Thus far in the current campaign cycle, tea partier Akin has received $91,500 from defense-related interest groups while serving on the House Committee on Armed Services, the House Committee on the Budget and the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, according to data from the Federal Election Commission. That figure puts him in second among members of Congress in amount received from defense interests during this election cycle, after House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.) and nearly $40,000 more than President Obama.

Meanwhile, Akin has started a ‘task force’ to increase federal contracts for defense companies based in Missouri, held numerous defense industry breakfasts and said that defense is a “vital, Constitutional responsibility of the federal government” while questioning the financial viability of Medicare.

Akin is currently campaigning for the Republican nomination to challenge Sen. Claire McCaskill, whose pet issue since being elected in 2006 has been defense contract oversight and promoting transparency in government affairs. McCaskill currently serves as the chairwoman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight.

“The atti­tude in the mil­i­tary has been, too many times, ‘I want what I want, when I want it,’” McCaskill told the Kansas Monitor, promising to increase oversight of contracted military spending.

Their race will likely be an interesting microcosm of the role of special interests in elections, as McCaskill and Akin hold opposing positions on many social and fiscal issues, and most of their funding sources are similarly polarized.

Akin, the former Army combat engineer whose Missouri district is home to Boeing Defense, Space and Security, has made no secret of these ties. Of the top ten organizations that have donated to Akin in the past two years, three are defense companies.

After convening the St. Louis Defense Industry Task Force, which would “increase the profile of the importance of the defense industry” in Missouri, he boasted in a press release that he “will call on greater coordination and support between state, federal and local officials in actively supporting the strength of defense manufacturing in the St. Louis region.”

He has also held numerous defense industry fundraising events, eighteen in the past year, and has toured defense companies to show his support for their manufacturing base in Missouri.

Along with large contributions from different corporate interests, Akin is ideologically conservative. He has supported proposals to teach intelligent design in public schools, display the Ten Commandments on public property and retain references to God in the Pledge of Allegiance.

The current percentage of counties facing natural decline is actually down from an all-time high of nearly 32 percent back in 2002, though it’s still higher than it had been in the years following that spike. The declining birthrate since the onset of the recession is thought to be at least partly responsible for the rise in dying counties.

And yet the decline in rural- and small-industry communities, devastating though it may be to economies like that of West Virginia (the state with the highest rate of natural decrease), is nothing new given that the peak came in 2002. It’s a continuation of an inexorable trend toward urbanization that began with the industrial revolution, and it’s no surprise that such rural areas and small towns have an aging population. Perhaps even more striking, then, is a measure of population change barely touched upon in the AP story and best viewed through the lens of a separate selection of Census data.

“Natural decrease” is, in a sense, just that: a natural consequence of urbanization and an aging population. Not quite so “natural,” however, is the phenomenon of dying cities, which is hinted at in some of the county data available from the Census, but is more clearly seen in a set of data looking at metropolitan population changes. The Census Bureau’s Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Area population trend statistics show changes from July 2008 to July 2009. Sixty metropolitan areas across the U.S. hemorrhaged residents or simply stagnated in population during that one-year period. Unsurprisingly, Detroit tops the list of metropolitan areas losing residents, with a drop of more than 20,000 people in the greater Detroit area. The best way, however, to get a complete picture of just how cities like Detroit are dying is by comparing the metropolitan data with the slightly more detailed county data.

For instance, Wayne County, Mich., was hit the hardest by Detroit’s — to put it euphemistically — population shifts. Wayne, which has Detroit as its county seat and carries the lion’s share of Detroit’s commuter workers among the three counties that comprise the city’s greater metropolitan area, lost a grand total of 23,176 people in just that one year between summer 2008 and summer 2009. And that sum is offset by a relatively high birth rate and a continued stream of immigration into the area. Take births, deaths and international immigration out of the equation and Wayne County ends up with a net loss of 34,794 people. Of course, the actual number of people abandoning the area altogether may be yet higher, since that net-population-loss figure includes any new residents moving from other areas within the U.S., marginal though that trend may be.

