Posted on 08/25/2003 2:05:47 PM PDT by snopercod
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- This year's highly publicized job losses in North Carolina manufacturing, including the Pillowtex bankruptcy, could mean trouble next year for President Bush in a region that was a stronghold in 2000.
Bush won more than 56 percent of the vote in both North Carolina and South Carolina in 2000. But his strong support of free trade has turned some against him in the South, where U.S. trade policies are blamed for the loss of jobs in textiles and other manufacturing sectors.
Andy Warlick, chief executive officer of Parkdale Mills in Gaston County, said he doubts he will repeat his 2000 vote for Bush next year.
"He made a lot of promises and he hasn't delivered on any of them," Warlick said. "I've had some firsthand experience of him sending down trade and commerce officials, but they're just photo ops. It's empty rhetoric."
Fred Reese, the president of Western N.C. Industries, an employers' association, said executives are beginning to raise their voices against Bush and are planning education and voter drives.
"We're seeing a new dynamic where the executives and employees are both beginning to see a real threat to their interests. You're going to see people who traditionally voted Republican switch over," Reese predicted.
The hard feelings were on display days after Pillowtex's July 30 bankruptcy filing, when Republican U.S. Rep. Robin Hayes walked into a Kannapolis auditorium to meet with former workers.
"Thanks for sending the jobs overseas, Robin!" shouted Brenda Miller, a longtime worker at the textile giant's Salisbury plant.
In December 2001 Hayes -- who is an heir to the Cannon family textile fortune -- cast the tie-breaking vote to give Bush the authority to negotiate "fast-track" trade agreements, trade treaties that Congress must vote up or down with no amendments.
At the time, Hayes said he won promises from the Bush administration that it would more strictly enforce existing trade agreements and pressure foreign countries to open their markets to U.S. textiles.
"Are we pleased with the way they responded? Absolutely," Hayes said. "Are we satisfied with where we are? Absolutely not."
Jobs in many industries have fled overseas since 1993, when Congress passed the Clinton-backed North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. About half the textile and apparel jobs that existed in 1994 are gone.
Since Bush took office in January 2001, it is estimated North Carolina and South Carolina have lost more than 180,000 manufacturing jobs.
And even more textile jobs could be out the door once quotas on Chinese imports expire at the end of next year.
Republican U.S. Rep. Cass Ballenger voted for NAFTA and fast-track, and has seen his 10th District lose nearly 40,000 jobs, primarily in the textile and furniture industries.
"Certainly, there's a political cost to any controversial vote no matter which side you take," he said. "People are casting stones, but we're trying to pick them up and build something."
Democratic U.S. Sen. John Edwards voted against fast-track in 2002 after voting for an earlier version. In 2000 he voted for permanent normal trade relations with China.
Recently, though, while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, Edwards has attacked Bush's trade policies and called for fairer trade measures.
Robert Neal, vice president of the local chapter of the Pillowtex workers' union, said Hayes has worked to try to ease the impact of job losses in his district.
"Though he (Hayes) voted for fast-track, he is really concerned about the workers and their conditions in the state of North Carolina," Neal said.
Not everyone feels that way.
Reese is organizing 1,500 manufacturing companies across North Carolina in an effort to leverage what he calls a new voting bloc.
In South Carolina, voter drives are planned for the first time at Milliken & Co., which has about 30 plants in the state. Mount Vernon Mills of Greenville, S.C., is forming a political action committee.
The company's president Roger Chastain, a one-time Bush voter, doesn't expect to support the president or Jim DeMint, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Ernest Hollings.
"We're basically liquidating our whole middle class, polarizing people on the two extremes, have and have-nots," Chastain said of the manufacturing job losses. "We'll be a Third World country."
It certainly led to the sharp increase in Mexicans heading to the border --- but you must have remember Salinas even saying they needed to get rid of 25 million campesinos because after NAFTA they wouldn't be needed. In the late 1980s there were only several hundred thousand Mexicans living in the USA --- remember amnesty? After NAFTA --- 20 million. These million and more people coming over the border each year once had homes in jobs in Mexico --- when 20 million people move en masse to another country, it is because conditions in their country have deteriorated so much they no longer have hope in their homeland.
I see so NAFTA is Bad for the USA cause we ship all our Jobs to Mexico and NAFTA is bad for MEXICO because there are now no Jobs in Mexico.
Have I got it now?
It does seem to be cracking loose a tiny bit.
I just met with my last employer about doing some contract work and some "on spec" (freebee) work against posible future contracts. We didn't acheive a meeting of the minds, but I now have a computer set up at his office, and a key to the front door(!?!?).
When I got home this evening, my three jobs ago supervisor had left a message on my machine...
Nah , its just the lull before the final storm. We're all gonna die!
Agreed.
Indians make fine engineers. They tend to have pretty good situational awareness, and are able to juggle multiple conflicting priorities. I think it might have something to do with keeping all those Gods straight ;^)
Of the three H1-B's who replaced me on my last job, only the Indian survived. The H1-B who replaced me 3 jobs ago is still going strong (She should be, I trained her)...
I think so. This area of the USA was supposed to benefit very greatly from NAFTA and it didn't at all, they're calling it an economic disaster region now. You might think then that Mexico at least did benefit --- but then you read articles like this:
Contemplan declarar campo en emergencia
‘Golpea’ la falta de trabajo a ingenieros
‘Un error apostar a la maquiladora’
Anyhow --- you don't really have to read about the problems --- just come look at some of the border cities lately or go travel around Mexico and the USA.
Who's we white man.
I'm part Cherokee Indian, some of my ancestors already danced that dance.
Repeal the 16th amendment and we can talk some more about the level of tariffs. In 2003 the government collected ~24 billion dollars in tariffs. Do you think we can implement NINE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-THREE percent increase in tariffs to 'replace' the revenue the government seizes from income? Are you further certain people would actually pay that premium and provide money to your welfare state?
Domestic taxes could dramatically fall if replaced by tariffs.
You really have no idea how big the federal government is do you, or the actual scope of imports. Aquaint yourself with the facts THEN form your opinions. We'll all be better served.
Clearly you would be worthless to General George Washington, and would rather go hide in the woods while others made the sacrifice.
Who is fighting for freedom? I realize I'm vastly outnumbered by the socialist in this country. They already threatened me earlier in this thread. General Washington's troops fought against a government seated in a capitol far away, that tried to prevent the people of the colonies from freely trading with the rest of the world.
I just wish you would take you anti-American self there now and quit being baggage to the rest of us.
I'll stay here, and trade value for value. I'll bail when the next FDR stirs up another New Deal, starts compelling industry to follow his every diktat from Washington and bans the holding of a store of value. I'll watch the Soviet style meltdown of the socialism you love to pay taxes for on Dish network.
How dare you vary from the herd and make us all look foolish!
*SMOOOOOOOCH*
Actually, the current Internal Revenue Code contains something similar: salaries above $1 million for business executives (or any other employees, for that matter) are not deductible to the business. Another provision could be added to the Code saying that executive salaries above, say, 50 times the average salary of employees are not deductible to the business.
That's hardly the cap that the original poster was calling for, but I see your point. How about this: we just remove the deduction limit entirely?
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