Making Trade Policies Work For American Families, Not Just What Romney Thinks Of As "People"

I really did like Bill Clinton on a personal level. His love of music and the music business was completely endearing to me at the time and, although I assiduously avoid Washington, was happy to come to a state dinner he invited me to-- just because it was him. Politically, on the other hand, he was way too conservative for me after he lost his first try at a gubernatorial reelection in 1980-- the country's youngest ever ex-governor. No one was ever able to accuse him-- at least not honestly, which is never an impediment for Republicans of course-- of being a liberal again. And almost the first thing he did on winning the White House was hire a then unknown Chicago thug, Rahm Emanuel, to kick the shit out of enough Democrats in Congress to pass George H.W. Bush's failed NAFTA legislation.



NAFTA was devastating to the American middle class and the net result was the loss of over a million jobs. It may have been a great policy for worldwide capital-- who Clinton (like all the post-Roosevelt presidents) served slavishly-- but it was a disaster for this country, particularly for working families in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana and California. WTO, GATT, giving China most favored nation status all conspired to hollow out the American economy. One would have hoped Democratic presidents would stop it. Clinton certainly never did-- quite the contrary-- and Obama, is every bit as terrible.



Lately he's cynically called the devastating trade legislation he and Boehner are trying to pass "job creation bills." It's things like this that make progressives say Obama is the same as Bush. Believe me, fair trade proponents like George Miller (D-CA)-- see video below-- have made sure Obama knows how catastrophic the Colombia "free" trade agreement is. This awful bill be sail through the House of Lords. Are there enough Democrats in the House willing to stand up to Obama and stop this thing in the House? I doubt it though labor-allied Democrats and some Tea Party conservatives still oppose the trade agreements, and still more Tea Party members staunchly oppose Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) to workers whose jobs are sent abroad by the trade pacts.

[E]ven if both chambers do agree to extend TAA to laid-off workers as part of the trade deals, Congress would still have to pass a separate appropriations bill to ensure that the money actually makes it out the door. And in a political environment dominated by harsh spending cuts, Democrats view that prospect as extremely unlikely.



"The TAA, even if it gets authorized, isn't going to get appropriated," Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) told HuffPost. "Have you ever met a Republican freshman in favor of appropriating TAA?"



House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) also pushed back against the trade agreements in an interview last week with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell.



"The White House may support it, but the Congress may have a different view," Pelosi said, adding that it's "debatable" whether the trade deals will create U.S. jobs.



Based on official estimates from the U.S. International Trade Council, economist Robert Shaw of the Economic Policy Institute expects the Colombia and South Korea trade pacts to send about 200,000 U.S. jobs abroad.

This week the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) pointed out that the U.S. international trade deficit in goods and services increased to $53.1 billion in June and that the goods deficit with China increased to $26.7 billion during that period. That organizations Executive Director, Scott Paul, was blunt:

"A rising trade deficit is not the prescription for job creation in America. The June trade deficit exceeded virtually every estimate and is further proof that our economy is falling behind. I'm particularly concerned by the rising trade deficit with China. Unless we achieve a major rebalancing with China, our manufacturing sector will continue to experience long-term challenges. China has taken sporadic baby steps to increase the value of the Yuan, when what we need is a revaluation of at least 30 percent. Unless the Obama Administration gets tougher with China, we'll continue to see high trade deficits and anemic job growth.



"Congress also needs to step up to the plate. Cracking down on unfair trade practices-- including currency manipulation-- should be at the top of the trade agenda. Instead, it's been sidelined and there are no clear indications from House or Senate leaders that it is a legislative priority. That's why our activists are letting lawmakers know that we expect swift action on China's currency manipulation. If Congress wants to get serious about job creation, it will pass this bipartisan legislation."

Obama's reelection-- if he needs the Democratic base to turn out-- could be riding on his ability to address the unemployment crisis. So far he's shown no inclination to do so. Last week Joan McCarter outlined how he-- and the Democrats in Congress-- could go about it.

Just 50 percent of voters believe President Obama is working to create manufacturing jobs, a loss of 11 percent from when the same question was asked last year. Congress, however, fares much worse: 41 percent think Democrats are helping, and only 32 percent think Republicans are helping. But 86 percent of Americans want a national manufacturing strategy "to make sure that economic, tax, labor and trade policies in this country work together to help support manufacturing."



Obama could take that advantage and use it to push a strong manufacturing jobs program. There are policies that could be pursued right now [pdf], policies that the White House needs to start pushing hard in its "pivot to jobs" for the national economy, but also to do one key thing politically: put Congressional Republicans in conflict with their base over jobs. The desire to "make it in America" again cuts across all party lines, and it would be a very hard message for Republicans to vote against. And political manna from heaven when they did fight it.

