Post #415,265
11/8/16 11:09:25 AM
11/8/16 11:09:25 AM
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Yeah, Bill was just a Taft Republican
Or something. Contemporary history, from 1995: Consider the role of California liberals in health care reform. Last summer Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein abandoned employer mandates and universal coverage and fatally wounded Senator George Mitchell's effort to build a majority for a revised version of Clinton's plan. At no point did California's highly articulate liberals apply pressure on Feinstein to support Clinton and Mitchell. Instead, many health care advocates and liberal groups campaigned for a single-payer ballot initiative. Thousands of enthusiastic volunteers collected signatures. Most proponents knew that this radical proposal had little chance of adoption (it garnered only 27 percent of the vote). But progressives defended their approach with claims that they were "really" helping the president, though they harshly criticized Clinton's plan for retaining private insurance. By mobilizing to demand a pure measure, activists explained, they would counter conservative attacks on all reform and create "space" in the center for Clinton's efforts.
Yet if this energy had been mobilized directly for the Clinton plan (with those volunteers organizing rallies or circulating petitions), Feinstein might not have dared abandon it, and it might have survived. The "space" that progressives created was the running room for Feinstein to abandon Clinton and universal coverage. A President is constrained by his/her times and his/her Congress (and the Courts). Going Lefty McLeftish on a Democratic president too often gets us no loaf at all. Key Events for GHWB: GHWB gave us Clarence Thomas. He gave us a stepped-up drug war. He vetoed a raise to the minimum wage (and signed a smaller increase months later). He invaded Panama. He vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1990. Yeah Bubba was worse than Bush. (groucho-roll-eyes.gif) Cheers, Scott.
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Post #415,267
11/8/16 11:23:52 AM
11/8/16 11:23:52 AM
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Riddle me this. If "A President is constrained by his/her times ..."
How is that Clinton got NAFTA through when GHWB couldn't?
bcnu, Mikem
I think religion should be treated with ridicule, hatred and contempt. And I claim that right. Christopher Hitchens.
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Post #415,272
11/8/16 11:56:11 AM
11/8/16 11:56:11 AM
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NAFTA wasn't just one person pushing/stopping it.
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1992-12-18/news/1992353055_1_treaty-renegotiate-clintonBush signs North American trade pact Clinton says he won't renegotiate December 18, 1992|By Gilbert A. Lewthwaite | Gilbert A. Lewthwaite,Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- President Bush signed the North American Free Trade Agreement yesterday, and his successor-in-waiting Bill Clinton immediately announced that he would not seek the treaty's renegotiation.
Mr. Clinton, in a statement issued in Little Rock, Ark., said the signing represented "an important step" toward the economic integration of North America. He repeated his campaign assertion that there would have to be new job and environmental protections, and safeguards against sudden trade "surges," but these could be settled without renegotiating the treaty with Mexico and Canada before he submitted implementing legislation.
"I will pursue those other things that I think need to be done in the public interest, then I will prepare implementing legislation and try to pass it in Congress," he said.
His new administration would also take domestic action on assisting workers, protecting the U.S. environment, helping farmers, encouraging public participation in consideration of the agreement and closing loopholes for foreign workers, he said.
"I believe these steps do not require renegotiation of NAFTA," said Mr. Clinton, promising to work closely with the two neighboring governments and with congress to "move this process forward."
[...]
Mr. Bush's action yesterday fulfilled the requirements of the "fast-track" legislative process, under which Congress can now only vote the agreement up or down. It cannot change the signed document.
Mr. Bush had to allow Congress 90 days to consider the agreement before signing. Yesterday was the first possible day for his signature. The clock will start ticking again when Mr. Clinton submits implementing legislation to make the necessary changes in U.S. law and tariffs required by the treaty. There is no deadline for Mr. Clinton to take this action, but once he does Congress will have up to 90 legislative days to vote up or down on the implementing legislation or change it.
The vote on the implementing legislation will ratify the treaty, which is due to go into effect Jan. 1, 1994. Clinton signed the enabling legislation in December 1993: When I affix my signature to the NAFTA legislation a few moments from now, I do so with this pledge: To the men and women of our country who were afraid of these changes and found in their opposition to NAFTA an expression of that fear—what I thought was a wrong expression and what I know was a wrong expression but nonetheless represented legitimate fears—the gains from this agreement will be your gains, too.
