Posted on 07/30/2003 11:04:15 AM PDT by ex-snook
| U.S. prosperity begins at home Saturday, July 26th, 2003 Lou Dobbs The controversy over proposed "buy American" provisions in next year's Pentagon budget is a reminder of just how complicated the globalization of markets has become. The provisions, offered by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), would make it mandatory for contractors to use machine tools and molds made in America when working on defense acquisition programs of more than $5 million. "Other countries just have to understand," said Hunter. "We have to do everything we can to protect our defense industrial base." Others argue that the idea will prove too burdensome to aerospace contractors and will be a detriment to U.S. international relations. Some free-trade advocates say exceptions, even for defense, create problems. Dan Griswold, associate director of trade policy at the Cato Institute, asks, "How can we ask foreign governments to allow American companies to compete fairly for their government contracts when we don't allow their companies to compete fairly for our government contracts?" It's a fair question. But Hunter is absolutely right that this country cannot be dependent on foreign producers for our national security. Hunter has created an uproar precisely because there are often confounding contradictions between policies that are in the best interest of our national security and policies that are in the best interest of our economy. Free trade supporters claim that globalization has brought us closer to our allies and lowered prices for American consumers. 3 million jobs lost But try persuading the millions of Americans who've lost their jobs over the past few years that globalization is a great idea. And many economists are beginning to notice that a pure ideological commitment to free trade may be as foolhardy as absolute protectionism. There is evidence that open trade policies and global trade pacts have been ultimately detrimental to the U.S. economy. The Economic Policy Institute found that an estimated 3 million American jobs were lost due to NAFTA and WTO agreements. In addition, the U.S. trade deficit with Canada and Mexico has multiplied by 10 since the 1993 NAFTA agreement while our economy hasn't quite doubled. Our international deficit in goods and services increased to $42 billion in May. In 2002 our current account deficit, the Commerce Department's broadest measure of trade, hit a record $503 billion. This means that we are buying far more in goods and services from the rest of the world than we are selling. And the Economic Policy Institute estimates that 99% of this deficit comes from goods we now buy overseas because we no longer make them here. That should be alarming to even the most ardent free-trade advocates. Staunch protectionists believe we can turn back the clock and use high tariffs to protect every industry in this country. Their absolutism forces most of us to dismiss even their valid points. And the absolutists who demand free trade should be dismissed every bit as quickly. There is no more glaring example of the folly of unrestricted trade than China. The United States ran an almost $10 billion goods deficit with China in May. As Roger Simmermaker, who wrote the book "How Americans Can Buy American" put it, "China would have no interest in opening its markets to the United States because they enjoy almost unimpeded and unlimited access to our market while they practice protectionism at home." Too high a price We need to reexamine how our trade policies have negatively affected our economy while boosting the economies of other nations. We can no longer sustain a free-trade policy that does not insist on reciprocal, mutual benefits to both our economy and those of our trading partners. Globalization at any price is proving to be too high a price for this nation to pay. |
Dobbs freely admits he supported NAFTA and Gatt and he freely admits he was wrong then.
I'll bet he was one of the solid phalanx of respectable opinion praising NAFTA. Every editorial page of every major publication supported NAFTA. Every living ex president. A solid wall of elite opinion. But it barely passed. It barely passed because Mr Regular Joe didn't buy it. He knew he was being screwed and his job was going to be shipped overseas. But then again, those jobs America could afford to lose couldn't they ? And he could be retrained for the plentiful job opennings that would become available in high tech.
The little peopel who opposed NAFTA and GATT were correct and why shouldn't they be. They are the ones who are struggling to get by and are hurt in any major economic upheaval and all agreed NAFTA and GATT would be a major economic upheaval. Now those who argued for these treaties tried to tell everyone that this upheaval would result in a whole lot more real income for the "regular Joes." Of course whenever the "regular Joes" here what a good deal they are going to get from the elites they realize the real meaning is BOHICA.
Well with outsourcing and H1b's free trade has destroyed its support base. Every American who works at a terminal knows that his job can be shipped overseas for a fifth of the cost. Every American sees that Buchanan, Perot, and the unions were absolutely right and that solid voice of elite opinion was dead wrong. This isn't blackboard theory. This is people you know and care about losing their homes and careers precisely when they were supposed to be in their save for retirement peak earning years. This is your college graduate children unable to find jobs.
Yeah changing one's standard of living to that of the Third World just does not seem attractive to most Americans and whenb push comes to shove they may just shove back and the resulting violence will not be pretty.
But after Americans got to listen to Perot in the debates, both parties made sure Buchanan was not to be heard in 2000. Of course then Americans would not hear Buchanan's dissent to Bush/Gore position of market growth, balanced budgets, tax cuts, and more government programs for as far as the eye could see. How did that turn out?
Not mine, maybe yours. He was worthless as was his accompanying Republican Congress. Today's economic problems were a bi-partisan snow job on the benefits of NAFTA.
I voted for him in 92. Never expected what would come from Clinton.
Economists have friends and families. They hear the horror stories. They see people who had to hide from headhunters five years ago filing for bankruptcy today.
The really ironic thing about NAFTA is that this signal legislative triumph of the Clinton administration was a victory over his own blue collar union political base. As such it did not benefit either him or the Democratic Party in the least. It was won with the support of the same Senate Republicans who would evicerate him in 1994-1995. Had he opposed it he might have reached out to the blue collar voters lost on cultural issues and restored the Democratic party around economic populism. Bear in mind that Ralph Reed was unable to get the Christian Coalition to support NAFTA and the religious conservative, as I sure like to keep repeating, is the grandchild of a New Deal Democrat and the great great grandchild of a William Jennings Bryan Populist. Instead Clinton made a maximum effort on NAFTA, working the phones furiously. What did it get him ?
I suspected at the time that this was Clinton's Panama Canal Treaty, a totally meaningless and hollow Senate 'victory' that delivered nothing to his supporters.
If Bush doesn't get on this soon, he's gone in '04, and the demorat solution will only make it worse, like FDR did in '32.
As do I.
Yeah, because in order for us to benifit from utilizing less resources to obtain the same products and services we must also sell our products and services to other nations in an equal amount....
This can be illustrated by the fact that I cannot benifit by shopping at wal-mart and getting their low prices on the products I buy unless wal-mart directly buys goods or services I produce...... right..... ERRRRRRR
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