Posted on 07/28/2005 8:26:19 AM PDT by Happy2BMe
American Families Are Hungry Too; CAFTA-DR's Passage Questioned
WASHINGTON, July 28 /Christian Wire Service/ -- Early Thursday morning the House passed the Central American Free Trade Agreement by a two-vote margin, 217-215. The Senate approved CAFTA-DR last month; it now goes to the President for his signature.
The agreement's said purpose is to open trade between the US, Central America and the Dominican Republic to promote higher paying and better jobs, investment in America and helping to forge relations with developing countries, supposedly cutting down on job loss and immigration issues.
"Why would America purposely give away American jobs to bridge relations with developing countries?" asks Janice McLean DeLoatch, syndicated TV host of Entrepreneurs Edge. "Americans are already suffering from manufacturing and textile jobs being lost overseas. I know this from my own personal business experience. Our families are hungry too. I would like to know if those in the US House had businesses deals that will be impacted by this agreement. Do we deserve to have American businesses go out-of-business for the sake of helping the democracies of Central America and the Dominican Republic succeed."
To schedule an interview with Janice McLean DeLoatch, call 410-515-2991, 443-299-7360 or email info@entrepeneursedge.org.
Just curious, where in CAFTA did you see that?
I also would like to know how you explain why real wages & private sector jobs are down since 2001.
Could be that recession thingie and that 911 War on Terror thingie.
That is a shockingly naive view of a how the government runs fiscal policy. When they get a new funding source, they just spend it and DO NOT reduce other funding sources. In other words, tariffs are ADDITIONAL income for Congress, not a substitution that they will gladly cut taxes to make up for. They will KEEP BOTH, thank you very much. History proves this over and over and over again. Raising tariffs does not, has not, and never will result in tax cuts.
And since traiffs are only applied to import, one can buy domestic and not pay the traiffs if one chooses to do so.
Either way, one pays an artificially jacked up price.
Now buying domestic means that American workers are being put to work making american products...
There's also the fact that buying a foreign product ALSO puts American workers to work. There are plants all over our country building foreign cars.
...those american workers are paying taxes too, so once again I get a tax cut.
This is simply warped non-sequitur assumptions masquerading as logic. When has the gov't EVER cut taxes as a result of more Americans working? What incentive would they have to do so? If anything, this would lead Congress to believe that they could probably get away with HIKING taxes.
You have the cart before the horse...it's almost always the opposite: It is cutting taxes results in more Americans working.
An then there are all the suppliers suppling american raw matrials to the american factories workers needed to make thier american products, more american tax payers, less tax on me.
a) A lot of those suppliers are foreign.
b) I repeat, you have an extremely naive view of Congress if you think that more American taxpayers will cause Congress to cut our taxes. They have to be dragged kicking and screaming into it -- including far too many cowardly Republicans -- no matter WHAT the state of the economy or rate of unemployment or how many new jobs have been created. Anyone who proposes tax cuts is villified by Dems and the press for helping "the rich", without ever looking to see if maybe middle or lower income groups are going to directly benefit from the proposed tax cuts. Tax hikes are the norm because they are easy for Congress to pass because they get to look like they are "soaking the rich" -- tax cuts are rare because it takes a president or at least several congressmen and senators with enough rare conviction and courage to be willing to stand up to all the pies in the face they will get from the press.
It is a no brainer that traiffs will lower my taxes...
It is evidence of a malfunctioning brain to believe this. When has this ever happened?
...but what about the cost of those domestic products vrs the cost of the cheap imports? Well it is also a no brainer the the cost ofstuff will go up. But I'll have more money (less taxes) and more people will be working (less taxes again, less welfare, few unemployed) and all the money would stay in the usa (higher profits, less taxes on me yet again).
The cost of stuff will go up at about the same or higher rate than your pay goes up. At best you gain nothing.
Also, some smart inventer might decide to invent a robot that makes stuff, since labor costs in the usa is high. That means new robot plants making robots to lower the cost of the stuff I buy, so after a while the cost of domestic stuff goes down and workers get high payiing jobs in robot factories, plus the usa becomes the world leader in making robots! Engineering takes off and so does all kinds of R&D to develop new low costs products.
They're already doing this, and the same people complaining about free trade are also complaining about these robots putting people out of work.
How so?
...that I do not think a traiffs only based tax could support it. The size of government would have to be greatly cut back to just the powers enumerated in our Cinstitution for that to work.
Now there's a thought...
And you obviously like the progressive income tax...
And you like progressive tariffs (taxes).
...yall free traders (commie stooges) are the biggest supporters of the progressive income tax since you scream bloody murder when ever anyone suggests raising revenue with a voluntary consumption tax.
You can only call it voluntary if you never buy anything. As for this free trader, I want there to be no income tax AT ALL, nevermind a "progressive" income tax.
Using free trade tare apart sucessful conservative tariff based economies is a big part of the communist agenda.
a) No country has a GDP that is 51% tariffs. Therefore, there is not one tariff-based economy in the world.
b) Using taxes called "tariffs" is part of the Marxist agenda to sell socialism and class warfare to Buchananites and other pseudo-populists who claim to be conservatives.
A lot of people see it that way-- let's check it out. The idea is that the import taxes paid when I buy coffee, chocolate, and bananas, will feed other hungry families instead of feeding my family. It's government forced redistribution -- it never works. I 'voluntarily' buy less groceries, then my family eats less and a bloated federal bureaucracy gets fatter while the poor are worse off.
