Obama's midwest bus tour message backfires

Hi.

I fully expect his job program to be as toothless as described, below; mostly small amounts for start-ups, tax breaks for hires (more tax cuts, yet), etc., and little government direct organization, let alone the massive program desperately needed, by (non) working people as well as the American future.  -Ed

 

From: Rick Kisséll
Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2011 4:18 PM
To: Midwestern Association for Progressive Community Economic and Environmental Development Yahoo group

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/aug/16/obama-free-trade-midwest

Obama's midwest bus tour message backfires

The president's attempt to cast himself as pro-business won't win voters whose jobs have been killed by free trade deals

by Daniel Denvir
The Guardian/UK:  8/16/11

While on a bus tour this week across a midwest ravaged by deindustrialisation, President Barack Obama has ironically been touting job-killing free trade agreements.

Mitt Romney deemed the road trip, which goes through an archipelago of
shuttered factories and mills, as Obama's "Magical Misery Tour", though
the former governor and CEO would undoubtedly promote the same free
trade policies even more fervently. Obama won Minnesota, Iowa and
Illinois in 2008, but is set to lose them in 2012 if he remains on the
free trade bandwagon. Last week, he visited Michigan, the epicentre of
American manufacturing's decimation.

A May report from the liberal Economic Policy Institute
finds that the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), which was
primarily touted as a job creator, has cost the US 682,900 jobs, 61% of
them in manufacturing. Many jobs have moved south to Mexico,
resulting in a switch in the two countries' trade deficit. In 1993, the
US had a $1.6bn trade surplus with Mexico; in 2010, the tides turned
and Mexico held a trade surplus of $97.2bn over the US.

The consequences of Nafta have not been positive in Mexico, either: the US

has seen a historic flow of Mexican immigrants across the border,
driven by the closure of plants unable to compete with transnational
companies, the elimination of peasant agriculture, and rising consumer
prices have driven a wave of immigrants across the US border. This
convoy of economic refugees has weakened only recently, mostly due to
the downturn.

It shouldn't be surprising that free trade
agreements are unpopular, though politicians don't seem to comprehend
it. According to the findings of an underreported November 2010 poll by the Pew

Research Center, only 35% of Americans say that free trade agreements have

benefited the US, while 44% say the country has been harmed. The study even

found that Republican support for free trade has plummeted from 44% in
November 2009, to a rock bottom 28% in 2010.
"Support for free trade agreements is now at one of its lowest points in 13 years of Pew

Research Centre surveys," the report concludes. Indeed, 63% of Tea Party-leaning

Republicans have a negative outlook on NAFTA – more than any other group polled.

Obama once seemed to understand the deep-seated popular opposition to free trade.  

During the 2008 election, he released a mailer attacking Hillary Clinton, whose husband

signed NAFTA: "Is Hillary Clinton running away from her own record on trade deals that

have cost Ohio nearly 50,000 jobs?"

But once again, Obama's ham-handed efforts to "reach across the aisle" alienates the left

while failing to appease rank-and-file Republican voters. We have a service economy
with the manufacturing middle hollowed out. Elites consider financial
services to be our contribution to the new global economic order: Mexico
and China make stuff; we package and sell opaque financial instruments.
The financial crisis was the product of a government more concerned
with defending this status quo and protecting profits on Wall Street
than with creating and defending well-paying American manufacturing jobs.

But Obama's support for free trade and Wall Street
consistently fails to win over corporate America. Big finance and the
Chamber of Commerce continue to work tirelessly to undermine his
presidency, no matter what he sacrifices in the way of working people's
well-being.

 

It's not clear that the media or anyone else is picking up on the mundane details

of Obama's new talking points. But if they do, the president's push for free trade

agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia is unlikely to be well received:

the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition estimates that 57,000 Minnesotans are at risk of

offshoring or displacement under a Korea deal.

"It's insane for our elected officials to even be considering a trade deal
right now that the International Trade Commission projects will increase
the overall trade deficit," writes Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition
director Jessica Lettween. "To claim such a job-killing proposal is a
'job creation plan' is downright irresponsible, particularly when we're
trying to get our economy back on its feet."

Wall Street and big business call the shots in both parties, so the bipartisan

embrace of free trade agreements should be no surprise. But with 2012 around the
corner, Obama's political advisers would be wise to consider whether
these free trade deals make political sense for him. After all, it is
the Republican party, which is historically even more business-friendly
than the Democratic party, that stands to benefit from them, if Obama
loses support at the polls.

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