- Jun 6, 2007
- 852
- 483
- 910
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran an editorial article by former Republican Congressman Jeb Hensarling, the subject matter of the article is critically important for America because it would impact the income of many Americans and this viewpoint of Jeb is held by many in the Republican Party and with the monied interest behind this point of view it is likely to become the actual policy agenda of the Republican Party and therefore likely to become the policy of the United States government. The title of the article was "GOP Needs to Leave Trump Behind on Trade", it was a condemnation of Trump's values that "freed trade is not good trade if it results in unfair trade and trade with a country that results in an extreme trade deficit to the United States is unfair trade"! I am not a fan of Donald Trump I would even go as far as to say I think Mr. Trump has been the most destructive American citizen in its 246 year history with respect to harming the country and he is in a league of his own with this rating; nevertheless, Mr. Trump is absolutely right with his values on trade, it is a bad system we have had for the last fifty years and the American government is woefully failing the American people with its trade policy! One major reason why today alarm bells should be ringing for the American people is because what Mr. Hensarling is advocating for was the policy of the Republican Party prior to Donald Trump coming on the scene and it was not only a policy it was their core policy and to violate it was the worst Party blasphemy; the policy being total and complete free trade is the right policy and any type of regulation protecting any business or industry is bad policy - O Republicans might have agreed with a little protectionism here and there but it was only for practical considerations their principles were that the world should be one big free trade zone and businesses anywhere in the world should have to compete in this world market. In part the alarm should be going off because this "Free Trade Be Advanced, American Worker Be Sacrificed" policy is poised to become more embedded in America there is a movement to do away with the tariffs on Chinese imports that protect some American manufacturers and try to get China to correct its large trade imbalance with America and there is a movement to get America to join the Trans Pacific Partnership which would obstruct the United States from being able to use tariffs and quotas to protect domestic manufacturers! In this article, Jeb lays out a case for going back to that failed "Free Trade at the Expense of the American Worker" policy but his case is flawed!
It needs to be said that what America needs is a Well Thought Out, Fully Considered All Considerations and Responsible policy to protect our domestic industries not this ad hoc, hope and a prayer, local groups have to scramble for help from Washington structure that America has today! One argument of Mr. Hensarling is that these tariffs act as a tax on American families because the businesses that are the recipients of these tariff's pass on the tariff cost in the form of higher prices for their goods which the American consumer, the American family, pays. Mr. Hensarling is absolutely one-hundred percent right, but this outcome is only because the system doesn't work right, the system America's laws should be set up to protect domestic industries where the price of their product can support middle class jobs to produce such products whether it be to protect sixty to seventy percent of an industry for American manufacturers. Then end users in America wouldn't be paying this tariff because they would be buying their product from domestic manufacturers who don't pay any tariffs. Further, you probably wouldn't even need to have tariff's to protect domestic manufacturers because you could do it by quotas that is limiting the number of imports by foreign manufacturers. Mr. Hensarling would likely reply you would often still get American families paying more for their products because domestic manufacturers would charge more. That may be the case because domestic manufacturers have to pay a higher wage to their workers because America has a higher cost of living, a higher facility costs, a higher regulatory costs, etc.; but, Americans should be okay with that because people have a moral and ethical duty to try to make their country work for all the citizens of their country and that duty would include paying higher prices for goods so your neighbor can earn a livable wage. It also need to be remembered that our country is really scarred and functionally impaired by federal government policies over the past fifty years which have undermined and been hostile to domestic manufacturing; if the government reversed policy and protected domestic industries the country would see more people going into professions for such industries and more businesses coming into existence to support such industries which would likely lower costs so overall across our society the resulting higher price differential would not be a major problem.