The other choice is that I 'voluntarily' increase my food budget and buy Postum, lifesavers, and apples instead, but I still don't get the food I need. I'd just be enriching Post Cereals, Wrigleys, and some farmers in Washington-- all people with more money than you or I. I honestly can't see this as anything but just one more big government, corporate welfare, tax'n'spend caper. Frankly, how anyone can call themselves win-win patriotic with ideas like this is beyond me.
This is what you hear from a lot of people, and if you live with them you're best off just not arguing because to them it's practically a friggin' religion.
Todd and get things like the ten commandments and stuff from religion, and we get immigration and wage numbers from sources like encyclopedias, census bureau, etc. We have to because we use these number to make decisions that work out to whether our families eat. We can't just say CAFTA says 'this or that', we actually have to read the damn thing (you can read the final CAFTA text here).
I can tell you where congress to lower my taxes, and I can tell you that there's none of this silly "outsourcing" horse hocky. FWIW, I can also show you how real wages and private sector jobs are up-- unless you've already made up your mind on that.
I have PDF...and guess what if that is your idea of economic health for an industry then there is no point in continuing this converstation...big steel is gone one of the first casualties of global trading. If you can not even admit this then you are not interested in evidence. You believe (emotional) in global trading against evidence that has hurt major manufacturing sectors...it's a free country at least until all the new 'benefits' that come with unemployment arrrive. It's kind of ironic that those who believe in no holds barred capitalism will in the end through greed usher in socialism.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fbackroom/1451473/posts
This is the reality of global trading-Cafta, Nafta, guess worker programs....but they only take jobs Americans don't want right...wrong. Our government is allowing/helping foreigners take good paying jobs- thank you so much Republican party.
Listen to yourself, big steel produced 96 million tons of steel last year.
If you can not even admit this then you are not interested in evidence.
Evidence like 96 million tons of steel?
Sorry, bad link.
I looked (here) in CAFTA and I couldn't find anything about "guess worker programs", immigration, or any of that stuff. What I did find was a way of cutting taxes. Let me know if you find that illegal alien stuff; but until you can find where it is, let's just go ahead with this tax-cut and leave it at that.
She can't even see that 96 million tons of US steel production is proof that the US steel industry is not dead.
I suppose you don't believe guest workers exist...yeah and American steel workers are still producing tons of steel...sure. I sent you a link...this is the reality of globalization. I worked for Sprint (temp work). I saw Americans leaving their jobs in droves...They were replaced with foreign workers with those special visas described in the link I sent you...no Americans need apply.
EDITOR'S NOTE - The steel industry has both spread out and trimmed down. Of the top 10 steelmakers today, only two are American. The footprints of this evolution can be seen in profits, labor contracts, former steel towns and the bottom line of steel consumers. This story is the second of a six-part series on the globalization of the industry
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/business/12015064.htm
So, not only does the American steel industry still exist, 2 of the top 10 steel makers are American. Not bad when you consider that you said the American steel industry was dead.
Thanks for proving my point.
The steel industry is on life support...think about what the American steel industry used to look like. I was in Buffalo this summer. I only saw two steel mills with any activity. All the others are shut down. You want to believe American business is not hurt by global trading, but the way it's done hurts all of us. American companies must follow tons of regulations, provide healthcare, Osha, environment etc. They move their business overseas and they don't have to worry about any of that. If you think American companies can compete when such inbalance exist...I don't know what to say. A great country produces something-doesn't sell hamburgers to one another. Also, if you read the aricle, you will see the Chinese companies are doing best and may drive the American companies out of business.
Yeah, it's too bad that those European and Asians countries rebuilt after WWII, it's too bad anything had to change after 1950.
You want to believe American business is not hurt by global trading, but the way it's done hurts all of us.
Some American businesses are hurt (it seems mostly the union heavy ones), some are helped. All American consumers benefit from lower prices.
American companies must follow tons of regulations, provide healthcare, Osha, environment etc. They move their business overseas and they don't have to worry about any of that.
So you do understand, it's not the companies that are to blame, it's the government. At least we agree on that.
A great country produces something-doesn't sell hamburgers to one another.
I can continue to show you examples, America produces more than ever before.
Also, if you read the aricle, you will see the Chinese companies are doing best and may drive the American companies out of business.
Maybe you didn't understand the article?
And in China, state-owned steelmakers have long been backed by state banks that often enough end up writing off unpaid loans.
Baosteel and a handful of other modern steelmakers are exceptions in China. For the most part, it's a rust belt industry crowded with inefficient, poorly equipped factories - ill-planned relics of the Cold War.
Drowning in manpower, they turn out an average of only 40 tons of steel per worker, far below the 600 tons or more per worker produced by Baosteel and other international steelmakers.
The government is gradually closing down factories that lack the technology, capital and managerial expertise to compete internationally, but it's a slow process: Last year, China's 15 biggest steel companies accounted for only 45 percent of total production.
Current plans call for the 10 biggest manufacturers to increase their share of total output to 50 percent by 2010 and to 70 percent by 2020. Many smaller mills are being shut down or acquired.
So, if we wanted the government to subsidize our steel industry we could produce as much steel as we did back during your golden 1950s, but I wouldn't consider that a good thing. Just like I don't consider China's heavily subsidized, inefficient, money losing steel industry to be more successful than ours.
Sure "guest workers" exist, but not in CAFTA. When you said "Cafta, Nafta, guess worker programs" I took it to mean that you were saying that the programs were part of CAFTA. They're not.. You said that you sent a 'link'; maybe you sent it to me on another thread or maybe to someone else. If you're talking about post 208, the link just returns:
The requested document does not exist on this server.
This is a long but passionate thread and communications are easily skewed. I may have missed something-- please work with me.
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