Solving America's retirement problem.

America has a retirement crisis. If the U.S. manufacturing sector is allowed to shrink further, this crisis will devolve into a national economic catastrophe.

The U.S. retirement crisis exists largely because of America's twin deficits--a federal budget that now has a $500 billion annual shortfall and a trade deficit that is even larger.

If these twin deficits were brought into balance, America's retirement crisis would largely disappear. Americans would have more and better-paying manufacturing jobs. Companies could meet their pension obligations, and federal revenues could pay the costs of Social Security and Medicare, without either cutting benefits or raising taxes.

The budget deficit exists because Congress and the Administration have abandoned the "pay-as-you-go" rules it followed between 1990 and 2002. Under those rules, any tax cut or new spending had to be matched by cuts of an equal value, thus ensuring the overall budget deficit would not be increased.

The trade deficit exists because the United States is following a trade policy that discriminates against companies that operate inside the United States, while encouraging "offshoring".

Companies that produce inside the United States pay workers a living wage, obey laws that protect the environment, assure worker safety, provide social benefits, and pay taxes to the federal, state and local governments.

Those companies that shift their ...