Here's the plan:

Expand American Production, Hiring, and Capital Expenditures



* Establish a manufacturing investment facility to leverage private capital for domestic manufacturing



* Expand and make permanent clean energy manufacturing tax credits and industrial energy efficiency grants to allow America to lead on green job creation



* Link federal loan guarantees for new energy infrastructure projects, including nuclear, wind, solar, other renewable energy sources, as well as the smart grid, with expanding domestic supply chains



* Adopt immediate, up-front expensing rules for plant and equipment to spur capital expenditures



* Enforce our trade-legal Buy America and other domestic procurement requirements to prevent leakage of tax dollars overseas



Invest in America’s Infrastructure



* Create a National Infrastructure Bank to finance high-value, long-term infrastructure projects, such as roads, bridges, high-speed rail, and other needs



* Enact a robust, multi-year surface transportation infrastructure program of at least $500 billion financed exclusively by fuel taxes



Enhance Our Workforce



* Refocus on technical and vocational education, providing a seamless program that bridges high school and post-secondary education to produce the next generation of highly skilled manufacturing workers



* Reward companies that are investing in effective skills and training programs for their workers



Make Trade Work for America



* Keep America’s trade laws strong and strictly enforced to provide a level playing field for our workers and businesses



* Penalize and deter mercantilist nations such as China that manipulate their exchange rates and implement non-tariff barriers to gain an unfair trade advantage



* As the Administration works to double exports, expand the goal to include balancing our trade account so that gains in exports are not overwhelmed by increased imports



Rebuild America’s Innovation Base



* Make permanent the research and development tax credit and enhance it to incentivize commercialization and production in America



* Focus federal investments in new technology and workforce training on promoting regional clusters of innovation, learning and production

UPDATE: Norman Solomon Rejects Conventional "Wisdom" From Both Party Establishments



This morning Blue America-endorsed congressional candidate Norman Solomon (D-CA) penned an OpEd for the Marin Independent Journal in his home county. He showed this overwhelmingly blue district (Obama won with 76%) that he's not planning on being a mouthpiece for either party establishment-- especially not when it comes to the well-being on his constituents.

The negative trends in the Nation's Capital are mostly due to extreme GOP ideologues in Congress. But they've been enabled by too many Democrats who keep giving ground while Republican leaders refuse to give an inch.



Many a political truth can be spoken in jest, and that was the case with a mock news item that appeared in The Onion last week.



"A day after signing legislation that raised the government debt ceiling and authorized steep budget cuts," the satirical magazine reported, "President Obama thanked Democrats as well as Democrats for their willingness to make tough, but necessary, concessions during negotiations."



The Onion went on: "Obama added that while it may look ugly at times, politics is about Democrats giving up what they want, as well as Democrats giving up what they want, until an agreement can ultimately be reached."



Compromise is one thing, but capitulation is another-- especially when core principles of decency and fairness are at stake.



We must stand our ground on behalf of seniors, children, the disabled and other vulnerable Americans. All the rhetoric about "shared sacrifice" rings hollow when the vast majority of us are being sacrificed to the financial benefit of big banks and large corporations.



There are plenty of sensible and effective ways to reduce the deficit-- including a transaction tax on Wall Street, closure of tax loopholes for big companies, an end to the Bush tax cuts for the very wealthy and a major reduction in the military budget.



Instead, the bipartisan dealmakers in Washington are slashing the safety net that's essential for vast numbers of Americans.



One of the most dangerous aspects of the recent budget deal is that it explicitly sets the stage for future actions to undermine Medicare. This scenario strikes at the heart of precious values. I'm committed to defending Social Security and Medicare on the campaign trail and as a member of Congress.



I fully agree with Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey's explanation for why she voted against the new budget deal.



Woolsey pointed out that the deal "puts virtually the entire burden on working families and the middle class while asking nothing from billionaires, millionaires and companies that send jobs overseas."



In Washington, job one should be creating jobs. And that won't happen by continuing to give tax cuts to the wealthy while imposing benefit cuts on the rest of us.



Corporations are sitting on huge quantities of cash. But rather than expanding the workforce, they're hoarding the money-- and stretching workers in the name of "productivity"-- while often posting record profits.



Three years ago, on this page, I wrote a column opposing the Wall Street bank bailout then being debated in Congress. Unfortunately, my concerns were borne out by later events.



Banks took the bailout money and largely used it to buy other banks-- instead of making loans to small businesses and helping homeowners keep their homes.



