Posted on 09/23/2008 9:52:02 AM PDT by jazusamo
We've all met Barack "Neville Chamberlain" Obama and Barack "Rev. God Damn America" Obama, so now let me introduce you to a third face: Barack "Herbert Hoover" Obama. Just as Sen. Obama learned nothing from Chamberlain and his talks with Hitler, and so proposes to talk without preconditions to Amadinejad, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and the rest of the axis of evil, by like token, he's learned nothing from the lessons of Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression.
Hoover was long the great nemesis of the Democratic Party, but that was perhaps before Sen. Obama's time. But Hoover is credited with sending the American economy into a depression by stepped-up protectionism, taxation, and regulation. That is the equivalent of trying to put out a fire by spraying gasoline on it. This column will focus on Sen. Obama's protectionist bent, one part of that deadly depression-causing trio.
You'll recall that at one time, beginning with the Clinton presidency, there was a consensus that free trade made sense. Now Sen. Obama and the Democratic Party have become advocates of protectionism and enemies of free trade. They think they can score political points by making international trade sound like a treasonous activity and calling a halt to sending jobs and American companies overseas. They focus on a narrow sliver of the effects of international trade, and ignore the benefits, which by far outweigh the detriments. Almost everything, free trade included, looks bad if you consider only the disadvantages and ignore the advantages.
Sen. Obama and the Democrats have what might be called the free-trade derangement syndrome. They are so obsessed with what they see as the adverse effects of free trade, that they cannot even go for free trade agreements that clearly have only benefits for the United States and our economy. As an example, consider the Democrats' opposition to a free-trade agreement with Columbia. The Democrats hide under the phony claim that the agreement is being opposed to help workers. But that's not so, as under existing law most Columbian exports enter America duty free. The only thing the agreement with Columbia would do is open up Columbia to American exports. This win-win deal is opposed by the Democrats, perhaps falling under the classification of liberalism as a mental disease. Because we haven't entered into this agreement with Columbia, now blocked from passage in the House by Democrats, American companies are paying $693 million in tariffs every year. In addition, Columbia is an important ally in South America, one that we should help in every way. But for political advantage, the Democrats oppose the Columbia agreement even though it would help American companies and American foreign policy. Sen. Obama also opposes a free trade agreement with our ally, South Korea, and voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
There's another strange aspect to the Democrats opposition to free trade. They are interested in doing something about global poverty. So they have two choices: First is Sen. Obama's choice of legislation that would require American taxpayers to pay close to a billion dollars a year to the United Nations to be used to fight global poverty. This would force American taxpayers to give a fortune for distribution by the U.N., an organization notorious for corruption and incompetence, and for working against American interests. Sen. Obama sponsored the "Global Poverty Act," an international welfare scheme paid for by the U.S. and administered by the U.N., but rejects international trade. A second approach is the most effective way to end global poverty: stepping up international trade, which has been one of the most important instruments in ending global poverty in history.
As Investor's Business Daily (Sept. 15, 2008) has pointed out, hundreds of millions of people in Asia have been lifted out of poverty thanks to free trade. Hundreds of millions more in Africa and around the world will soon follow the path out of poverty with free trade. Yes, this is one of the great anti-poverty success stories of all time. But Sen. Obama and the Democrats don't want that obvious approach to ending global poverty, which helps people around the world and, at the same time, helps the U.S. by providing export markets for our products and thus would create American jobs. No, Sen. Obama and company, prefer to tax our people and send the money to the U.N., that great humanitarian body most famous for the oil-for-food scandal and for creating human rights commissions that spend their time attacking democracies instead of autocrats and human rights abusers.
There's another aspect of free trade essential to our safety and security. We know if we can spread democracy and freedom to more of the world, we will have fewer suicide bombers and genocidal maniacs roaming the globe. Democracies produce many things, but not irrational haters, killers and destroyers. Free trade has helped other countries develop economic and political reform that created and strengthened democratic institutions. It should also be noted as other countries come out of poverty, they develop customers for American goods.
Before we let Sen. Obama and the Democrats bring an end to the era of free trade by their protectionism, big government, higher taxation, and more regulation, consider a few statistics:
* One of the important growth sectors of the economy involves our exports, dependent on free trade. Sen. Obama would kill that growth sector and American moneymaker. In 2007, we exported $1.3 trillion of goods and services making us the world's largest exporter. Our exports are at the highest level in history, already up 7 percent this year and up 20 percent to China.
* Twenty-five percent of American jobs involve the export industry. Sen. Obama would kill those jobs. He probably prefers putting those losing their jobs on welfare so they would be dependent on the welfare state, one of the altars at which he worships.
* Free trade means American workers buy goods for less money, especially low-income workers who shop at Wal-Mart, Target, Sears and the like. If we cut off free trade, the already strapped working class will be faced with higher prices, along with most other Americans. So Sen. Obama advocates higher prices without saying so. One study found the inflation rate is much lower for low-incomes Americans than the wealthiest Americans due to free trade and due to the mix of goods purchased by low-income Americans. Protectionism would have the biggest impact on the prices paid by the low-income sector of the economy.
