The Burger Factory

[MM38084]

Those who say President Bush has a credibility problem don't understand how quickly this administration can respond with a solution.The Bush White House can simply declare, with some clever way to redefine the issue, that the credibility gap doesn't exist. Problem solved.Frankly, the president's people don't receive enough credit for innovation.


Take, for example, their newest solution to the shrinking number of manufacturing jobs in America: Issue a decree that fast-food workers are manufacturing employees.Instantly, you create millions of new manufacturing jobs. The only differance is a automobile assembly line worker makes $28HR with benefits compare that with the boys at the local BK who makes $8HR with no benefits.


Bush's new Economic Report of the President raises the prospect of fast-food factories by suggesting that cooking a hamburger patty and inserting the meat and fixings into a bun is the equivalent of assembling an automobile.


According to The New York Times, the idea of reclassifying fast-food restaurants as manufacturers is buried in 417 pages of statistics included in the new report. But Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, is certainly not shying away from this plan. In a speech last week to economists in Washington, Mankiw said that classifying hamburger flippers as manufacturers is "an important consideration" for the administration's economic policy.


One part fearless, one part clueless, Mankiw is the guy who said outsourcing American jobs overseas is a good thing. It sounds sort of like that line from the movie "Wall Street" when Gordon Gecko says: "Greed is good."


Mankiw is at the forefront of an approach by the Bush team that ignores conventional wisdom, common sense or clear facts and takes this tact: It is so, because we say so.Only this bold path could result in an economic outlook that equates Burger King and McDonald's with General Motors and Ford Motor Co.


John Kerry, who married into a ketchup fortune, should have thought of this. This kind of thinking hasn't been seen since the Reagan administration tried to classify ketchup as a vegetable in school lunches.


Imagine the possibilities if Bush decides that "blue collar" includes the uniforms worn by Wendy's workers. The guys at Tubby's could take new pride in their role as part of our Arsenal of Democracy - based on all those subs they crank out. The kid at Domino's can flex his muscles and declare that he installs pepperoni on the assembly line.


If Bush can convince the nation that fast-food shops are factories, he'll have plenty of statistics to show that manufacturing is humming along. The sound of a factory at work won't be the whir of machinery, it will be the time-honored, "Want fries with that?"


There is a pattern here. The Bush administration deals with the big problems by making big, bold statements, even if they have no basis in reality. The trick is to get away with it.Beyond the most obvious misstatement, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the White House has come up with some doozies.


To prove the economy is rebounding sharply, go beyond all reasonable expectations and predict that we will generate 2.6 million new jobs this year. To show the administration is concerned about fiscal policy, ignore the record $500 billion shortfall and insist that the White House is working to halve the deficit. To show it's a good idea to preserve the Bush tax cut for those earning over $200,000, claim that most of those folks are small businessmen, entrepreneurs or farmers.


That last assertion is one that hasn't received a lot of attention, but it's neck-and-neck with fast-food factories. It turns out the administration's version of small business entrepreneur includes executives who rent their Aspen chalets for $3,000. The definition is so broad that it includes Vice President and former Halliburton honcho Dick Cheney. It even encompasses President Bush because of compensation he receives from his days as co-owner of the Texas Rangers.


If the Bush team can classify a former pro baseball team owner as a small-time entrepreneur, anything goes. Heck, I think you can even make the case that the White House is in the manufacturing business too.


It manufactures tall tales.


And, at the rate they're going, they'll have one small similarity with the hamburger business: They'll eat their words.