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While not EVERY evil can be blamed on "free trade," and using the 1983-2003 period for data may have its dangers, I think we all can agree on a few things:

The Feds' (and States') spending spree in this period has a cost, at least in debt service. But more important, the cost has been imposed on taxpayers AND those who pay for Federal and State regulation--those who purchase goods and services affected by such regulation--which LARGELY also happens to be the taxpayer.

Americans for Tax Reform (Grover Norquist's bunch) has maintained the "tax freedom day" database for a number of years. Last year they instituted "regulatory freedom day" in addition. IIRC, the tax/reg TOTAL burden on the US economy was slightly over 50%--that is, it was July 3rd (!!) before money you 'earned' was actually yours to spend.

Then along comes offshoring/outsourcing, whatever.

American businessmen note that the bottom line improves dramatically if one finds a place to avoid taxation and regulation. It so happens that these places ALSO have extremely cheap labor. VOILA!!! Move production overseas.

Clinton's regime of evil also has some debts to pay to Red China, which accelerated the movement to that Communist/Triad-dominated place.

Since the movement began in earnest (around 1996) the plain and simple fact is that a lot of jobs have left this country. It is ALSO true that a lot of jobs have left Western Europe for the USA--same logic, by the way.

But with the recession, things got even more difficult. In addition, WallyWorld, Home Despot, and others have exercised predatory purchasing methods.

The figures which caught MY attention are two: 1) The WashTimes/Insight reports that the median salary paid to US workers DECLINED from $45,000 to $39,000 from 4Q2001-4Q2002; and 2) the median 'hours worked' has DECLINED to around 33.1/week in the USA.

These are not good trends, and they MUST be reversed.

Reality check: it is impossible to stop the Parties of Power from self-re-election schemes, meaning that tax/reg numbers will simply NOT decrease. Given that the national debt must be paid (and State budgets must be balanced) the taxable income supporting those entities MUST be preserved or enhanced.

Not co-incidentally, this means that either we find more taxpayers, or tax the living daylights out of those which remain. Of the two, my preference is to find MORE taxpayers.

How? Easy. More value-added jobs in the USA.

This IS a matter of the national interest, which is NOT the same as the interests of GM or the Pubbies or the Democrats.

But you won't find 'the national interest' in any Party platform, nor in the GM playbook.