“I would suggest spending less time at Brookings, EPI, and Public Citizen and more time at Heritage, Cato, etc.”
Please refer me to even one comprehensive economic study that demonstrates a net economic benefit to the economy of the United States from the free trade policies of the the 1990’s and 2000’s. By net economic benefit I mean any increases in economic activity from trade offset by the economic costs including unemployment and associated welfare and retraining costs, downstream economic losses in communities where a factories closed resulting in closure of other businesses (i.e. the trickle down effects conservative economists like to talk about with respect to tax reductions but don’t like to talk about with respect to loss of factories).
If you have read such a study at Heritage or Cato, reference it so I can review it. I’m not aware of even one such study being produced by government, a university, or any think tank. The reason - there have been no net benefits. The economic and political interests on both the right and the left that benefit from deindustrialization and declining standards of living in the US don’t want the people to know what a disaster these policies have been.
Well, is our economy larger or smaller than it was in 1994?