A talking point on CAFTA to refute please.

[coloradodem2005]

I don't know the details, but the talking points the GOP is pushing says that on this deal, we already don't impose tariffs on imports, but our exports are subject to tariffs. Which would mean that CAFTA is very, very good for farmers.

Now, if that talking point is excessively misleading, obviously what i'm saying is wrong. But if there's a strong element of truth in it, then the democratic party has abandoned the progress Clinton gave them in order to pander to a union base that is fractured at best. Not the greatest strategic decision, no matter how much the liberal blogs beat their war drums.

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http://coloradopols.com/archives/2005/07/grange_revenge.html#comments

[Erika]

1. We will be buying ag products from who can produce them

the cheapest. One reason why my GOP delegation voted against Cafta. The Central American countries can produce the cheapest because of the low slave wages paid to their workers and lack of environmental concerns.

Our farmers will take a big hit.

[Tux]

2. Our answer

We are protectionists.

We want free and fair trade that can protect American employees from cheap labor, protects the American Dream for everyone in America, and protects families from financial hardships, increased abortions from lack of financial security, and increased divorses from lack of stable incomes.

[Tigress DEM]

5. Hmmmm.

I agree with not wanting the end results you describe, but I don't know if free and fair trade can accomplish that on its own without more policy changes.

America needs to look at the success of its population as a whole, not only the top corporations. If we enable full on corporate greed to be our only motivating factor, everyone loses.

I'm sure there are better ways to put a trade agreement together that doesn't hurt everyone except big money corporations -- even they will feel the pinch eventually when they have marginalized everyone who could possibly buy from them.

[Tux]

6. But

My previous post will show that Dems care. CAFTA will hurt. Once it does, using the type of arguements in my previous post, we can have people see that those agreements aren't in their best interests so they can be repealed. A real trade agreement that works for everyone must be in place.

[Elwood P Dowd]

3. Some of the CAFTA countries were granted 15 years to lower tariffs

Most of the agricultural input in CAFTA was written by lobbyists for giant agribusinesses, so very few regular farmers will realize any benefit. The CAFTA consumer market is smaller than that of Columbus, Ohio, so just how many farmers can expect to make any money off that? CAFTA countries are cheap labor markets, not consumer markets.

[wli]

4. what we need to do is organize a mega-AFL-CIO-like union

From all the computer programmers getting offshored to all the sharecroppers to all the burger flippers and pizza deliverers and gas station attendants and Wal-Mart cashiers, we need to get together and make a mega-AFL-CIO bigger than anything there's ever been.

Then we all go on strike and hold a 100 million person protest, demanding the resignation of the entire federal government and holding voter verified paper ballot elections, administered by union officials (possibly even videotaped!). Then the first act of the newly-elected Congress will probably be the revocation of corporate personhood, followed shortly by the repeal of CAFTA, NAFTA, and the PATRIOT Act, and the delivery of the entire current federal government to the Hague to stand trial for war crimes, along with declassifying every now-classified document and delivery of those documents to the International Criminal Court as evidence.

Or some similar fantasy that doesn't involve lots of brown people and poor people getting killed en masse by the BFEE.