New Deal/New Economy

[elleng]

'In recent weeks, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have pledged to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) if elected president. I share their concern for Americans who have lost their jobs to global competition. But here's a bigger idea: Let's renegotiate the social contract with America's workers.

The biggest reason many Americans are worried about their jobs is not what happened in the 1990s, but what this administration has done over the past seven years that has squeezed the middle class. Since 2001 the middle-class median annual income shrank by $1,000, health insurance premiums rose to more than $12,000 per year up from $6,230 and college costs increased 64%. The national debt also increased by $3.5 trillion.

In 1993, I was President Clinton's point man in ratifying Nafta. And, I am the first to admit, the fact that our party is still debating this trade agreement 15 years later is proof it hasn't lived up to its hopes. It is true that if we were to negotiate Nafta today, we'd insist on tough labor and environmental standards that never mattered to negotiators in the first Bush administration, who hammered the agreement together before Bill Clinton took office.

Yet Nafta is not the main reason workers today are hurting. Nor are new and improved trade agreements, and tougher trade enforcement, the whole answer. What we need now is an honest discussion about trade and the challenges and opportunities the new economy presents.' >>>

Rahm Emanuel



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120588246877846793.html

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Yes, NAFTA's Not The Worst Thing Hurting Workers Today

I suspect that Clinton's permanent "almost-free" trade status for China is probably the worst, with the systematic disembowelment of unions at number two.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Fuck off Rahm with your bullshit and lies.

You and the rest of the DLC were 100% gung ho on NAFTA and blaming bush the less stupid is bullshit and you know it. Your fawning support of the Washington Consensus neoliberal policies of the last 30 years are exactly why we are in the economic mess we are in right now. Your side has never demanded and still does not demand fair trade agreements, you don't even know what that means. Fuck off Rahm. When you DLC corporate shills say "let's renegotiate the social contract with America's workers" that can only mean another round of screwage. What did you have in mind this time?

Rahms bullshit 'no deal':

Mandatory high school and hope scholarships to make attending community college more affordable. Oh great. Low and lower middle income families already qualify for reasonable financial aide packages. Middle class and upper middle class families get stuck with funding those financial aide packages BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT HAS STEPPED OUT. Make tuition room and board a tax deductible expense for everyone. Better yet, you want a new deal? Universal education through university level would be a real new deal.

"Affordable health care" - of course, and Rahm's bold new deal is to expand SCHIP. No Rahm, a new deal would expand medicare to everyone. You don't even bother to address the healthcare costs for working families and the staggering burden imposed on the corporations that continue to struggle to provide decent health benefits.

Rahm wants to invest in green energy. Isn't that special. How about tax credits for every home owner who installs renewable green energy systems? We had that in the 70s and it jump started a solar industry. How about SIGNING ON TO KYOTO AND GETTING WITH THE PROGRAM? You want massive investment? Invest massively in public transportation so that people CAN STOP USING THEIR CARS.

And finally, and predictably, Rahm would like to create a new government individual savings program to "supplement, not supplant" Social Security. Fuck you Rahm. That is the heart of your Nude Deal, naked for all to see. We already have a multitude of government arranged individual savings accounts, all sorts of IRAs, 401Ks SEPs etc. Your bullshit is transparent. No wonder this was published in the Wall Street Journal. Yet another attempt to replace the real New Deal's core program with the holy grail of privatized social security - 300,000,000 management fees to Rahm's buddies on Wall Street.

No thanks Rahm. And Fuck Off.