The rest of the list of metropolitan areas posting population losses or stagnation is a grim reminder of the death of industry in the U.S. Despite having less than a tenth of Detroit’s total population, Flint, Mich., comes in second in terms of total population loss. Looking instead at percentage of population lost, Flint tops the list, with more than 1 percent of the population gone between 2008 and 2009. Other than a handful of Florida retirement communities on the list largely due to “natural decrease” and immigration-related demographic shifts, the rest are a laundry list of Rust Belt cities that were all once host to manufacturing powerhouses: Battle Creek and Saginaw, Mich.; Youngstown, Cleveland and Dayton, Ohio; Pittsburgh and Johnstown, Pa. And so the list goes on.

Although not all cities and counties in the country have been hit so hard — the Sun Belt has fared particularly well, with the Dallas area gaining more than 150,000 residents and the Hinesville, Ga., area posting a population gain of 5.9 percent, both in the same one-year period — overall population trends in the U.S. reflect the reality in cities like Detroit.

The Census reports that from 2000 to 2009, the U.S. population grew by 9.1 percent. This figure is many times higher than countries like Japan and Korea facing outright population growth crises, but it is the lowest rate the U.S. has seen in any decade since the Great Depression.

China established itself years ago as one of the world's leading producers of solar energy equipment. (Imaginechina/ZUMApress.com)

In a last-ditch effort to build support in the Senate for a comprehensive climate bill this July, President Obama told the White House press corps that a failure to pass the legislation could help cement China’s position as the world clean energy industry leader.

[Environment1] “We can’t stand by as we let China race ahead to create the clean energy jobs and industries of the future,” he said. “We should be developing those renewable energy sources, and creating those high-wage, high-skill jobs right here in the United States of America.”

Conjuring up images of the Cold War, the race metaphor has become a go-to talking point for American politicians during the last year. By all accounts, the United States is getting lapped in the race for the so-called clean energy economy. During the last year or so, the Chinese government has made huge strides in reducing its carbon dioxide emissions and, above all else, making the country a veritable testing ground for research, development and large-scale deployment of wind and solar technology.

The United States, on the other hand, has failed to pass even scaled-back energy and climate change legislation. The Obama administration is betting that there is still hope — that the clean energy race is not yet won and the United States can come out on top.

But some experts say that while competition is essential, the metaphors used to describe our relationship with China on energy and climate change fail to account for a number of nuances, including the fact that the global supply chain makes any one country’s border less clear. In a sense, America and China are more like partners in a relay race, where each country’s advances helps the other get ahead.

Edward Steinfeld, a political economy professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and director of the school’s China program, argues that framing the relationship between the United States and other countries as a race is “sort of divorced” from the way technology is developed and deployed. The parts necessary to manufacture a wind turbine, for example, are likely produced all over the country by multinational corporations.

“We’re talking about complicated systems,” he said. “We’re not talking about a shoe. Usually these systems involve constellations of companies, in most cases global companies. In the end, it’s really hard to identify exactly what flag is on any given product.”

Because China has positioned itself as a clean energy leader, many companies are looking to China to conduct necessary research and development. In order to bring costs down, research and development must be done in the location where the product can be deployed on a massive level. Right now, Steinfeld said, that place is China.

But although technologies are fine-tuned in China, they are not always manufactured by Chinese companies. For example, several years ago, as part of a massive effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the country’s rapidly growing industrial sector, the Chinese government declared that all coal plants must install technology that keeps sulfur dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

“Out of nowhere, the world’s biggest market for smoke-stack scrubbers was in China,” Steinfeld said.

Though local technology companies came forward to design the scrubbers, the Chinese government opted to use designs from Europe, Japan and the United States, partly because there was little confidence in the skills of local companies and partly because the foreign technology was more developed, Steinfeld said.

