Posted on 09/11/2007 5:09:04 PM PDT by ruination
WASHINGTON - The Senate voted Tuesday to ban Mexican trucks from U.S. roadways, rekindling a more than decade-old trade dispute with Mexico.
By a 74-24 vote, the Senate approved a proposal by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., prohibiting the Transportation Department from spending money on a North American Free Trade Agreement pilot program giving Mexican trucks access to U.S. highways.
The proposal is part of a $106 billion transportation and housing spending bill that the Senate hopes to vote on later this week. The House approved a similar provision to Dorgan's in July as part of its version of the transportation spending bill.
Supporters of Dorgan's amendment argued the trucks are not yet proven safe. Opponents said the U.S. is applying tougher standards to Mexican trucks than to Canadian trucks and failing to live up to its NAFTA obligations.
Until last week, Mexican trucks were restricted to driving within a commercial border zone that stretched about 20 miles from the U.S.-Mexican boundary, 75 miles in Arizona. One truck has traveled deep into the U.S. interior as part of the pilot program.
Blocking the trucks would help Democrats curry favor with organized labor, an important ally for the 2008 presidential elections.
"Why the urgency? Why not stand up for the (truck) standards that we've created and developed in this country?" Dorgan asked.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who drafted a Republican alternative to Dorgan's amendment, said the attempt to block the trucks appeared to be about limiting competition and may amount to discrimination against Mexico.
"I would never allow an unsafe truck on our highways, particularly Texas highways," he said.
Under NAFTA, Mexico can seek retaliation against the U.S. for failing to adhere to the treaty's requirements, including retaining tariffs on goods that the treaty eliminates, said Sidney Weintraub, a professor emeritus at the University of Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs in Austin.
The trucking program allows up to 100 Mexican carriers to send their trucks on U.S. roadways for delivery and pickup of cargo. None can carry hazardous material or haul cargo between U.S. points.
So far, the Department of Transportation has granted a single Mexican carrier, Transportes Olympic, access to U.S. roads after a more than decade-long dispute over the NAFTA provision opening up the roadways.
One of the carrier's trucks crossed the border in Laredo, Texas last week and delivered its cargo in North Carolina on Monday and was expected to return to Mexico late this week after a stop in Decatur, Ala.
The transportation bill is S. 1789.
>>As a sovereign nation, we have no duty to pay.<<
Theoretically, that is true. However, Bush, Kennedy et. al. seem to think otherwise.
A repeal is a repeal.
They don’t want us to be a sovereign nation.
From Article 9 of the Constitution: No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law;Congress has explicit and sole power to spend, or not spend, money. Idiot judges do not, if the Constitution is still the law.
US Constitution Bump!
Compensate who, precisely? And then why? Because they "lost money?" Not very "free enterprise" of you. They gambled. They knew the hazard it was only a law,not a Treaty, and could be reversed on whim, or undercut and defeated at whim.
Well, now They lost. Tough cookies. Them's the breaks. Time for them to face the reality of life.
And take whatever financial lumps they have coming to them, then I say GOOD!
Excepting...as reported in USA Today:
In fiscal year 1999, the government issued 417 notices of "intent to fine" employers for knowingly making such illegal hires. But by 2004, that number had dropped to three, according to a June 21, 2005, Government Accountability Office report. Worksite enforcement amounted to less than 5% of all of the federal government's ICE investigation activities.
Not when it is an ULTRA VIRES act. And not when there is clear evidence of collusion between the "negotiators" against the interest of the victim here being extorted to cave in, and demanded to pay for "their" change of mind.
The larger corporations importing via Mexico want Mexicans to be substituted wherever possible to replace American's in jobs...at the appropriate pay differential they are accustomed to. With Purchasing power parity being what it is, they can take the jobs for much less to oust the U.S. truckers whether they be union or non-union. And they will rather suddenly not just be doing the two-way traffic, but suddenly ALL the traffic all the time. Anybody who doesn't think that is possible or likely, I have a bridge for them to buy in Brooklyn.
Under the guise of trade, it is a wedge to commit wholesale labor arbitrage of an entire segment, and thence set precedents for other categories.
With the U.S. compelled to accept foreign replacement workers... on its own soil...it is not long for its existence. Gulliver needs to snap these strings and start a little constructive stomping around on the CFR/NAU apple-carts. NAFTA termination would be a good start.
The larger corporations importing via Mexico want Mexicans to be substituted wherever possible to replace American's in jobs...at the appropriate pay differential they are accustomed to. With Purchasing power parity being what it is, they can take the jobs for much less to oust the U.S. truckers whether they be union or non-union. And they will rather suddenly not just be doing the two-way traffic, but suddenly ALL the traffic all the time. Anybody who doesn't think that is possible or likely, I have a bridge for them to buy in Brooklyn.
Under the guise of trade, it is a wedge to commit wholesale labor arbitrage of an entire segment, and thence set precedents for other categories.
With the U.S. compelled to accept foreign replacement workers... on its own soil...it is not long for its existence. Gulliver needs to snap these strings and start a little constructive stomping around on the CFR/NAU apple-carts. NAFTA termination would be a good start.