With the new budget deal, Congress again acted in the financial interests of the rich instead of the vast majority of us.



With chronic unemployment at historic highs and personal savings in the tank, fewer and fewer Americans have the buying power that can pull the economy out of its deep ravine.

Call me old-fashioned, but I believe in the vital lessons of the New Deal. Many millions of good jobs must be created-- and that will require well-funded federal jobs programs on a large scale.



Trickle-down economics, relying on the tender mercies of powerful corporations, won't get it done.

Nepal-- An Unhappy Model For The Republican Party? Or China?

Last month I was in Nepal and writing about how deplorable their system of aviation is... as well as their environmental controls and food safety regulatory systems. Their capital, according to the UN, is now the most polluted city on earth; it was practically pristine the first time I visited. And it is so dangerous to fly on their airlines or land at their airports that you have to take those considerations into your plans. Recently the national carrier sacrificed two goats on the tarmac in the hopes it would help get a malfunctioning plane to take off. If the Republicans keep up their Terrible-Twos kind of behavior, this country will grow more and more backward and "catch up" with Nepal... maybe soon. In fact, yesterday we hear that their latest fit goes beyond taking the debt ceiling (and economy) hostage to their petulant and unpopular demands to gut Social Security and Medicare and into the realm of air safety. Now they're threatening to defund the Federal Aviation Administration if they don't get their way on their latest attack on unions. And it could shut down... tomorrow! Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says the government will lose about $200 million a week in airline ticket taxes and that $2.5 billion in airport construction projects will come to a halt if Republican anarchists force the Federal Aviation Administration to shut down.

The Federal Aviation Administration could shut down on Friday because House Republicans are tying its funding to an anti-democratic (note the small "d") provision to hinder union organizing. The anti-union provision is not included in the Senate bill, and President Obama has said he might veto it. If they don't reach an agreement, the FAA's operating authority expires on Friday and it shuts down.

This is the right-wing's idea of governance-- destroy everything if you can't get your way. They're a scourge on humanity and they're always on the wrong side of history.

Only tangentially related-- after all, China is right over the Himalayas from Nepal now that they've absorbed Tibet-- I can't help bringing up China as an economic model for America, as has been publicly suggested by two of the most extreme Republican reactionaries in the Senate, Pat Toomey (PA) and Ron Johnson (WI), each of whom benefited from illegal campaign contributions from China that were funneled through the Chamber of Commerce last year. Yesterday Bird Abroad suggested that we might as well forget about counterfeit handbags from China because now there's a whole counterfeit Apple store there. I wonder if Ron Johnson is an investor in what he insists proudly is the remarkable and rapid change in the world’s fastest growing economy.

[W]hen we strolled down a street a few blocks from our house a couple weeks ago, I was only sort of surprised to see this new place, one that any American of my generation can probably recognize instantaneously:

It's an Apple Store!

Or is it?

RP and I went inside and poked around. They looked like Apple products. It looked like an Apple store. It had the classic Apple store winding staircase and weird upstairs sitting area. The employees were even wearing those blue t-shirts with the chunky Apple name tags around their necks... [T]his was a total Apple store ripoff. A beautiful ripoff-- a brilliant one-- the best ripoff store we had ever seen (and we see them every day). But some things were just not right: the stairs were poorly made. The walls hadn’t been painted properly.

Apple never writes “Apple Store” on it’s signs-- it just puts up the glowing, iconic fruit.

The name tags around the necks of the friendly salespeople didn’t actually have names on them-- just an Apple logo and the anonymous designation "Staff." And of course, Apple’s own website will tell you that they only have a few stores in Beijing and Shanghai, opened only recently; Apple famously opens new stores painstakingly, presumably to assure impeccable standards and lots of customer demand.

Is this store a copy of one of those in Beijing? A copy of a copy in another Chinese city? A copy of a copy of a copy?! While you’re pondering that, bear in mind: this is a near-perfect ripoff of a store selling products that were almost unknown when we first came to China. My white MacBook was likely to draw only blank stares or furrowed brows as I sat gnashing my teeth trying in vain to get a piece of Chinese software to run on it.

Being the curious types that we are, we struck up some conversation with these salespeople who, hand to God, all genuinely think they work for Apple. I tried to imagine the training that they went to when they were hired, in which they were pitched some big speech about how they were working for this innovative, global company-- when really they’re just filling the pockets of some shyster living in a prefab mansion outside the city by standing around a fake store disinterestedly selling what may or may not be actual Apple products that fell off the back of a truck somewhere.