Another argument of Mr. Hensarling is that today the concern of the American blue collar worker is not the loss of their job to foreign competition but rather to the loss of their standard of living due to inflation. By and large I don't think Mr. Hensarling's assessment is accurate here I suspect if polls were taken of union leaders for blue collar workers these leaders would convey a clear and strong concern about losing jobs to foreign competition. However, Mr. Hensarling would probably be accurate with the assessment that the greater concern of blue collar workers today is the loss of buying power of their paychecks due to inflation; but the current inflation problem shouldn't be conflated with the issue of what should America's policy be on trade for the current inflation problem didn't begin until March of 2021 which would be way after President Trump began championing fair trade with concrete government policy! With his argument here Mr. Hensarling entirely misses the critically important point which is not whether America's blue collar jobs are currently under threat but rather that there isn't enough of these blue collar middle class jobs. If America's trade policy was made a good policy America would have less of these "not a full day of work" and "gig economy" jobs and more stable middle class income jobs! Another point of Mr. Hensarling and many Unrestricted Free Trade advocates argue this is that big trade deficits are a misleading statistics and they are not a bad thing. Well from each of two perspectives I would argue these people are wrong. First, what is this foreign country going to do with hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars of wealth they are accumulating in part they buy U.S. land and U.S. companies and this is bad for the American people's interest. There has been numerous instances of Chinese companies buying U.S. companies and taking the technology from the U.S. companies and transferring it to foreign subsidiaries and laying off the U.S. workforce; these are bad outcomes!
Secondly, America has a shortage of livable wage jobs, there is no trees that grow dollars which the American government can harvest and transfer to American employers to pay such wages. The most prudent and viable option for America is to view these crazy big trade deficits as income opportunities for U.S. manufacturers and suppliers, the federal government has to protect some of those domestic industries that are losing tens of billions of dollars to foreign competition and the increased sale revenue will be steered to domestic suppliers in these industries and in part will end up as middle class wages for these suppliers workers!
Mr. Hensarling ends his article trying to make the case that free trade is a right that stems from substantive right of liberty guaranteed in the Constitution; I could take a cheap shot at this Republican referencing the Dobbs case but today I will exhibit nice behavior! To try to make the case that there is a right to free trade and this right belongs in the category of rights embodied in the right to free speech or the right to have free enterprise displays a lack of understanding of these rights. These rights are fundamental rights that a person is entitled to because they are a person they protect vital aspects of what it means to be and are entitled to as a human being. The right to free speech embodies the right to speak to protect oneself and to shape the world around oneself and the right to free enterprise embodies the right to engage in a business to generate income so one can obtain food and shelter and in reality live. Free trade meaning the right to trade with foreign entities holds no necessity for the human person; it is also interesting to note that back in the 1950's and 1960's domestic manufacturing in most industries dominated there wasn't a lot of foreign trade and one would be hard pressed to find respected commentators that would allege that American's constitutional rights were being violated by the lack of foreign trade. This writer is over sixty years old and lived in America his entire life and so I guess I can say I have a pretty good handle on the state of things in America and I one hundred percent believe this that America is going to continue to have major problems where its stability as a nation is in danger unless it permanently stops this "Unrestricted Free Trade" policy and fully adopts a policy that protects at least sixty percent of most domestic industries for domestic manufactures for industries whose prices of their products and services can support a work force with middle class wages! A citizenry isn't going to be happy with a nation unless the nation works for the citizenry and this Unrestricted Free Trade or Globalization policy this nation espouses doesn't work for the American citizenry!
It needs to be said that what America needs is a Well Thought Out, Fully Considered All Considerations and Responsible policy to protect our domestic industries not this ad hoc, hope and a prayer, local groups have to scramble for help from Washington structure that America has today! One argument of Mr. Hensarling is that these tariffs act as a tax on American families because the businesses that are the recipients of these tariff's pass on the tariff cost in the form of higher prices for their goods which the American consumer, the American family, pays. Mr. Hensarling is absolutely one-hundred percent right, but this outcome is only because the system doesn't work right, the system America's laws should be set up to protect domestic industries where the price of their product can support middle class jobs to produce such products whether it be to protect sixty to seventy percent of an industry for American manufacturers. Then end users in America wouldn't be paying this tariff because they would be buying their product from domestic manufacturers who don't pay any tariffs. Further, you probably wouldn't even need to have tariff's to protect domestic manufacturers because you could do it by quotas that is limiting the number of imports by foreign manufacturers. Mr. Hensarling would likely reply you would often still get American families paying more for their products because domestic manufacturers would charge more. That may be the case because domestic manufacturers have to pay a higher wage to their workers because America has a higher cost of living, a higher facility costs, a higher regulatory costs, etc.; but, Americans should be okay with that because people have a moral and ethical duty to try to make their country work for all the citizens of their country and that duty would include paying higher prices for goods so your neighbor can earn a livable wage. It also need to be remembered that our country is really scarred and functionally impaired by federal government policies over the past fifty years which have undermined and been hostile to domestic manufacturing; if the government reversed policy and protected domestic industries the country would see more people going into professions for such industries and more businesses coming into existence to support such industries which would likely lower costs so overall across our society the resulting higher price differential would not be a major problem.