* Ninety-six percent of the world's population lives outside of the U.S. So if we go back to Barack "Herbert Hoover" Obama protectionism, in a sense, we cut off our industry from 96 percent of the world market.
* If all trade barriers were eliminated, one study found that would add $500 billion in additional American income, amounting to about $4,500 per household.
* Sen. Obama claims 900,000 jobs were lost to NAFTA. But one study found that exports of goods support six million American jobs, exports of services support another five million American jobs, and foreign companies moving to the U.S. to be close to their customers support another five million American workers. So Sen. Obama's protectionism, by these estimates, would cost 16 million American jobs, and perhaps more by other estimates. The 16 million figure was pointed out by Brad O'Leary in his book titled The Audacity of Deceit: Barack Obama's War on American Values.
* Of course, some imports are absolutely necessary for American security and for our economy. There are many minerals and other raw materials that we have to import, as we simply cannot produce them here.
Sen. Obama is on the wrong side of every issue, just as the left-wing extremist segment of the Democratic Party, to which he belongs on the most radical edge, is also wrong on every issue. He speaks in the middle and butts on the far left. He is dead wrong on free trade, and his combination of protectionism, a tax policy that would penalize investment by increasing the critically important capital gain tax rate, a spending policy that approaches a trillion dollars more (which is unsustainable in view of the recent federal program on mortgages that might cost around a trillion dollars), and his plans for bigger government and a bigger bureaucracy at any time are a prescription for disaster, but in the present economic climate are an unmitigated disaster.
On the issue of free trade, he would do well to heed the words of President Ronald Reagan, quoted in a chapter head by Mr. O'Leary:
"[P]rotectionism is being used by some American politicians as a cheap form of nationalism, a fig leaf for those unwilling to maintain America's military strength and who lack the resolve to stand up to real enemies - countries that would use violence against us or our allies. Our peaceful trading partners are not our enemies; they are our allies. We should beware of the demagogues who are already to declare a trade war against our friends - weakening our economy, our national security, and the entire free world - all while cynically waving the American flag. The expansion of the international economy is not a foreign invasion; it is an American triumph, one we worked hard to achieve, and something central to our vision of a peaceful and prosperous world of freedom." It almost sounds as if Reagan was speaking of someone exactly like Sen. Obama.
As you wind through Sen. Obama's flip-flopping positions, there is one thing that is striking. They are often inconsistent and in obvious conflict. That's because he does not operate from a core of principles, but only responds to electoral necessity in the search for power. He is in love with power and indifferent to principles. For example, on free trade he is in conflict with his position that he wants to improve our image in the world. He has threatened to renegotiate NAFTA and called it a "bad deal." How will America's world reputation be improved by a president who wants to renege on our international agreements? How will the world treat a country that goes from a free trade economy to one based on protectionism and isolationism?
He wants to end global poverty, he says, but he doesn't want to use the greatest weapon against global poverty in history, international trade. He objects to sending jobs overseas, but his "Global Poverty Act" would not create any substantial number of jobs in America. It would simply send them overseas. He could create jobs overseas by international trade but rejects that result, which should be central in his priorities. Perhaps he is so enslaved to labor union bosses and the environmental lobby, two key Democratic special interest groups, that he can't carry out a consistent policy approach even if he wants to or perhaps he just doesn't have core principles. He claims he wants peace and international understanding and good will, but rejects international trade, a great instrument in creating peace and common interests among nations. When all is said and done, he is so busy trying to get elected and trying to please the interest groups of the Democratic Party, he comes up with an incoherent program that makes no sense and would produce the worst possible results for the U.S.
Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner, and professor at the Wharton School. He is a longtime Philadelphia journalist and consumer advocate. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of the Sciences. His column appears daily in The Bulletin. You can reach him at advocate@thebulletin.us.
I thought it was going to be Hoover, as in vaccuum. That would fit as well do to 0bama’s cocaine use.
If he really wants to keep business here, he should be lowering the corporate tax rate significantly. And income and payroll taxes. Of course this would have to be accompanied by lower spending and as we all know that’s WAAAAY too extreme.
Isn’t that what Larry Sinclair called him, too?
Yep, that Bird of Paradise already flew up BO’s vacuum.
Hah! That’s priceless, old Plugs just can’t keep his feet out of his mouth.
Biden probably saw some newsreel footage of FDR talking into a radio microphone and assumed that that’s how America saw it at the time. Ya really have to wonder about these people.
"Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again..."
...or the space between his ears, which has been vacuumed clean of any common sense.
ditto- I thought “Hoover” referred to Obamas indulgence in “blow”
Didn’t Roger Clinton blab on tape about how his brother Bill was known as “hoover”?
His wife Michelle's pet name for him is reportedly *Pumski*.
I believe it's the Swedish Communist term for *Comrade.*
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