Posted on 10/04/2007 7:07:18 AM PDT by SJackson
I've seen a lot of opinion polling, but my jaw dropped when I saw this result from our special NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll of Republicans in advance of next week's presidential candidate debate sponsored by CNBC, MSNBC and the WSJ. By a nearly two-to-one margin, Republican voters believe free trade is bad for the U.S. economy, a shift in opinion that mirrors Democratic views and suggests trade deals could face high hurdles under a new president.
Six in 10 Republicans in the poll agreed with a statement that free trade has been bad for the U.S. and said they would agree with a Republican candidate who favored tougher regulations to limit foreign imports. That represents a challenge for Republican candidates who generally echo Mr. Bush’s calls for continued trade expansion, and reflects a substantial shift in sentiment from eight years ago.
"It’s a lot harder to sell the free-trade message to Republicans," said Republican pollster Neil Newhouse, who conducts the Journal/NBC poll with Democratic counterpart Peter Hart.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
Humor alert.
“By a nearly two-to-one margin, Republican voters believe free trade is bad for the U.S. economy, a shift in opinion that mirrors Democratic views and suggests trade deals could face high hurdles under a new president. “
Just an other example of why I say the beast will be our next president.
This poll clearly didn’t include a lot of freepers.
We wont have to worry about that either way if Canada, Mexico and the USA become the “North American Union”.
We will have those trans continental toll “Corridors” and a common monetary unit and everything will be just fine.
Perhaps Duncan Hunter's views would be of interest to 6 in 10 Republicans.
Free trade came to mean that the US would by and large open its markets while most of Asia did not.
Because people, some of them Republicans, have no understanding of economics.
Because our middle/working classes don't benefit from inexpensive imports. Got it.
>> America’s 18.5 million government employees have little to fear from free trade; neither do auto mechanics, dentists
This maroon is an economist???
Building a vibrant economy on government employment, car repair, and dentistry is (shall we say) quite a challenge.
Why do you assume that freepers wouldn’t be involved in such a poll? Free trade is killing this nation. Fair trade could work but what is now passed off as free trade is a poison to this Democratic Republic.
http://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/austan.goolsbee/website/
Goolsbee graduated from Yale and earned his doctorate from MIT before coming to the University of Chicago’s business school, which gave to public life a giant of conservatism, George Shultz. The university’s economics department has been adorned by the likes of Milton Friedman, George Stigler and Gary Becker, each a Nobel laureate, each a conservative by virtue of his inclination to expect more utility from markets than from government interventions therein.
I’d rather buy a more expensive quality American made product than a cheap chicom made piece of crap that I have to replace every 6 months to a year when it breaks.
I remember when electric fans were made in the US, heck my dad still has some from back in the 60’s that still work. The cheap chinese made ones now die after about a year.
Cuba have managed two out of three, and they have the best healthcare in the world.
The "free trade" snake oil salesmen were NEVER talking about the "fair trade" espoused by Ronald Reagan!
Free trade has meant we buy cheap goods from you while you can price our goods out of reach for your citizens or refuse them altogether.
That ugly reality has resulted in closed factories, shuttered up store fronts on Main Street and large big box stores selling cheap goods from third world countries using slave labor or worse yet, poisoned dog and cat foods, toys containing high lead contents that we don't allow our manufacturers to use but mostly government regulations that strangle our manufacturing base while we make our enemies rich enough to be building up their military to challenge our military superiority one day.
>> Free trade came to mean that the US would by and large open its markets while most of Asia did not.
You got it.
Overall, I’m an open-markets proponent, but they really have to be open... on BOTH sides.
One-sided “free markets” are just another case of “Dudley DoRight” (aka Uncle Sam) bending over in naive good faith, so the world to have their way with us.
I don’t know why this dude is shocked. Maybe he has polls over several years for comparison, but NAFTA was opposed by almost two-thirds of Americans. But “trade” is a misnomer for what is actually happening because all these nations we have agreements with have few products to sell us. We’re simply trading American jobs and production facilities for cheap labor and lax regulation where products will be produced and shipped to the US. Our trade deficit is fast approaching a trillion dollars annually.
Maybe the American people are contemplating this “trade” philosophy where the only value is the cheapest production cost.
As with most subject, it is ignorance which spawns fear. Too many do not understand the laws of economics, so they fear them instead. What makes prices go up and down is a mystery to them, so it's treated like voodoo.
Every, and I mean every, voter should carefully read Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell. This would go a long way toward shining the light of truth and reason on the subject of economics in voters' minds. Once the mechanisms of fixed economic reality are clearly understood, free trade is no longer the hideous monster it once appeared to be.
Determining what Republicans think by consulting non-Republicans. There's a lot of that going around.
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