And the best part? A ten minute walk around the corner revealed not one, but TWO more rip-off Apple stores.

In Kunming!

And the White House responded to the Republican tactics on closing down the FAA:

The Administration strongly supports passage of a clean extension of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) programs, as the Congress has done 20 times without controversy, in order to allow bipartisan, bicameral negotiations to continue on a full reauthorization.

H.R. 2553 includes controversial provisions that, because they have not been negotiated, needlessly threaten critical FAA programs and jeopardize thousands of public and private sector jobs. Without timely passage of a clean extension, all of FAA’s capital accounts (Grants-in-Aid for Airports, Facilities and Equipment, and Research, Engineering, and Development) would be shut down, and approximately 4,000 employees would be furloughed. FAA’s ability to award new grants, including for infrastructure upgrades at airports across the country, as well as to move forward with vital testing and implementation of the Next Generation air traffic control system, would come to a stop.

After the debate yesterday, the Democrats offered an alternative measure that "prohibits air carriers from charging a fee for four or fewer items of baggage checked by a member of the Armed Forces who is traveling in scheduled air transportation on official military duty." This is a real problem, as we saw last month when Delta was caught ripping off active duty servicemembers again. Although every Democrat voted for it, so few Republicans crossed the aisle-- just 3-- that it was defeated 187-233. The Republicans then went on to ram through their crazy turn-America-into-a-third-world-hellhole bill. It passed 243-177, only 6 Republicans with the guys to oppose Boehner and Cantor. Thirteen of the worst Democrats let their freak flags fly and voted with the GOP, reactionary a-holes like John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA), Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK), Joe Donnelly (Blue Dog-IN), and Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC).

Whose Side Is Ron Johnson On?

During his campaign for the Senate last year, Wisconsin right-wing extremist and multimillionaire Ron Johnson made it clear his vision of America was made in China. And, as you can see here, after China itself got one of several senators, Johnson promised the people of Wisconsin to put his finances into a blind trust after news broke that he-- with his massive holdings of BP stock in his portfolio-- had been defending the company on the campaign trail. That was a year ago this week. He still hasn't done so. Instead, he gave himself a $10 million bonus check after the campaign, an arrangement that more than covers, quite illegally, the millions of his own money he spent on his campaign.

But Johnson is far from the first U.S. Senator who has put his own financial interests ahead of his constituents-- nor is he the first right-wing fanatic to put another country's interests ahead of the U.S.'s. As I was flying from Bangkok to Hong Kong this morning, I was reading in Glen Yeadon's Nazi Hydra in America about two right-wing Members of Congress, Mississippi Democrat John Rankin, a dedicated KKK sociopath, and Michigan Republican George Dondero, who served the interests of the Nazis even after the U.S. military defeated Germany! Both were rabid anti-Semites.

First a little background from Yeadon, writing about the demise of the country's intelligence service, the OSS, at the hands of the triumphant Republican rightists in the 1946 congressional elections.

In March 1946 while McCormack struggled for funding from congress, the chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee charged that a person with strong Soviet leanings had joined the State Department. McCormack demanded a retraction. Instead, congress cut the entire appropriation for his unit. The pro-fascist faction within the State Department had convinced enough influential congressmen that ex-OSS officers were far to the left and committed to a socialization of America and the redistribution of wealth on a global basis.

By mid 1946, Donovan’s OSS had been completely dismantled. The United States would be without an intelligence service. At first, it was suggested that private enterprise could provide the government with intelligence. A former OSS Deputy Director proposed to Watson of IBM the formation of a private intelligence service. The two men raised the initial venture capital. The venture was in vain as President Truman and congress created the CIA in 1947.

In the short space of a year, the government had dissolved the OSS only to recreate it under a new name. This wasn’t a case of a vacillating government. If President Truman had not signed the executive order dissolving the OSS, congress would simply have eliminated any funding for it as it did to the remnants of it in the State Department.

The disbanding of the OSS had an express purpose. The leftists within the OSS would serve as the sacrificial lambs to atone du Pont’s new feckless goddess on the altar of free enterprise. Those that had served their country gallantly during war and who were dedicated to stomping out the last vestige of fascism would now become victims to the fascists within the United States. The American industrialists who willingly supported Hitler during the war had to be protected... In 1946, the Republicans gained control of both chambers of congress. The stage was now set for a wholesale purging of the government of leftists who were dedicated to wiping out fascism.

