How many in the public have you talked to?! That is exactly the issue and the message. This administration is telling us free trade is good for us while it is costing people middle class incomes in great numbers. I'm handicapped and buried in medical bills and repair bills from two major hospital visits, plumbing and electrical repairs in the last 12 months. And now I'm losing my middle class income in a town of 60k where good jobs are sparse to begin with. I got a good break to get this job after 14 years of dreaming one day I'd get in. Getting hired at Chrysler and Delco locally is done largely on a lottery system because the jobs are so hard to get. And Delco is outsourcing every bit of their operation here. The Delco facility right next to where I work has been taken apart bolt by bolt and shipped to Mexico. My facility is literally being taken apart around me while jobs there go to Mexico. They Go live next monday starting taking calls away from our call center. This ain't politics to me or to anyone else in this town or elsewhere that I've talked to. This is personal. You screw with my taxes and I may pay a little more. Your policies cost me my job and now we aren't talking about paying higher taxes, you've just cost my my ability to function. That is personal. And America sees it in that light.
Bush doesn't seem to get it. Nor do the people making a percentage off it in our party. But the will has to exist in our party to stand up to the crap and demand something be done. WHERE is it. Some of us here fought an uphill battle to the point where the free traders know they're in trouble. But many will only whisper about it for fear of how they might be treated. Either we stand up and reign in the jackasses in our own party, or we risk losing the whitehouse and both houses of congress. Bush doesn't have a Jimmy Carter to blame this on. Reagan did and the blame was aptly laid at Carters feet by right. Bush owns this blame right along with Clinton.
This party isn't about screwing Americans for a percentage. Some people in it are; but, this party isn't. And America will repay the screwing for a percentage in kind. What are you going to do now, Mr. President? That's my question. I'm already screwed. How does the president view the livelihoods of americans who his policies have cost their jobs. This is the precipice. And the clock is ticking.
" How does the president view the livelihoods of americans who his policies have cost their jobs."
What specific policy would that be?
WHat ever happened to people taking responsibility for their own destiny?
Have we become such a victim society that everything HAS to be someone else's fault?
What happen to pulling yourself up by your bootstraps?
If I recall, you comandeered the State of the Union live thread with your insipid whining too.
Butch up buddy.
There is no governmental solution to this problem.
There. I've said it.
The cost of living in Mexico is lower than it is in the US. Guess what: it's also lower in some parts of the US than in others. That's why my Explorer was made in Kentucky rather than in Detroit. It's simply a lot cheaper (read: lower wages) to build in Kentucky.
Now, I know what you're thinking. Put tariffs on foreign goods to offset the savings companies would get by moving the jobs overseas. Fair enough. Guess what: the country as a whole will lose more jobs in that event, and unless you make those tariffs crushing (which would really kill jobs -- read below) companies would simply move entirely overseas and amortize the cost of switching.
If we put tariffs on ther countries then they'll simply put tarriffs on us, and they can afford to do worse to us since their labor costs are lower and they want to bolster their own economies anyway. That immediately causes more jobs in the US to disappear because, insted of buying US goods, people in Mexico buy from Europe or Asia because their tariffs just made products that we (read: you) make more expensive. Bye bye, US jobs.
GWB is the president of the entire United States, not just Wisconsin or Michigan or Ohio or Pennsylvania (and I live in PA so don't tell me that I don't live in an area that has lost jobs -- I was the very next guy to get laid off this year and just came in under the budget limit). To get back on point, he has to look at the overall jobs gained or lost in the country and, overall, free trade creates more jobs than a tariff system. It's simple macroeconomics and if you pick up any book on it you'll see it there in black and white -- it's better for the overall economy (and the people in that economy) to grow the entire pie than try to keep each individual piece of that pie intact.
I'm sorry for your loss. I hate to say it but I see manufacturing leaving this country. The cost in terms of liability and especially due to unions is just too high with respect to other countries. That's not to say that I'm against putting tariffs on countries that have slave labor, poor working conditions, dumping, or other unfair trade policies, but I don't see treating an international cost of living difference as any different as such a difference between states. There's a very good reason why so many cars are made in the South -- and it's because the North is just too expensive a place in which to live.
We live in a rich, technoligically advanced country and as such we expect a certain level of living. This makes everything we acquire expensive and this is part of the reason. Go talk to an immigrant. Ask if they send money home to their relatives. Guess what: that's because the cost of living is lower. So is the quality of life, but YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR. We pay for our quality of life in the costs of everything we produce and this is causing jobs to move overseas. There is no solution to this problem save to either wait for everyone else to catch up or use some sort of magic technology to make everything cheaper to produce (which will also drive wages down -- so I don't realy have a solution for you after all, but I never claimed I was wise enough to have one in the first place).
I worked for a company for 23 years and then they moved to Mexico. Most of the companies around here left, so I went back to college at the age of 56. Now, jobs are starting to come back and they also have decent pay, unless anything under $60K a year isn't enough. My d-i-l just got hired for $32K per year for a new company that is already expanding. I was offered a job after I get out of college. If you lose your job due to NAFTA, you can get free re-training or even college. Don't give up on yourself or else others will give up on you, too.
We inherited a Recesssion from the Silicon Bubble Birst, 9/11, corporate scandals (all created in the 90's), and had to fight the war on terror. Since then Bush's tax cuts have improved the economy which in turn adds businesses.
I was laid off in 2001 from Circuit City, which I'm sure has opened stores in foreign countries, but I know it wasn't all Bush's fault and I'm not depending soley on him to provide me another job.