The same thing is now happening with other Chinese policies. The country is looking outside its borders, and foreign companies, including many in the United States, are eager to step up to the plate.

“If you’re an American company, of course you’re going to go to China,” Steinfeld says. “Where else are you going to go? You need to team up with the people that are going to let you develop the technology.”

Because companies are able to use China as a testing ground for their clean energy technologies, the price of solar panels and wind turbines has gone down.

“I think the most tangible impact of China’s energy policies is that we’re now buying not just wind turbines, but solar panels from China,” said Sierra Club Director of International Climate Policy John Coequyt, “and the price of those products is very competitive.”

Therein lies the problem for many in the Obama administration and elsewhere. Though in some ways it’s good that Chinese development has made the cost of parts for wind turbines and solar panels cheaper, it makes it much more difficult to develop a domestic clean energy manufacturing base here in the United States.

The United Steelworkers, in a September petition to the Obama administration, argue that China is unfairly subsidizing exports to encourage companies in the country to send their clean energy products around the world. At the same time, the union accuses China of limiting the exports of certain rare-earth minerals necessary to produce solar panels so that foreign companies will settle in the country.

Both of these charges would be violations of international trading rules, and the United Steelworkers are hoping that the Obama administration will raise the issue in front of the World Trade Organization. “I do think they will take up some of this because some of it is so obvious,” said Linda Andros, legislative counsel on trade law issues at the United Steelworkers. “They don’t have to. They have discretion. But on the merits the case is there. The blatant stuff you’ve just got to take up.”

But some experts argue that regardless of whether the United States can compete with China on clean energy manufacturing, expanding U.S. reliance on wind and solar will create local jobs that can’t be exported to China.

Lutz Weischer, research analyst at the World Resources Institute, says many solar facilities create a significant number of local, American jobs. “If you look at job creation in the solar industry, most jobs are in construction, installation and maintenance,” he said. “Those jobs have to be local. If you import panels that are cheap, you’re able to install more panels and create more local jobs.”

“That’s the thing you have to weigh. It’s pretty likely that you’ll have less manufacturing jobs in the United States,” he said. “But you have to look at the entire supply chain. You’re gaining jobs elsewhere.”

Weischer also says that Chinese manufacturing has helped to lower the cost of solar panels, which fell in price by some 40 percent in 2009 as compared to 2008. “Even though this decline has a number of reasons — including technological progress, less demand due to the recession and changing policies in Spain, etc. — it would not have been possible without China producing large quantities of low-cost modules,” said Weischer.

The Chinese market is also important because it often functions as a “laboratory” to test new technology. Because the United States has lagged behind other countries in developing a stable investment environment for the wind industry, for example, General Electric has focused much of its attention on China. It recently announced a partnership with Harbin Power Equipment, a Chinese company, to expand its presence in the country, which currently has the largest wind market in the world.

For these reasons, Weischer says the race metaphor might not work for the relationship between China and the United States on clean energy. “The problem with the race image is that it suggests that only one country can win,” he says. “But if you look at wind, every country that has decided to focus on wind has won. You win if you decide to play.”

Like other experts, Barbara Finamore, China Program Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the clean energy race metaphor oversimplifies the way global supply chains work. “Race is not necessarily the right term here,” she says. “Because of the way supply chains are interconnected, you can’t win the clean energy race by banning technologies from other countries or by banning investment because it hurts U.S. companies.”

There are a number of examples of Chinese companies coming to the United States and creating jobs for American workers. Suntech, a Chinese solar company, began production this month at a solar manufacturing facility in Arizona, the first in the country. The facility will create almost 100 American manufacturing jobs.

At the same time, despite initial resistance, the United Steelworkers signed an agreement in August with A-Power Energy Generation Systems, a Chinese company, to allow the construction of a wind power plant in Texas and a wind turbine manufacturing plant in Nevada. Despite the fact that the company is Chinese, the thinking goes, the jobs created will be American.

