Thursday, October 13, 2011

FREE TRADE MY ASS

That great sucking sound you will hear if NAFTA is passed is the sound of the middle class in America going away! -Ross Perot

This is no time for repeating mistakes from the past. It's been 19 years since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was enacted. Jobs in the US did exactly as Perot said. Hell, a big percentage of the jobs that were sent out of country actually bypassed the Americas completely. Now we want to make it easier for the corporations to export jobs to Columbia, South Korea and Panama?
 
The experts back in 92 said NAFTA would create over 100K US jobs and 600K in Mexico annually. Guess what, It didn't work. Where is the "If I am elected we will revisit NAFTA" remember that slogan from all the candidates running in '08?
The only voice of reason I hear from Congress these days is Bernie Sanders. 
Turns out the "revisit" was actually to use it as a template to do more damage.
 
If you google this issue, you will stumble upon the Economic Policy Institute and their recently released study stating: between 93 and 04, the US trade deficit with Mexico ballooned by over $100B, which cost over a million US jobs. With numbers like that, you can be sure the Republican controlled house will surely reject any such plan, right? Stop kidding yourself. The Koch Brothers want this, the Republican leadership and half the Dems will bend over backward to give it to them. 

According to Truthout, Mexico lost a million jobs just in the first year the treaty took effect. Why? because the treaty allowed US grain companies to dump corn in Mexico, 1.3 million farmers lost their livelihood as well. Pork dumping cost another 120K jobs. Eliminating its domestic content laws cost the jobs of thousands of auto parts workers. The result? Six million people from Mexico came to live and work in the US. 
Thank you Bill Clinton.
 
If any of these congressional knuckleheads had any sense, they would have rejected this agreement and focused on the "Jobs Bill". Again, they didn't disappoint.
 
For those visiting Hinchey's Kingston office Today, ask his personnel to pass along the desire to both pass the jobs bill and reject the proposed new trade deal. Maurice has usually been one to listen and act accordingly. Maybe he can ask Obama to VETO this disastrous bill.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

How about demanding that no legislation be signed by Obama until the jobs bill is passed?

Anonymous said...

You've got to commend the GOP. They've done a great job painting Obama as a socialist liberal. In reality, he's a corpratist privatizer like the rest of them. Hermie Cain has reminded us that someones appearance can be a projection of our unattainable hopes.
What Clinton & Obama have done to American jobs through these treaties is nothing short of treason. Doing this level of damage to the working middle class under the banner of Democratic leadership is worse than Starting two unneccessary wars on a credit card.
When are we going to learn?

Anonymous said...

Senator Sherrod Brown: "We should be ashamed of ourselves for passing these agreements, period, and especially for passing them under these provisions. I hope the administration learns something from this. I hope the administration decides on these trade agreements, instead of being on the side of the largest corporations in the country and in the world, which don’t always look out for American interests, I hope the administration and the members of the House and Senate will decide they want to be on the side of American families, American communities, of American workers, of American small companies that make stuff and want to sell it all over the world."