Vermont, CAFTA, and milk for schools. Interesting op ed.

[madfloridian]

I never thought of this angle, how it would affect bulk purchases in areas like this. I think it is very interesting and telling how former Vermont governor Howard Dean worded his letter on the topic, and how present Governor Douglas worded his.

My Turn: How does CAFTA impact Vermonters

SNIP..."What if federal law forbade us to buy Vermont milk for our schools because it cost more than milk from Morocco?

This, and other similar situations could easily occur under CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which is already endorsed by our governor, without a sentence of public discussion.

By now, most people have heard of CAFTA. What many Vermonters may not know is that Gov. Jim Douglas has written a letter that binds the state of Vermont's Procurement and Legislative Authority to CAFTA along with other agreements which are currently being negotiated with Morocco, the countries of the Central American Common Market (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua) and the South African Customs Union (Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, and Swaziland).

Former Gov. Howard Dean issued a similar letter but Dean included the statement "Vermont law shall supersede any of these trade agreements." This retains our sovereignty, our ability to make "Vermont" decisions, for example, whether we should have programs such as "Buy Vermont Milk For Vermont Schools" or other types of programs that would keep our tax dollars in Vermont. Douglas' letter has no such language."END SNIP

I will bet we find out all kinds of little goodies like this that are not known now.

[realFedUp]

1. milk from Morocco.....

those aren't happy cows are they?

[5X]

2. "CAFTA lowers some US tariffis to Central America" from NPR

This is how NPR ended a report on the passage of CAFTA.

quite the simplification of a 2400 page treaty.

[Tesha]

3. What did you expect from National Propaganda for Republicans? (NT)

[madfloridian]

4. Wonder how or if this will affect purchases by schools, etc.?

It sounds like it takes away a lot of decision making power from the states.

[getmeouttahere]

5. All the more reason for boycotts/buy-cotts...

collectively we can make an impact, it will take some sacrifice, but what else can we do...

And yes, I'm going to keep saying this until it sinks in!