Finamore says there are a number of reasons that China is eclipsing the United States in terms of its clean energy development. But at the end of the day, the main reason is because the United States has not enacted policies that create a stable investment climate.

“The countries that establish strong national policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and incentivize renewable energy are the ones that are establishing strong positions in the clean energy economy,” she said.

In a statement, Bingaman said:

We must continue to ensure that the Tax Code contains well-designed incentives that will help us transition to an energy efficient economy. Our bill will significantly expand domestic clean energy manufacturing; help American businesses and families reduce their energy use and dependence on fossil fuels; and create thousands of jobs.  This is a common-sense, bipartisan proposal that deserves priority consideration.

Here’s a summary of the bill’s provisions.

His $38,000-a-year factory job as well as the three-bedroom home it helped him buy are gone. Two years ago, when his mortgage company finally foreclosed on him, he moved into the basement of his parents’ home. “I hate it,” he said. “It’s driving me nuts. I’m almost 40 years old and I’m not able to take care of myself. But I don’t have any other option.”

In June, after 99 weeks on the dole, his unemployment benefits ran out. He hasn’t had to sell his truck and work tools — yet — and he recently picked up some temporary contract work that put a little cash in his pocket. But he spends most of his days at his parents’ home, trawling the Internet for jobs that don’t pan out or playing computer games — “anything,” he said, “that doesn’t cost money.”

But, interestingly, Stevenson is also worried about America’s debt, and does not want to see any more weeks of unemployment benefits.

Stevenson insists he holds no grudge against the business community for its unwillingness to hire. “I understand they have to hoard the money because they don’t know what’s coming around the corner,” he said. “They wonder what DC’s going to do. … They know healthcare reform is around the corner. Everybody’s real tentative.”And even though he’s been forced to move back in with his parents and has virtually no income, he opposes Obama’s proposal to let some tax cuts for the wealthy, dating back to George W. Bush’s presidency, expire at year’s end in order to raise revenue and reduce the deficit. “How is more people, keeping more of the money they earn, bad for the economy?” he said. “The answer is — it’s not.”

Perhaps most surprisingly, Stevenson says he’s worried Obama and the Democratic Congress may move to extend unemployment benefits past 99 weeks early this fall in an effort to curry popular support ahead of the midterm vote. “That could be the October surprise,” he said, “to try to buy people’s votes.”

The whole piece is worth a read.

The data shows that the manufacturing sector has improved, year on year, though layoffs remain high. This July, manufacturers made 25 percent of mass layoffs, accounting for 31 percent of new unemployment claims. A year ago, it accounted for 37 percent of events and 46 percent of claims.

But the bad news? This year, the single subsector that laid off the highest number of workers en masse is secondary and elementary schools. In July. Right before the school year starts. Bus drivers weren’t spared either.

The Commerce Department tweaked China recently when it slapped a 99 percent tariff on Chinese-made oil field pipes entering the U.S. The move was but the latest volley in a long-running skirmish over a wide variety of imports. To the extent that most people think of tariffs at all, it’s usually in a context like this. Tariffs are perceived as little more than an obscure negotiating tactic for trade disputes. But thanks to the large number of imported goods Americans consume on a regular basis, tariffs actually play much more of a role in average Americans’ lives — and household budgets — than they may realize.

[Economy1] Most people take for granted that they know how much an item will cost them when they look at the price tag and figure in the amount of their local sales tax. But low-income Americans end up paying extra for necessities like clothes and shoes — victims of an outdated, inefficient tariff system that inadvertently penalizes the poor. Even proponents of reform, though, acknowledge that the byzantine nature of the tariff code and the low priority it’s generally assigned by lawmakers makes the prospect of changing this entrenched system unlikely.

Luxury goods have very low tariffs, while cheap clothes, underwear, shoes and household products have much higher rates, said Edward Gresser, trade policy director at the Democratic Leadership Council. “The people who are paying for the tariff system don’t know they’re paying for it,” he said.

