Posted on 04/21/2017 12:18:23 PM PDT by Trump20162020
Protectionism is becoming a bipartisan fad.
‘We don’t have a level playing field for our workers,” President Donald Trump told a group of workers in Kenosha, Wis., on Tuesday. Truth is, if we were to ever level the playing field with countries like Mexico and China, the average American worker would be making $3 an hour and spending his pittance on Third World health care and decrepit housing. Please, don’t level the playing field.
When few things are going your way in politics, though, it’s customary to return to rhetoric that made you successful. So, as Republicans have been unable to push forward on health-care reform or tax reform — or anything not named Neil Gorsuch, for that matter — it is unsurprising that Trump would turn to protectionism as a way to bolster his political fortunes.
On Tuesday, the president traveled to a tool-manufacturing company in Wisconsin and threw some nationalistic bromides at a blue-collar crowd (none of which included the words “I’m afraid some of your jobs will be taken by robots in the future”), and then signed an executive order ordering the White House to look into ways to curb guest-worker visa programs and require government agencies to buy more goods and services from American companies.
For the past two years, over 200,000 foreigners applied for open positions each year. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services holds a lottery and gives out 85,000 H-1B visas to high-skilled foreign workers. It’s a program that’s most popular with the tech industry, owing to a shortage of Americans trained in science and engineering. I suppose it’s a lot easier to stop talented immigrants from entering the country than to find ways to incentivize Americans to become math majors.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Without a doubt. The PTB in both parties are hookers working opposite sides of the streets.
More baloney from National Review. Buckley would NEVER recognize it.
What a dipstick. The only people it’s “dangerous” to are elites who might see others rising to their levels quickly.
according to some guy named David Horseshyti?
Gee, everything’s been goin’ so well: don’t rock the boat, dude.
/s jic.
That's something that is constantly claimed, but I think never actually proved. We see stories about experienced American tech workers laid off and new STEM grads who have trouble finding jobs in their area of study.
Relying on what large tech firms claim is beyond dumb. We need a coordinated effort with university, state federal and private sector employment agencies participating to put together a more accurate picture of just what the supply and demand situation for STEM jobs is within the USA.
Repeal unconstitutional and utterly disastrous federal minimum wage, abolish unconstitutional federal protection of unions, repeal ALL regulations which are entirely unconstitutional law made by the unconstitutional Regulatory State, and cut taxes.
Do these things along with getting the feds back into their constitutional cage and the economy will soon be humming and growing all by itself and like never before.
GO.PRESIDENT TRUMP. GO!!! MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!
Good to see the Chamber of Commerce NWO puppet of NRO is back to form.
Treasonous jerks.
GWBush learned when he put tariffs on foreign steel up, the net result was more jobs lost in idustries/companies that must buy steel to produce their products than ALL the domestic steel industry jobs combined.
One manufacturer said he had no choice but to move his plant overseas, where he could obtain the steel he needed at world market prices, and even with transportation costs to bring the finished goods back here, he was at least able to compete with the foreign and domestic competitors, and stay in business.
Trump should using 1920s protectionist bromides.
Instead, he can make a principled and indirect attack on the sources of some of the unfair trade.
He/Congress can declare the U.S. domestic economy a “free enterprise” economy where private investment, not the government owns and runs all the enterprises in it. Acknowledging that, they can ban the operation in the U.S. domestic economy, as well as imports into it from, any enterprise that is in any fashion under the ownership, in whole or in part, majority or controlling interest of, directly funded by, any foreign governmental unit, any foreign political party, or any officials thereof.
This would eliminate not only many enterprises in China but many enterprises from other countries, from direct participation in or import to the U.S. It would counter, globally, the Chinese communist party’s nationalist mercantilist economic model.
In the process, it would quit the bidding up of U.S. assets, corporate and private, against domestic interests, by government backed foreign interests. It would also enhance the market environment of many domestic companies.
That would be “America first” writ large, in terms of “this is the American model” and in the U.S. you either function within it or you are not here.
David Harsanyi is full of dangerous nonsense among other things.
Worst article by a conservative publication ever...
How times change. There was a time this article would have been cheered on FR. I remember the unrestricted free trade types constantly inviting me to go to the DU. Unrestricted free trade = globalists, and the only thing that comes from that is depressing the standard of worker’s living to the lowest common denominator.
I’m glad to see the change.
Exactly but what you are ACTUALLY seeing is American workers layed off at places like Disney and forced to train their low wage visa workers in how to do their job at a fraction of the cost. PRIME example why "Movement Conservatives" have been the most ineffective political force in mondern politics. So busy mouthing theory, never bother to look at actual results.
Absolutely incoherent nonsense. These idiots at NR act as if everything has to be either at one extreme or the other.
The Constitution allows for tariffs, plain and simple. Whether they make for good policy at any given time, or for any given industry, is subject to debate, of course.
But to be dogmatically for or against them is just naive, IMHO. Tariffs—arguably, at least—do have a place in modern day trade and labor policy.
But this NR article's apparent thesis that "leveling the playing field" is tantamount to dragging American labor down to the level of inferior economies is simply hysterical fear-mongering.
I don't think that protectionism—at least highly aggressive protectionism—is much of a long term solution. But it certainly can—and possibly should—be applied in cases where it helps the American working class.
Americans themselves can be informed about the factors involved, and are quite capable of deciding whether they might be willing to, say, pay more for some foreign goods in cases when it's necessary to help the economy overall.
Shared sacrifice thru protectionism, in various forms, is not a completely ridiculous notion. But if it is to occur, it must be on the basis of the People being as fully educated as possible regarding all aspect of its operation.
#NeverTrump at it again.
That's for sure.
Trump’s ‘Buy American, Hire American’ Policy Is Dangerous Nonsense
If you’re not going to support our country, douchebag, get out of it.
The H1B visa program is a joke. Maybe it was good and necessary at one time (although not really) it has been terribly abused.
As for the rest, just so much vitriol nonsense.
Ever since I was a kid I wondered why they pushed unrestricted free trade as the only possible economic system. Meanwhile, our standard of living has degraded continuously. So apparently, protectionism is only going to make us all make $3/hr sooner. What if everything I’ve ever been told was wrong? What if the Republicans were in on a grand deception! Nah, conspiracy talk.
OOOoooo. Something in there must really be hurting the NRO/Corner Country Club Rinos. Illegals==$$$. Don’t care about the rat votes. They’ll all be rich anyway. Traitors.
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