The Only Real Issue That Hurts Republicans in 2004

[NHPolitico]

I'm sure most of you out there will disagree with me, but there is only one issue out there that could prevent George W. Bush from easily winning a second term...

JOBS!!!

Forget the idiocy the Democrats keep talking about Weapons of Mass Destruction, Vietnam-like quagmires, George Bush is AWOL, blah, blah, blah...all of that means NOTHING.

As the 2002 midterm elections proved, the average American LIKES George Bush, and likes MOST of the Republican policies relating to international relations and economics. Also, most Americans do not approve of the way the modern Democratic Party behaves...see Paul Wellstone's funeral...see comments of George Soros...see comments of Michael Moore, etc, etc....

But where we (Republicans) are vulnerable is on the issue of jobs in general, and more specfically, the loss of manufacturing and quasi-service jobs (telemarketing, tech support, etc..) to foreign workers. I know most of my fellow Republicans will disagree with me, but the truth is that NAFTA and other similiar trade policies have been a short term disaster for the United States economy. Sure, Wall Street has been humming along and the second half of the 1990's featured a boom economy, but the truth is that the growth of the 1990's was built on a house of cards. Most of the growth was based on high tech, internet based business that proved to be non-profitable, and the jobs it produced are already gone and will NOT be coming back.

Now, I'm as educated as most of you and I certainly understand the theoretical basis behind free trade...in fact I was a strong proponent of NAFTA myself, but the fact remains that this nation has lost too many good paying jobs that are NEVER coming back.

So, it's my contention that the average American will be highly suspectible to the rhetoric of Democrats (like John Edwards or Dick Gephardt once one of them becomes the VP candidate to Kerry) who rail against the loss of jobs to foreign workers. I still think Bush is a solid favorite to win, but this Jobs/Trade issue could prove to be the Holy Grail to a Democratic Party which seemingly had ZERO message from 2000 to 2003.

What do you guys think?

George Washington refused to wear a coat cut of British cloth to his inauguration and signed the Tariff Act of 1789.

James Madison, Speaker of the House, led the efforts to pass the Tariff Act of 1789. It was signed into law by George Washington. American production of cloth--cut two-thirds by British dumping in 1816--grew an astonishing 1,650 percent within four years of Madison's tariff becoming law.

Alexander Hamilton wrote in his 1791 report as Treasury Secretary, "The wealth...independence and security of a Country, appear to be materially connected with the prosperity of manufactures. Every nation ought to endeavor to possess within itself all the essentials of national supply."

Henry Clay: "If the governing consideration were cheapness, if national independence were to weigh nothing; if honor nothing; why not subsidize foreign powers to defend us; why not hire Swiss or Hessian armies to protect us? Why not get our arms of all kinds, as we do, in part, the blankets and clothing of our soldiers, from abroad?"

Henry Clay: "Poverty befalls any nation that neglects and abandons the care of its own industry, leaving it exposed to the action of foreign powers--there is a remedy and that consists in --adopting a Genuine American System accomplished by the establishment of a tariff--with the view of promoting American industry--the cause is the cause of the country, and it must and it will prevail."

Abraham Lincoln: "Give me a tariff and I will give you the greatest nation on earth."

Abraham Lincoln, 1847: "Abandonment of the protective policy by the American Government must result in the increase of both useless labour, and idleness; and so, in proportion must produce want and ruin among our people."

Teddy Roosevelt wrote, "I thank God I am not a free trader."

"The prohibiting duties we lay on all articles of foreign manufacture which prudence requires us to establish at home, with the patriotic determination of every good citizen to use no foreign article which can be made within ourselves without regard to difference of price, secures us against a relapse into foreign dependency." --Thomas Jefferson to Jean Baptiste Say, 1815.

"...experience has now taught me that manufactures are now as necessary to our independence as to our comfort..." Thomas Jefferson, 1816

Daniel Webster: "Protection...of our own labor against the cheaper, ill-paid, half-fed, and pauper labor of Europe, is, in my opinion, a duty which the country owes to its own citizens."

[NHPolitico]

M,

You're right about the WMD issue being a potential long term policy problem, but I'm talking strictly about the politics of the 2004 Election.

