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."
Nope. I never bet more than I'm willing to lose. Besides, I hope he wins.
I missed the part where you, as an American, are legally required to work with China.
Works for me! IF, and it's a big IF, California isn't already too far gone. "Cupping the dead"...
Second Danbury Baptist Church of Elvis the Holy Redeemer, Reformed?
Firstly, small businesses that have little or nothing to do with exporting jobs overseas will indeed flock to this idea. We would see a drastic move from C corporations to fully incorporated because it would be a gigantic tax break with having to give up very little. Unless accompanied with discretionary spending cuts, this just adds to the tax burden of the personal income taxpayer and does little or nothing to solve the problem.
Secondly, corporations which deal with direct services or corporations that have little or no overseas market would also flock to this plan as it is a nice tax break. However since these corporations have little or nothing to do with the problem it is just a tax break that (without spending cuts) is just shifted to the personal income taxpayer.
Thirdly, those corporations that do export labor may not see this as an enticement to stop. Each would have to weigh the net profit of buy America / hire America against whatever they pay in corporate income tax. Many of these companies (primarily due to breaks given by congress since 1986) pay a small percentage of their real profit on federal corporate tax. Small businesses (C corporations) carry a much larger load, both in numbers and amount).
I would love to see corporate income tax reduced. However, I would also like to see personal income tax reduced. I am a little hesitant to favor any change that would lower one to the detriment of raising the other.
I just want to highlight this quote one more time for all the Buchanan Brigaders on this thread who think we evil "RINOs" are being unfair in our claims of what is really deep down beneath a lot of the rantings on trade that he and his crowd vomit.
"Merchants"? So that's what we're calling them now? Classic.
Yes. Exactly. :-)
Jehovahs Witnesses?
To some here it apparently is. The thing that astonishes me is that I have yet to come across a "free trade" advocate that talks about the NECESSITY of opening up markets to OUR goods and services. It's like they don't care that many of our so-called trading partners follow the very thing they proclaim to hate i.e. "protectionism" and mercantilist trade practices that create huge lopsided trade deficits with America.
About the best they can do on that front is to say, laughably, that those countries are doing us a favor while hurting themselves. Yeah Riigghhht.
Given that reasoning I supposed if they were mugged they would say it was a mutually beneficial experience.
Yes. And Hare Krishnas.
But... do you play one on TV?
Not that it matters, indeed. God forbid anyone should ever mistake T-Dawg for a "merchant".
Of course. Don't you know all Merchants run TV and the media?
Heh, what is really hilarious is that I am a voting member of our Downtown area's "Merchant" League.
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