up people’s markets just like we opened up ours, that’s what I’m for. (Applause.) I believe good trade policy — here’s my definition of good trade policy: it’s fair. That’s all we ask. See, we open up our markets, you open up yours. You treat us the way we treat you.

There’s a lot of talk about the WTO and the Doha Development Round. We’re very much in favor of it moving forward. We think it makes a lot of sense. We think it makes a lot of sense for American workers that we open up markets. We think it makes sense for people who are locked in impoverished nations that we open up markets. We think trade helps lift people out of poverty, that’s what we believe. So we’re strongly supportive of the WTO round…

I want to thank you for your support on this. My attitude is, we want to be treated fairly, and the American people and the American manufacturer and the American farmer can compete with anybody, anytime, anywhere so long as the rules are fair. (Applause.)

…One of my big fears is that we lose our nerve, is that we kind of say, well, this is a new emerging economy and, therefore, we can’t compete, let’s just retreat; why don’t we become protective, why don’t we throw up walls and barriers around the United States of America — why don’t we just try to isolate ourselves from competition.

That’s not the American I know. The America I know is a country that is confident — confident in our capacity to compete; entrepreneurial by nature. There are some smart things we can do, and will do, to make sure we remain competitive. But one thing we must never do is to not be willing to do the right policies so we can remain the economic leader of the world. We owe it to our people to put good policies in place. We owe it to future generations of Americans to keep the entrepreneurial spirit strong. And here are some ideas as part of a strategy to do just that.

I want to appreciate what you’re doing for the country. I thank you for the risks you take. I thank you for the folks you employ. Government is not going to stand in your way; we want to stand side-by-side with you to make sure the entrepreneurial spirit remains strong here in the country.”

Do you think he’s been reading the blog….?

Some excerpts:

“And here at the federal level, I have proposed doubling the federal commitment to the most basic critical — the most critical basic research in physical sciences over the next 10 years. I’ll tell you why I have. I think that the federal government can help leverage ideas. I know it’s in our national interest to spend taxpayers’ money on research. The research that we conduct today will enable future generations to remain competitive tomorrow. I don’t know if you know this or not, but the iPod came about because of a lot of federal research, or probably the most known one is the Internet. In other words, it makes sense to invest taxpayers’ money because there’s a greater good to be gained when it comes to investing in basic research…

“We need to have an adjunct teacher corps, to bring 30,000 math and science professionals into the classroom. Sometimes science isn’t viewed as cool. But we need to make sure that students understand that it is good to take science and engineering and math. As a matter of fact, we need to be able to connect the fact that the jobs of the 21st century, the high-paying, high-quality jobs will depend on a person’s ability to be able to be an engineer or a mathematician or a scientist.

And I want to thank John and your crowd for helping us with this American Competitiveness Initiative. It’s vital for our country that we take action now to make sure that we remain the leader in the world when it comes to the economy. “

I thought, ” said one NAM member on the way out of the President’s speech yesterday, “That he was going to call for the repeal of the twenty-second Amendment.”

“He had his Wheaties this morning,” said another.

Indeed the President was in fine fettle when he spoke to us yesterday, sounding every bit the campaigner as he ticked off a list of issues near and dear to our hearts, as Carter Wood pointed out, below: permanent repeal of the death tax, productivity, making the tax cuts permanent, renewing the research and development tax credit, the need for math and science education, health savings accounts, ending frivolous lawsuits, energy — including the need to expand nuclear energy — and (and fair) free trade.

There were many good lines, many applause lines. Early on, he said, “Our policies have worked. Let me rephrase that: Our policies to enable you to work better have worked.” He noted that since 2003, we have created 5.4 million new jobs — “more than Japan and the 25 nations of the European Union combined.”

” Manufacturing employment has increased by 18,000 over the past year,” he noted, “the largest 12-month gain since the period ending September of 1998.”

We aren’t out of the woods yet, but we are moving in the right direction, manufacturing output is at an all-time high. And the President is right on our issues.

As we mentioned yesterday, former NAM member and top economic adviser to the President Al Hubbard opened yesterday with a speech on health care. He touted the benefits of health savings accounts (HSA’s), noting that the number of enrollees in HSA’s has tripled, to almost 3 million today. He emphasized the importance of engaging — and incentivizing — the consumer on health care. He urged all manufacturers to provide employees information on the cost and quality of health care they’re receiving, so they can make more informed choices.

Here’s a link to a fact sheet on HSA’s and here’s a link to a “Myth vs. Fact” site on HSA’s.

It’s well known around the office that the Blogger-in-Chief is rather computer illiterate. What else do you expect from the oldest blogger on earth? Like all of us, he gets by though, and fumbles through stuff with the occasional pop – up box error message. Which brings us to this week’s Friday Follies.

We managed to collect a bunch of the error messages that the BIC typically sees on his computer screen and decided to share them with y’all for a good laugh.

Here’s two of our favorite error messages:

- PEBKAC: Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Computer
- User Error: Replace User

Special thanks to computer & database genius Tim Hathaway for sending us this gem.

Click here to view this week’s follies: fake computer messages.

President Bush was generous with his time and empassioned in his arguments this afternoon in his address to the National Association of Manufacturers in Washington. We’ll have more on his comments later today, but suffice it to say, we welcomed the persuasive, powerful case he made for strengthening America’s manufacturing economy and with it, the entire U.S. economy. He hit all the right points, all the right priorities: tax relief, education reform, advanced technology, energy security, consumer-driven health care, and lowering barriers to trade.

The White House has the text of his remarks available here.

Our news release highlighting his visit is on the NAM website here.

For news photos of his visit, please go here.

Most of you Washington-area NAM members are coming in person to hear the President today (around 1:30 p.m. EDT), but for those of you outside the DC area, check back here later this morning for some details about the speech. We’ll post an update immediately below this text.

[UPDATE] The President’s top economic adviser — and former NAM member — Al Hubbard will speak first today, at about 1:15 p.m. EDT, and then the President will speak. Click here to watch the live webcast. We will not blog live, as we can’t type any faster than the video can stream it. We’ll let you see it for yourselves, will write on it later today. It will also be available to view later at this same link.

Our boss applauded passage of the Oman Free Trade Agreement last week, but sadly, it passed only narrowly and with only 22 Democrats voting in favor. This is unfortunate for any number of reasons, but most of all because the issue of free trade agreements (FTA’s) has become so politicized, with the truth being burned in the fiery rhetoric. Recall that 100 Democrats or so voted for NAFTA, meaning that pro-trade Democrats are a dying — or at least shrinking — breed. This is bad for American manufacturers. Why?

According to this fact sheet from the office of the US Trade Representative, the benefits of trade agreements — contrary to Dobbsian tenets — are many. They open markets to US-made goods by lowering barriers to entry. Some facts, if we dare:

– 90% of our manufacturing trade deficit is with countries where we have no FTA;

– The countries with which we have an FTA represent only 14% of world GDP (excluding the US, of course) but account for fully 52% of U.S.exports;

– U.S. exports to Singapore have risen by over $4 billion (24.6%) since implementation of the U.S.-Singapore FTA in 2004;

– US exports to Chile rose by over 90% in two years after passage of the Chilean FTA;

– Imports by Australia of U.S. goods rose by $1.6 billion to $15.8 billion in the first year after implementation of the U.S.-Australia FTA.

Facts, as we like to say, are stubborn things. If Lou Dobbs ever gets off of his immigration jihad, somebody oughta tell him. We will continue to press for more FTA, so we can open markets for our members, the best manufacturers in the world.