And even the dropping unemployment you pointed out may not save us from this issue. Even some of the people who have found jobs recently have not found the same QUALITY of job they once had. What you're finding, is people settling for ANY job rather than continuing to wait around for the good job they once had or were educated to do. Do you agree?

Missing WMD is a credibility thing. That's the only way it plays into the race.

[NHPolitico]

Jaichind,

Much of what you say is true, but much of what you say is also incorrect or misleading. Here's where you are right and wrong:

YOU WERE RIGHT:

1. The drop of the unemployment rate from 6.3 to 5.6 IS misleading because many of the people who dropped off that list simply ran out of unemployment benefits and are still not working.

2. Most of the new jobs created were low paying retail and service jobs.

3. There are currently profound and fundamental structural problems with the U.S. economy.

4. These prolems are NOT the result of actions by the Bush administration.

YOU WERE WRONG

1. You said Bush has done nothing to try and solve these problems, but you ignore massive tax cuts which HAVE acted as a stimulant to the economy.

2. The comparison to the Hoover administration was quite silly in light of the overall economic picture. I believe you'll find that the economy was FAR worse under Carter than Bush, for example.

3. In your assessment of the unemployment figures, you fail to point out the massive increase in self-employment over the past few years, and that these numbers are NOT properly reflected when new job creation is calculated. This is a CRUCIAL point, because traditional job creation statistics do not reflect the modern trend towards the startup of small business and the tendency of many to act as independent contractors rather than employees.

I feel that the current structural problems in the USA are high and growing personal debt, real estate market bubble, over consumption leading to a high current account surplus, and surging budget deficit.  All this leads to a possible future dollar crisis.  Over the last few months foreign buyers of USA assets have dried up over the current account issue and the current account deficit is pretty much being financed by Japanese and PRC purcheses of US treasury debt in an attempt to hold down the value of their respective currencies.  The way out is the restructure the tax code to encourage savings and discourge consumption and higher interest rates to deflate the real estate bubble.  Both these solutions have the short-term affect of pushing up unemployment rates.  The Bush administration, instead of confronting these issues, has opted for an opportunistic Keynesian approach by cutting taxes, increasing spending in all areas to create a fiscal simulus which is the largest him USA history.  The fiscal balance swung from a surplus of 2% of GDP to a deficit of 4.5% of GDP within two years.  The purpose, of course, is to prevent a deep recession that USA deserves given the Clinton bubble and holding down unemployement so Bush can get re-elected.  Given the ammo the Bush administration wasted to keep unemployement down, the results are disappointing as the labor particpipation rate still remains low.  I have no problem with the Bush tax cut on its own.  If the choice was the Bush tax cut or nothing I would still opt for the Bush tax cut.  But I feel that the political capital Bush used to get it should have been spent on a restructing of the tax system to encourage savings and discourage consumption.  The fiscal surplus is now gone and we are looking a decificts for years to come and after 2008 the social security balance will fall into deficit.  Bush has demostrated that he has put his re-election ahead of solving basic economic issues.  He merely delays them and such delays make them worse.

I concur that the current state of the economy is not at all like that of the Hoover administration.  My point is that despite the largest fiscal simulus in USA history in a bid to keep employment high, the Bush record on net jobs is the worst since Hoover.  I personally do not measure economic success by the short-term number of jobs created or destroyed.  But the actions of the Bush administration seems to be using this as a critia.  By its own criteria, the Bush administration has failed on this count.

The main way a falling dollar hurts most people in a way they can really perceive is higher gas prices.  Even worse is that there is talk of basing oil on the Euro and not the dollar, which would be even worse-- much, much worse.

[NHPolitico]

The GOP used to be for fair trade...

Republican platform 1972: "We deplore the practice of locating plants in foreign countries solely to take advantage of low wage rates in order to produce goods primarily for sale in the United States. We will take action to discourage such unfair and disruptive practices that result in the loss of American jobs."



Grandpa Prescott Bush, Barry Goldwater, and Strom Thurmond fought JFK's free trade policies that marked the beginning of the end of American industrialization.

[NHPolitico]

The GOP used to be for fair trade...

Republican platform 1972: "We deplore the practice of locating plants in foreign countries solely to take advantage of low wage rates in order to produce goods primarily for sale in the United States. We will take action to discourage such unfair and disruptive practices that result in the loss of American jobs."