Another argument of Mr. Hensarling is that today the concern of the American blue collar worker is not the loss of their job to foreign competition but rather to the loss of their standard of living due to inflation. By and large I don't think Mr. Hensarling's assessment is accurate here I suspect if polls were taken of union leaders for blue collar workers these leaders would convey a clear and strong concern about losing jobs to foreign competition. However, Mr. Hensarling would probably be accurate with the assessment that the greater concern of blue collar workers today is the loss of buying power of their paychecks due to inflation; but the current inflation problem shouldn't be conflated with the issue of what should America's policy be on trade for the current inflation problem didn't begin until March of 2021 which would be way after President Trump began championing fair trade with concrete government policy! With his argument here Mr. Hensarling entirely misses the critically important point which is not whether America's blue collar jobs are currently under threat but rather that there isn't enough of these blue collar middle class jobs. If America's trade policy was made a good policy America would have less of these "not a full day of work" and "gig economy" jobs and more stable middle class income jobs! Another point of Mr. Hensarling and many Unrestricted Free Trade advocates argue this is that big trade deficits are a misleading statistics and they are not a bad thing. Well from each of two perspectives I would argue these people are wrong. First, what is this foreign country going to do with hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars of wealth they are accumulating in part they buy U.S. land and U.S. companies and this is bad for the American people's interest. There has been numerous instances of Chinese companies buying U.S. companies and taking the technology from the U.S. companies and transferring it to foreign subsidiaries and laying off the U.S. workforce; these are bad outcomes!
Secondly, America has a shortage of livable wage jobs, there is no trees that grow dollars which the American government can harvest and transfer to American employers to pay such wages. The most prudent and viable option for America is to view these crazy big trade deficits as income opportunities for U.S. manufacturers and suppliers, the federal government has to protect some of those domestic industries that are losing tens of billions of dollars to foreign competition and the increased sale revenue will be steered to domestic suppliers in these industries and in part will end up as middle class wages for these suppliers workers!
Mr. Hensarling ends his article trying to make the case that free trade is a right that stems from substantive right of liberty guaranteed in the Constitution; I could take a cheap shot at this Republican referencing the Dobbs case but today I will exhibit nice behavior! To try to make the case that there is a right to free trade and this right belongs in the category of rights embodied in the right to free speech or the right to have free enterprise displays a lack of understanding of these rights. These rights are fundamental rights that a person is entitled to because they are a person they protect vital aspects of what it means to be and are entitled to as a human being. The right to free speech embodies the right to speak to protect oneself and to shape the world around oneself and the right to free enterprise embodies the right to engage in a business to generate income so one can obtain food and shelter and in reality live. Free trade meaning the right to trade with foreign entities holds no necessity for the human person; it is also interesting to note that back in the 1950's and 1960's domestic manufacturing in most industries dominated there wasn't a lot of foreign trade and one would be hard pressed to find respected commentators that would allege that American's constitutional rights were being violated by the lack of foreign trade. This writer is over sixty years old and lived in America his entire life and so I guess I can say I have a pretty good handle on the state of things in America and I one hundred percent believe this that America is going to continue to have major problems where its stability as a nation is in danger unless it permanently stops this "Unrestricted Free Trade" policy and fully adopts a policy that protects at least sixty percent of most domestic industries for domestic manufactures for industries whose prices of their products and services can support a work force with middle class wages! A citizenry isn't going to be happy with a nation unless the nation works for the citizenry and this Unrestricted Free Trade or Globalization policy this nation espouses doesn't work for the American citizenry!