“It’s the dirty secret of the U.S. tariff code,” said Daniel Griswold, trade policy expert at the Cato Institute. “It’s our most regressive tax that the federal government imposes.”

The country’s trade policy is a quilt of special interests, trade group bargaining chips and concessions, some pieces of which date back to an era when the manufacture of household goods was a booming part of the domestic economy.

“[It’s] usually for no good reason other than the political influence of a domestic group or for retribution against some other country that placed a high tariff on one of our exports,” said Barry Bosworth, an economist at the Brookings Institution.

The disparities are staggering. In his research, Gresser found that the tariff rate on a cashmere sweater is 4 percent; the rate for one made of much cheaper acrylic is 32 percent. A silk brassiere has a tariff rate of less than 3 percent, but the rate on a polyester one is slightly less than 17 percent. The tariff rate on a snakeskin handbag is just over 5 percent but climbs to 16 percent for one made of canvas. Similar variations occur when it comes to household goods. Drinking glasses that cost more than $5 each have a tariff of 3 percent, while those that cost less than 30 cents each have a rate of 28.5 percent. A silk pillowcase has a rate of 4.5 percent; this goes up to nearly 15 percent for one made of polyester.

Overall, clothes and shoes contributed nearly $10 billion in tariff revenue in 2009, while higher-cost items including audiovisual equipment, computers and even cars added less than $2 billion. Gresser contends that the $10 billion is disproportionately borne by people who can’t afford to buy luxury goods. What’s more, when customers pay sales tax on these products, that amount is also higher than it would otherwise be thanks to the tariff that drives up the retail price.

In spite of this evidence, Gresser has had an uphill battle gaining support for his cause. Trade groups and politicians don’t want to lower a bar to foreign importers without getting some kind of concession in return. From their perspective, dropping a tariff that adds 32 percent to the price of a cheap men’s shirt amounts to giving away a valuable bargaining chip. Other groups — including, it should be noted, some prominent left-leaning think tanks — say dropping tariffs will cost jobs we can ill afford to lose in this economy.

While apparel and footwear manufacturing has largely moved offshore, there are still a few hundred thousand U.S. workers in those industries, according to Robert Scott, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, who says removing tariffs on cheap clothes and shoes would put these (generally low-income) Americans out of work. He also contends that even the high tariffs aren’t as onerous as they appear.

“If you look at expenditures as a share of total consumer spending for the bottom quintile of Americans, it still ends up being a fairly small number,” only a small fraction of a percentage point more than the average for all Americans, he said. Scott added that the globalization of trade, along with the resulting downward pressure on prices, has hurt low-income Americans more than it has helped them.

Griswold of the Cato Institute says this worry is overblown, sometimes deliberately for political gain. “Less than one-third of one percent of workers make clothing of any kind in the U.S.,” he said. “The self-interest of these producers and trade organizations gets wrapped up in rhetoric about saving jobs, which appeals to public perceptions. It’s much harder to visualize the benefits to families able to buy more affordable shoes.”

For William Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, the argument that lowering or abolishing tariffs on low-cost products will cost jobs speaks more to the need to invest in training programs for low-skilled American workers. “It’s a challenge to protectionists. It does redistribute the pattern of job creation,” he acknowledged. But the genie is already out of the bottle when it comes to globalization, he said, and companies have already moved the bulk of their labor-intensive production offshore. Leaving high tariffs on cheap imported goods isn’t going to stop them from appearing on discount and dollar-store shelves, it’s just going to penalize the consumers who buy them.

“It’s easy to overlook, easy to ignore because people without political voice or power are the most affected,” he said.

Some interesting details from the report: First, of the 18 sectors the index tracks, 16 showed growth, everything from food to paper to furniture to machines. Only petroleum and coal — two industries that have suffered major catastrophes in the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill and the deadly Massey mines explosion — suffered a downturn. (Most of the index-wide downturn comes from contracting inventories.) Second, some very good news tucked in the report: Employment in the industries tracked picked up at a quicker pace.

