Here you have a nice photo:
Posted on 12/03/2006 7:47:19 AM PST by A. Pole
The best postmortem on the 2006 election came from that perennial politician, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA). He said, "People want to know who's on their side. Whether it's health care or wages or retirement issues, they want to have someone on their side."
The biggest electoral bloc of the "they" who are seeking friends is the middle class, which includes people variously labeled blue-collar workers, skilled workers, or Reagan Democrats. They are the swing voters, often called the moveables. President Ronald Reagan's victories absolutely depended on their support. But Presidents Bush I and II kicked them away from the Republican Party, particularly on the issue of jobs.
Did the 2006 election teach Republicans that it is smart to be friends of the middle class? Have Republicans realized that jobs were second only to the unpopular war as the issue of 2006, and will surely be the number-one issue in 2008? George W. Bush carried Ohio in 2004 because the marriage amendment brought out the values voters. But Democrats can play that game, too: in 2006 the Ohio referendum on increasing the minimum wage raised the jobs issue, passed by 57 percent, and helped to bury Republican candidates.
Ohio has lost its manufacturing base. Some of the good jobs went to plants that were outsourced overseas and some disappeared in the tsunami of cheap Chinese goods as Wal-Mart replaced small businesses and left behind towns with empty streets and boarded-up windows.
Incumbent Republican Senator Mike DeWine was badly defeated by Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) who had led the congressional fight against CAFTA and wrote a book called "Myths of Free Trade." Brown's TV ads showing him standing in front of a "plant closed" sign were powerful.
Almost every one of the Republican Members of Congress who bit the dust in the 2006 election had been an enthusiastic booster of the globalists' agenda: NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO (World Trade Organization), Fast Track, PNTR (Permanent Normal Trading Relations), and Free Trade Agreements (FTA) with countries most Americans never heard of. Republicans were badly on the defensive in the face of Democrat ads touting the issue of jobs.
The United States has lost over three million manufacturing jobs since Bush became President. The U.S. trade deficit hit a record high of $717 billion last year, and is expected to be even higher this year.
The middle class is not placated by feel-good talk that the stock market has climbed to a record high, or that unemployment is at a record low, or that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is growing. Unemployment statistics don't count the guys who lost $50,000 jobs in manufacturing and are now working $25,000 jobs in retail, and job-growth figures happily do count the wives who have been involuntarily forced into the labor force just to keep groceries on the table.
The middle class is not placated by glib slogans that free trade is good for the economy and that protectionism is a nasty word. Common sense tells them that there is no such thing as a free lunch and yes, indeed, they do expect friends in government and industry to protect American jobs against unfair competition from foreigners who work for 30 cents an hour. Americans relish competition, as our national fixation on sports contests proves every day. But the globalists have destroyed a level playing field and, in addition, have subordinated us to an umpire (a.k.a. the WTO) that is biased against us.
Globalist policies have encouraged U.S. employers to use near-slave labor in Asia, whose products are then guaranteed duty-free or low-tariff re-entry to the United States. Those products are then sold here for prices that are cheap by U.S. standards but have a high markup of up to 80 percent.
Globalist policies also allow discrimination against U.S. manufacturers by the Value Added Tax racket, whereby foreign governments subsidize their products both coming and going. For example, German automobiles cost 16 percent less in the United States than the same car sold in Germany, and U.S. automobiles cost 16 percent more in Germany than the same car bought in the United States.
Nancy Pelosi plans to shift the dialogue on Capitol Hill to worker's pay, college tuition, health-care costs, and other issues that touch ordinary families. Her solutions are all bad economics and very expensive, but they will enable her to pose as a friend of the middle class.
All six U.S. Senators thought to be planning a run for the Democratic nomination for president voted against CAFTA. The issue would be dramatically joined if the Democratic nominee were opposed, for example, by Senator John McCain, who supported NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO, and PNTR for China.
Will Republicans continue to follow George W. Bush in his post-election travels to solicit even more Asian products made by cheap labor and subsidized by their governments? Or will Republicans get smart on the jobs issue and reestablish their friendship with the Reagan Democrats?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
They don't need no stinking evidence! All they need is how they feel.
Please cite me a specific case in with a trade organization such as the WTO was able to overturn a U.S. law or policy -- and had the ability to enforce its decision.
One of the most remarkable stories in American politics these days is the way many people in government and the media have been able to convince ordinary Americans -- who currently enjoy the highest standard of living in the history of mankind -- that they are somehow facing an "economic crisis" on a daily basis.
So. That is what they think. ANd this preception shapes the political reality of the day.
So let me get this straight . . . You consider it a prudent political strategy to pursue idiotic public policies in a desperate attempt to garner support from large numbers of idiots?
If you want to win the next election, yes. If not say hi to Hitlery. Besides I agree with them that free trade is bad for the middle class of this country.
1. Massive, unsustainable Social Security system.
2. Massive, unsustainable Medicare system.
3. Massive, unsustainable Great Society programs.
4. Massive, unsustainable U.S. government.
5. Massive, unsustainable open immigration policy (in a desperate attempt to perpetuate Items 1 through 4)
Notice a common theme here?
Catering to the whims of ignorant people eventually leads to fiscal chaos and ultimately to the collapse of these government functions. Catering to the whims of the masses in economic matters is no less futile than legislating changes in the weather.
Besides I agree with them that free trade is bad for the middle class of this country.
It's easy for people to say that "free trade" is bad for the middle class of this country because they have no idea what the alternative would be. And I can guarantee you that once people are exposed to the realities and limitations of the world in which they live, 95% of "the middle class" would prefer our current trade policies to the alternative.
So. Enough people walked off from the republicans last month to let the dems win. You can not make any changes in policy if you are not in power and free trade is a losing issue.
Here you have a nice photo:
As I stated back in Post #9, I have yet to see any evidence that "free trade" was one of the major reasons why "enough people walked off from the Republicans to let the Dems win" last month.
I'd also add that despite all the partisan ranting over this issue in recent years, free trade is here to stay for a very long time regardless of which political party holds power in Washington -- mainly for the reason I gave in my previous post. If the U.S. were to implement the kind of protectionist policies that Ms. Schlafly is advocating in this article and people like Lou Dobbs have advocated in the past, the middle class in this country would last about two weeks before they threw all incumbent politicians out of office and demanded a return to "the good old days of free trade."
I tend to agree.
I disagree, free trade is on the way out. Yes it will be oud and messy but is is going.
I don't give it 10.
"Politicians are just men, normal human beings, who act legislatively according to the wishes of their voters."
Or maybe according to the wishes of their biggest contributors? Multinational corporations.
"Constitutional government prohibits international organizations like the WTO from having any effect on Congress, our trade policy or US citizens. "free trade" agreements grant organizations like the WTO, and foreign agents and foreign countries unlawful authority to make rules and influence US trade."
That bears repeating!
Morning Hedge
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