Likewise, Chapter 20 protected Mexico. Except, in this case, Mexico doesn't have to depend on compensation. Their $2 billion per year judgment would be realized by sanctioned retaliation.
It is also proving to be a litmus test of those who are corrupt among our goverment, who form unholy alliances with sleazy anti-American profiteers and their hangers-on...who nearly jammed through their Amnesty twice, and are trying again with the NIGHTMARE [DREAM] Act.
Some free trade. Its just labor arbitrage...which is NOT free trade. Core Inflation (wages) trailing drastically behind Real Inflation (Original CPI Consumer Price basket goods) demonstrates the "Iron Law Of Wages" is not obsoleted despite contrarian crap out of Cato and its apologists. It is precisely as David Ricardo predicted, labor is treated as a commodity across borders...which the Globalists seek to erase...to the cost of the majority U.S. wage-earning citizens. Even the air-heads in the CFR are recognizing it...but for purely perverse reasons...regarding it as unanticipated political fallout that needs to be ameliorated so that their program can go forward unchecked...without ever re-examining their other first premises to see if they were equally as flawed.
It is a slow-motion destruction of the U.S. industrial core and ultimately the end of the U.S. middle class which made that core, invented virtually everything and perfected the most efficient manufacturing process ever seen on the planet...and were the bedrock of the nation's self-rule and formed the greatest nation on earth.
If the dems can gain control of the two branches, they will try to re-negotiate NAFTA to add protections for the unions and environment. They/you can get even with the evil businessmen and investors.
So they take this challenge but push the Amnesty plan piece by piece behind our backs???
oh— UNIONS— that’s why....
So much for elected reps doing the right thing, or even caring one iota about what is right for the people they are supposed to be serving and representing....
they pledge allegience to the cash cow- not our country or our people....
Give it a rest Seminar Webber. She's your guy. No matter how much you Fifth Columnists against our country protest, you can't hide your liberalism. You undoubtedly hate these guys
because they were all, all of them (inclusive of Jefferson after 1812), for American tariffs that preferentially supported indigenous industrial independence...which you would label "protectionist" as if that were a bad thing. It wasn't:
If the dems can gain control of the two branches,
Newsflash. They already do. They have Congress along with 9-12 RINOs. And Bush is clearly one of THEM. Fifth Columnist. And then there's the Bureaucracy. That makes Four. And the MSM. That is the "Fifth Estate" in more ways than one.
They control all of these, hence they were astounded when some of their croneys chickened out when faced with "the loud people".
... they will try to re-negotiate NAFTA to add protections for the unions and environment.
First, that renegotiation is unlikely since it was Xlinton that produced it and he has unfailingly echoed Bush's defenses of it since. Second, that renegotiation if pursued would likely prove Irrelevant except as it may inadvertantly slightly level the playing field. That is not enough. We want justice for America. And the only way is if We have independence. And It is not redeemable. No more globalism. It, and its associated entry into the WTO, needs to go in its entirety...to send the appropriate message to all those who have gotten used to betraying the U.S.
"The Party's Over."
They/you can get even with the evil businessmen and investors.
Since I am one, I doubt that helps me. And I like SOME businessmen and investors who actually try to defend America, rather than backstab them like the Quislings do.
So, No. We need Duncan Hunter.
Time to restore proper governmental role to trade. Get the phoney free traitors out of the way, fire their assess from the Commerce Dept, Feds and Treasury. Personnel is policy.
So we have a slew of Quisling enablers of Chicom victory...who need to be Pink Slipped. With extreme prejudice.
I like John Bolton on the ticket...but might he not make a better Secretary of State?
Boltom would be the perfect SOS!!
A lot of people get mixed over who signed what when.
The official signing of NAFTA was in Dec of 1992 by Bush, Mulroney, and Salinas. It was subject to approval by the Congresses/Parliament.
Even tho the dems had accepted the need for Chap 11 as a shield for US businesses/investors in Latin America, they were uncomfortable with what they saw as a lack of labor and environmental protections, so they insisted that a side, or parallel, agreement be negotiated for that.
The side agreement was negotiated and signed in '93 by Clinton.
NAFTA went into effect in 1994.
The side agreement turned out to be less than ineffective. The lawyers have turned the Chap 11 shield into a sword to attack regulatory law and the dems are fearful that the VRWC will roll back the New Deal.
This is why the dems want to open up NAFTA and put the labor and enviro protections in the agreement. Likewise, the dems will not allow the pending FTAs with side agreements.
Hear, hear!
You might consider changing your screen name, GWB, seeing how the President, GWB, is all for open borders.
I use to like and admire John Cornyn, but just like many politicians in the GOP, they just don't get it. They've become economic free trade whores and have sold our sovernty to the highest foreign bidder. Cornyn and many other pols have two deaf ears and ignore their constituents.
They ignore us at their own peril and that of our country. I'm seriously wondering if the GOP will ever answer the wake-up call or if they are in cahoots in turning this country over to communist democrats and foreigners.
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