Brown has already introduced the Investments for Manufacturing Progress and Clean Technology Act (or, the IMPACT Act) in the Senate, which would provide $30 billion to help small and medium-sized manufacturers transition to clean energy technology through a revolving loan fund. The fund would be distributed by states to support improved energy efficiency, retooling and expansion of manufacturing for new clean-energy technology. The climate and energy bill that the House passed in June included Brown’s provision.

And last week Brown appeared at a summit hosted by Third Way and the Breakthrough Institute to discuss the creation of a $15 billion National Institutes of Energy program, modeled after the National Institutes of Health. Brown said he is considering whether to offer legislation similar to the groups’ proposal. “It more than piqued my interest,” said Brown.

Brown has been leading efforts to get more money for manufacturing in a bill, arguing that it is essential to create and protect jobs. “The climate change bill is all about jobs. I look at it as how does this help us re-industrialize America, make America better,” he said. “It’s not just about manufacturing. It’s engineers, it’s construction, it’s teachers. … I see the climate change bill not like some oil executives might say, that it’s going to cost us jobs and close down refineries. In fact it’s going to increase jobs, and they’ll be good, middle-class wage jobs if we do this right.”

Brown is an important player in the climate debate, as a generally progressive Democrat from a manufacturing and coal-dependent state. In June 2008, he voted against the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, but afterward affirmed his support for climate action — as long as it insulated states like Ohio. “I am committed 100 percent to passing a robust cap-and-trade policy,” said Brown at the time.

This year, he may well play a key role in shaping legislation to that effect. Talking to reporters last week, he said that he “probably wouldn’t” have voted to pass the House bill, but that he “wouldn’t say it’s a no-starter.” “It’s a place to start working,” said Brown.

Brown is also involved with a group of 10 senators looking to make sure trade protections are included in the bill. He said they are in talks with the White House to make sure that is included. Obama has balked at the trade measure in the House bill, calling it too “protectionist,” but Brown said they are hopeful that they will get some sort of border adjustment in the Senate bill. “Border equalization has to be in there. If it isn’t, I certainly can’t vote for that,” said Brown.

While the numbers are noteworthy, the real significance here lies in the sponsors of the agreement. Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Energy and Environment Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey (D-Mass.) are, not surprisingly, at the top of the press release. But so are Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), and Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) — all moderate Congressmen from coal- or industry-reliant states who were considered swing votes on the bill.

Boucher said he was “pleased with the product we are able to put forward on this issue,” while Dingell, the former Energy and Commerce chairman who has expressed strong reservations about the bill, said the compromise “moves the ball forward significantly in terms of renewable energy, but does so in a framework within which all states can operate.”

The renewable electricity standard is merely one of several controversial components of the legislation. Still, Waxman appears open to compromise, and the moderate Democrats on the committee, who previously expressed concern over the renewable energy provisions, have agreed to what is really only a modest change. Democrats may indeed be able to vote this bill out of committee by Waxman’s Memorial Day target.

Update: Just a few minutes later, the Energy and Commerce leadership sent out another press release, announcing a compromise on the allocation of carbon allowances to the auto industry. The Obama administration has pushed for all allowances to be auctioned off to polluters, not given away for free. The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, representing eleven major vehicle manufacturers, has asked Congress to give the auto industry 5 percent of all allowances for free. The compromise: the industry gets 3 percent of allowances until 2017, and then 1 percent until 2025. Again, Dingell’s name is on the press release. One step closer to a bill that House Democrats can pass.

Update 2: And now they’ve released a compromise on allowances for “energy-intensive, trade-exposed industries,” which will receive 15 percent of allowances, as expected. In 2025, the president (whoever that may be) will determine whether the continued allocation of allowances is needed. What remains: the allocation to electric utilities, which are expected to receive 35 percent of allowances.