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."
If someone is going to go on the internet and complain about not having had a job in a year? Hell yes. Get a job. Do something in the meantime. How ridiculously wealthy are people in this country that they can choose not only to sit around and not do certain jobs while looking for better ones, but they can complain about it on their home computer as well? Amazing.
As I have repeatedly stated tariffs are for the protection of the nation from government interference in the American market if you had actuually read Adam Smith and David Ricardo you would fully understand this. I owuld hope you would support tariffs on imports to America as sound policy based upon teh proven net benefits of tariffs in some situations not because of your personal unemployment.
Now I have asked you before and I am asking you again have you come accross any such net quantitaive analysis showing a net economic harm from a tariff? I would really appreciate the refernce. Does the fact that not even the Cato institute has such a net analysis lead you to any conclusions when clearly such a net analysis would butress the theory that tariffs are harmful a theory that is widely touted by them. I am starting to think that maybe I was wrong about my presumption that there were cases when a protective tariff caused a net harm to this nation. After all the result from supposing protective tariffs were usually bad for this nation should produce a plethora of such studies and tehy should be easy to find. The fact that they are not easy to find logically calls into question the theory that many protective tariff are in the net harmful to the USA. Think about it.
Any wonder why the overwhelming majority of Reagan advisors and people in his administration have disowned the Buchanan Brigade as well?
I showed you one from 2002 and you said it was biased. Whatever. Not wasting my time trying to convince you that economic isolationism is a bad thing.
I think you believe that they still didn't have electricity in the 60s and that things were very primitive and backward. They weren't. I think most people would love to have a nice middle class average house they could get if they only had a high school diploma, a bunch of kids with a stay-at-home wife, a new car paid for in 2 years. A full health insurance policy with a low deductible, low property taxes etc
As for the 60's being primitive deprived times the only thing I can think of that I have in my home that they didn't have is a computer and the VCR.
No, but he did have his sister as United States Treasurer.
Sorry, that was Reagan's. Give credit where credit is due.
It really doesn't matter if I get a pay raise tomorrow if 500 people in this town get a pink slip.
Clear fact it was Clintin who implemented the Uruguay Round principles into our trade policies. Bush has not fully changed them. The current rumour going arround Demopcratic circles according to a relative who is very close to a DemocRAT senator is saying, "Hillary is the anti-Dean." In short the powers taht be ralize that with Dean maintaining a lead teh only figure who can unite the Democrat party is Hillary should it look like there is a good chance to win. She will run on a platform of government jobs and training programs along with public works to stimulate the economy. She will also supplement this by national health care. thsi she hopes will appeal to all the unemployed.
There are some fates that are worse than death living undr a Hillary clinton Presidency might well be one of them IMHO.
You might have noticed that I didn't either. I have commented that jobs are scarce, something you might have noticed if you gave so much as a popcorn fart about anyone else. I have observed that a typical voter might/would react to being jobless for way too long.
You know why? Because unlike you, I am a conservative.
If being a conservative means acting like you, I'm glad I'm NOT.
It's all about pride, my friend. "Look at me... I care so much more for the little man than you..."
Really dumb, typical Democratic populism, and terrible economic policy.
There you go... IMHO, Expect to hear allot more of this in the next year or so.
People have been conditioned since Herbert 'The Engineer' Hoover's interventionism to expect the government to 'do something' about the economy. 'Doing something' about the Fed induced credit bubble of the 20's gave us the Great Depression. The ansewered to failed government intervention in the economy is invariably more intervention. Why not liberty instead?
This has nothing to do with the press or the Japanese (or any other foreign country). It has to do with the wealth distribution and class structure of the United States. I don't see any foreign power having any influence over this at all.
I wouldn't say that. What I would say is that people such as yourself are quite naive and deluded to believe anything good can come from pursuing One-Way Industry Destroying Trade Deals with a Communist Nation where Freedom and Liberty are non-existent and slave labor is a way of life.
Just 2 years ago we were locked in a bitter conflict with Red China over that “little” air incident over international waters. Yeah, China is a good friend that means no harm. They don't want to take over Taiwan. Their rapid military build up is just for defensive purposes. Their tenacious pirating of our technology is only because they want to be just like us. Keep telling yourself that. Maybe you can sleep better at night.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.