I ask those who opposed NAFTA to work with us to guarantee that the labor and side agreements are enforced, and I call on all of us who believe in NAFTA to join with me to urge the Congress to create the world's best worker training and retraining system. We owe it to the business community as well as to the working men and women of this country. It means greater productivity, lower unemployment, greater worker efficiency, and higher wages and greater security for our people. We have to do that.
We seek a new and more open global trading system not for its own sake but for our own sake. Good jobs, rewarding careers, broadened horizons for the middle class Americans can only be secured by expanding exports and global growth. For too long our step has been unsteady as the ground has shifted beneath our feet. Today, as I sign the North American Free Trade Agreement into law and call for further progress on GATT, I believe we have found our footing. And I ask all of you to be steady, to recognize that there is no turning back from the world of today and tomorrow. We must face the challenges, embrace them with confidence, deal with the problems honestly and openly, and make this world work for all of us. America is where it should be, in the lead, setting the pace, showing the confidence that all of us need to face tomorrow. We are ready to compete, and we can win. (Emphasis added.) Did Congress do that? Not that I recall. NAFTA was a GOP idea. GHWB signed it - it's kinda hard for him to see it enacted when he signed it, as a lame duck a few weeks before he left office. Bill seemed to try to use it to help people who were already being affected by increased global trade - not a bad idea. Was there insufficient followup? Maybe. Did NAFTA destroy the US economy? No. Was it a boon for the US? No. FWIW. Cheers, Scott.
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Post #415,275
11/8/16 1:19:07 PM
11/8/16 1:19:07 PM
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700,000 of your countrymen would disagree about the destruction.
The historic agreement, signed just three years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, tore down trade barriers between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, making trade and investment easier for businesses without allowing for the cross-border movement of labor. Despite the agreement being considered a boon for Mexico, the country’s economy grew only 1.6 percent per capita on average between 1992 and 2007, The New York Times reported in 2009.
The EPI’s calculation of 682,900 jobs lost to NAFTA takes into account jobs created as a result, too. Last year, for example, U.S. exports to Mexico supported 791,900 jobs. It’s just that those jobs created pale in comparison to the 1.47 million U.S. jobs that would be necessary without the imports resulting from NAFTA, the report found. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/12/nafta-job-loss-trade-deficit-epi_n_859983.html
bcnu, Mikem
I think religion should be treated with ridicule, hatred and contempt. And I claim that right. Christopher Hitchens.
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Post #415,278
11/8/16 1:29:08 PM
11/8/16 1:29:08 PM
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"without allowing for the cross-border movement of labor" that is what was wrong with it
a truly capitalist society would allow capital to move freely. Those of us who are poor the only capital is their labor
always look out for number one and don't step in number two
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Post #415,279
11/8/16 1:32:15 PM
11/8/16 1:32:15 PM
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It, like everything else in this country, wasn't written for labor.
bcnu, Mikem
I think religion should be treated with ridicule, hatred and contempt. And I claim that right. Christopher Hitchens.
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Post #415,280
11/8/16 2:36:15 PM
11/8/16 2:47:41 PM
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Dunno.
How about a dispassionate look at the manufacturing employment numbers over a long period of time? Isn't manufacturing the thing that was "decimated" in the US by NAFTA? http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES3000000001[edit: Here's the graph - dunno how long it will last] If you look at the BLS data for Manufacturing Employment from, say, 1970 - 2016 you see a three obvious features: 1) lots of oscillations around a level of about 17.5 M (oscillations apparently due to the business cycle) 2) a dramatic fall from 2001 - 2010 3) a rise from 2010 - 2015 It's hard for me to see that you can tie the changes in manufacturing employment from 2001 on to NAFTA. NAFTA took effect on January 1, 1994. It took 7 years for it to have a big impact on manufacturing employment? Really? And manufacturing employment did go up from 1994 - 1998 according to those numbers. Maybe electing W, and the bursting of the Tech Bubble, and the freakout over 9/11 and the rise in oil prices, and a bunch of other things, had much more to do with fall in manufacturing employment than NAFTA. Maybe. (I haven't read your link yet, but I'm suspicious of too much precision in numbers like "682,900 jobs lost to NAFTA".) FWIW. Cheers, Scott.
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