... While there were members like Morgenthau in the Truman administration who carried on the fight for justice, the Nazis had powerful friends in the halls of Congress to protect them. One such congressman was John Rankin. Excerpts from his speech to the House of Representatives on November 27, 1947 follows below:

"What is taking place at Nuremberg, Germany, is a disgrace to the United States. Every other country has now washed its hands and withdrawn from this Saturalia of persecution. But a racial minority, two and half years after the war closed, are in Nuremberg not only hanging German soldiers but trying German businessmen in the name of the United States."

Note Rankin used the words racial minority to refer to Jews in the above quote. Rankin’s racism and pro-fascist allegiance was already presented in previous chapters. Rankin was not alone in Congress in opposing the trials. George Dondero, Republican representative from Michigan, was another. Dondero was a former mayor of Royal Oak, Michigan, before being elected to the House. Royal Oak was the home of the pro-Nazi priest Father Coughlin and a hotbed for pro-Nazi groups. Dondero described the trials as a result of Jewish and communist treachery. He singled out ten lawyers from the I.G. Farben case including the leading prosecutor Josiah DuBois whom he called a known left-winger from the Treasury Department who had been a student of the Communist Party. Dondero became something of an art critic in the late 1940s and 1950s, dismissing modern art as communist inspired. He labored to censor the worked of abstract artists.

Also, based in Dondero’s district was Dow Chemical. Dow had several cartel arrangements with I.G. Farben and feared that the trial could lead to exposing its full collaboration with I.G and the Nazis.

Today Dondero has a high school named after him in Royal Oak, Michigan. He's even better known as a critic of modern art than as an agent of fascism; same mentality though. According to Wikipedia he asserted that "Cubism aims to destroy by designed disorder... Dadaism aims to destroy by ridicule... Abstractionism aims to destroy by the creation of brainstorms" (CR 16 August 1949; 81st Congress 1st Session, Speech in US House of Representatives). In 1952, Dondero went so far as to tell Congress that modern art was, in fact, a conspiracy by Moscow to spread communism in the United States. This speech won him the International Fine Arts Council's Gold Medal of Honor for "dedicated service to American Art." Rankin remained the most outspoken racist and anti-Semitic fanatic in Congress until he was finally defeated by Thomas Abernathy in 1952.

Ron Johnson is just a freshman, but I suspect he will do a lot more harm than either Dondero or Rankin.

The Chinese Century?

Here in Asia, you can't help hearing questions about what happens when China overtakes the U.S. as the world's greatest economic superpower. No one here doubts that the 21st century is the Chinese Century. And they sure talk about it enough... all the time. The BBC did a series recently. Above is one episode. I watched another one yesterday that takes place in Brazil and Ohio.

Justin Rowlatt crosses Brazil and the United States on an epic journey as he continues to investigate the spread of Chinese influence around the planet. In Rio, local industries, including bikini factories, are threatened by cheap Chinese imports, and in the Amazon, Justin witnesses the phenomenal impact of the Chinese hunger for resources on the indigenous people and the environment. In the US, from California to the rust belt, Justin encounters the rising undercurrent of American fury over their own decline in the face of competition from China.

Rowlatt interviewed Ohio Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan, a leader in the lonely fight against China's relentless takeover of the American economy. Takeover? Sure... that's exactly what we're talking about. Every time you walk into a WalMart you're selling out your own country and the future of your offspring. It's easy enough to blame China's avarice for their increasing economic power. But that doesn't really make a lot of sense. China's just doing what American capitalists taught them to do. And blaming them? If you want to blame anyone, it's been our own elites that have sold us out.

Both party establishments, of course. Oh, not Tim Ryan, but the political leaders of both parties-- both the Bushes and Clinton, for example, have been hard at work undermining America and strengthening China for decades. Last year Ryan's Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act, which would authorize the Commerce Department to levy tariffs on products imported from countries (China) that undervalue their currency passed 348-79. Ryan:

I've spent nearly six years pushing to get this bipartisan bill passed, and today's vote sends a strong signal to the U.S. manufacturing industry that Congress will NOT give up fighting on behalf of American jobs. If this risks upsetting the People's Republic of China, so be it. Whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, a liberal or a conservative-- millions of good-paying jobs have been lost and hundreds of thousands of families across this country have suffered as a result of China's unlawful trade policies.

Three of Ryan's Ohio Democratic colleagues who voted for the bill-- John Boccieri, Kathy Dahlkemper and Charlie Wilson-- were all defeated last November. And they were defeated with campaign funds illegally injected into the electoral system from China by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The U.S. doesn't have the will or energy to defend itself economically or even to defend its own political system. Ryan's bill died in the Senate, where China financed the campaigns of several of its most notorious apologists (or, less charitably, agents), including Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Ron Johnson (R-WI).