Grandpa Prescott Bush, Barry Goldwater, and Strom Thurmond fought JFK's free trade policies that marked the beginning of the end of American industrialization.

Well, I'm glad you've seen the light...

I don't follow. I've never not "seen the light" on this subject.

[NHPolitico]

The GOP used to be for fair trade...

Republican platform 1972: "We deplore the practice of locating plants in foreign countries solely to take advantage of low wage rates in order to produce goods primarily for sale in the United States. We will take action to discourage such unfair and disruptive practices that result in the loss of American jobs."



Grandpa Prescott Bush, Barry Goldwater, and Strom Thurmond fought JFK's free trade policies that marked the beginning of the end of American industrialization.

NHPolitico - you're  protectionist?!  I always find that bizarre in a Republican.   Even a little willfully irrational in a Democrat, but at least understandable there.

I like the company I keep. Free traders like Cordell Hull, who drafted the first income tax and Karl Marx who said, in 1848, "The Protective system...is conservative, while the Free Trade system works destructively. It breaks up old nationalities and carries antagonism of proletariat and bourgeoisie to the uttermost point. In a word, the Free Trade system hastens the Social Revolution. In this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, I am in favor of Free Trade," can hang out in one corner of the room. I'll be in the other, with the Founders.

[NHPolitico]

NHPolitico,

I would have disagreed with you until recently, but now I think I was wrong about free trade and guys like you were right all along.

Welcome to the club. As I said, free trade was boosted by liberals, not conservatives.  We've been hijacked!

[NHPolitico]

We should bring back the Hawley-Smoot tariffs.

Milton Friedman said, on Smoot-Hawley, "It played no significant role in either causing the depression or prolonging it."

[NHPolitico]

You Republican protectionists should go dig up Perot and vote for him again, shooting down another decent Bush.

Protectionism is hands down the most foolish economic policy available.  A gauranteed way to lower the standard of living.

I'll vote for Bush. I don't agree with him on everything, though. I'd write in George Washington's name every election if I wanted to throw my vote away on someone like Perot.

It's economic nationalism that I support. With free trade as it stands now, you surrender your nation's existence all for cheap merchandise.  I like Friedrich List's statement:  "Who would be consoled for the loss of an arm by the knowing that he had nevertheless bought his shirts forty percent cheaper?"

What nation has consumed, alone, its way to greatness?

[NHPolitico]

Opebo,

Until very recently, I agreed with you. However, the results of Nafta and other 1990's trade policies have been a real eye opener for me. The Democrats are wrong about virtually everything, but they have a point when it comes to the loss of good paying manufacturing and service jobs. A business is always going to act in its rational best interest...and if they can save millions of dollars by paying a foreign worker a fraction of the money, why would they ever hire any US workers? Now in theory, the increased profitability should lead to the creation of more US based jobs, but it simply hasn't happened. Our economy is too hampered by over-regulation and ridiculous environmental regulations to be anything but a tourism based, service economy in a global marketplace. We simply cannot produce anything domestically that is cheap enough (due to labor costs and regulatory costs) to flow into the overall marketplace. Now over the long haul, this may change as the world becomes "smaller" and other nations raise their standards of living, but in the short term, the US economy has suffered and will continue to suffer. The stock market is a nice measurement of wealth accumulated, but if a large chunk of that wealth is spent on foreign workers and paid towards foreign taxes, it does little or nothing to create good paying jobs in the US.

I'm not a protectionist...far from it..but what I think we need to do is bring back some old US economic policies relating to tariffs, that we even the playing field and create Fair Trade instead of Free Trade. That's all I ask.

A better solution would be to reduce regulations, taxes, and other costs here at home.  Anytime people start appealing to 'Fairness' in economic issues I grab my wallet.  Fairness arguments always precede political theft, and that's exactly what 'fair trade' is - making me pay twice as much for some product just because I have to buy it from an American instead of another source.  I view trade is not so much about national policy as about individual freedom - I think I have a right to buy from whoever I wish.  More economic freedoms should be in the Bill of Rights.

You don't have a right to do lots of things that aren't in the best interest of the nation. The Founders wanted the government to be funded by foreign countries, not by the incomes of Americans. They wanted tariffs to make us strong and it was our policy. We grew from a nothing country to a superpower because of our industrial might.  I favor taxes on foreign goods, and you prefer taxes on incomes.