NAFTA was really a swell idea ?

[kentuck]

Free trade would be America's salvation, we were told. We can compete with anyone on a level playing field? If they Chinese and Indonesians will work for .40 cents an hour, we will work for .35 cents an hour. Is that what they meant? Our wages have really skyrocketed since NAFTA, if anyone has noticed? NOT! Also, look at the trade deficit. This is one of the dumbest, most-stupidest, head-up-the-ass decisions ever made by any politicians. What say you?

[eleny]

1. You knew it would f things up

So did I.

[Jigarotta]

3. so did I.

railed against it from the up go. fucking sell out Mulroney.
but some of my 'repug' extended family (btw, they have six bathrooms for only two assholes) just celebrated getting cheap goods made in other countries and just don't 'get it'.

[marbuc]

8. Hey now, diversity is good

what I wouldn't do for more toilets... I would put padding on some, maybe some of that soft carpety stuff. I would get different colored toilet paper... oh the possibilities!!!!

[Jigarotta]

11. more concerned about the shit that comes out of their mouths.

conspicuous consumer idiots.

I'm not too popular in that family fold - I don't gaga over their new acquisitions like the SUV shiney chrome piece of wheels, old station wagon here that gets 'eyerolls' cuz we're not 'successful' enough by the prestige logos.

fuck 'em. I'd rather sit on a pumpkin all by myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion. think Blake said that.

[BrklynLiberal]

2. Evryone who said it would be a disaster was called a pessimist as best,

and Anti-American at worst.
It was a total sell out to the corporatists of the world.

[stevedeshazer]

4. Take a look at all who voted for and against in the Senate back then

November 20, 1993

Akaka (D-HI), Nay
Baucus (D-MT), Yea
Bennett (R-UT), Yea
Biden (D-DE), Yea
Bingaman (D-NM), Yea
Bond (R-MO), Yea
Boren (D-OK), Yea
Boxer (D-CA), Nay
Bradley (D-NJ), Yea
Breaux (D-LA), Yea
Brown (R-CO), Yea
Bryan (D-NV), Nay
Bumpers (D-AR), Yea
Burns (R-MT), Nay
Byrd (D-WV), Nay
Campbell (D-CO), Nay
Chafee (R-RI), Yea
Coats (R-IN), Yea
Cochran (R-MS), Yea
Cohen (R-ME), Nay
Conrad (D-ND), Nay
Coverdell (R-GA), Yea
Craig (R-ID), Nay
D'Amato (R-NY), Nay
Danforth (R-MO), Yea
Daschle (D-SD), Yea
DeConcini (D-AZ), Yea
Dodd (D-CT), Yea
Dole (R-KS), Yea
Domenici (R-NM), Yea
Dorgan (D-ND), Not Voting
Durenberger (R-MN), Yea
Exon (D-NE), Nay
Faircloth (R-NC), Nay
Feingold (D-WI), Nay
Feinstein (D-CA), Nay
Ford (D-KY), Nay
Glenn (D-OH), Nay
Gorton (R-WA), Yea
Graham (D-FL), Yea
Gramm (R-TX), Yea
Grassley (R-IA), Yea
Gregg (R-NH), Yea
Harkin (D-IA), Yea
Hatch (R-UT), Yea
Hatfield (R-OR), Yea
Heflin (D-AL), Nay
Helms (R-NC), Nay
Hollings (D-SC), Nay
Hutchison (R-TX), Yea
Inouye (D-HI), Nay
Jeffords (R-VT), Yea
Johnston (D-LA), Yea
Kassebaum (R-KS), Yea
Kempthorne (R-ID), Nay
Kennedy (D-MA), Yea
Kerrey (D-NE), Yea
Kerry (D-MA), Yea
Kohl (D-WI), Nay
Lautenberg (D-NJ), Nay
Leahy (D-VT), Yea
Levin (D-MI), Nay
Lieberman (D-CT), Yea
Lott (R-MS), Yea
Lugar (R-IN), Yea
Mack (R-FL), Yea
Mathews (D-TN), Yea
McCain (R-AZ), Yea
McConnell (R-KY), Yea
Metzenbaum (D-OH), Nay
Mikulski (D-MD), Nay
Mitchell (D-ME), Yea
Moseley-Braun (D-IL), Yea
Moynihan (D-NY), Nay
Murkowski (R-AK), Yea
Murray (D-WA), Yea
Nickles (R-OK), Yea
Nunn (D-GA), Yea
Packwood (R-OR), Yea
Pell (D-RI), Yea
Pressler (R-SD), Yea
Pryor (D-AR), Yea
Reid (D-NV), Nay
Riegle (D-MI), Nay
Robb (D-VA), Yea
Rockefeller (D-WV), Nay
Roth (R-DE), Yea
Sarbanes (D-MD), Nay
Sasser (D-TN), Nay
Shelby (D-AL), Nay
Simon (D-IL), Yea
Simpson (R-WY), Yea
Smith (R-NH), Nay
Specter (R-PA), Yea
Stevens (R-AK), Nay
Thurmond (R-SC), Nay
Wallop (R-WY), Yea
Warner (R-VA), Yea
Wellstone (D-MN), Nay
Wofford (D-PA), Nay

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=103&session=1&vote=00395

[CGrantt57]

5. What say you?

What say me?

I wonder how many people know who signed it into law?

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104566.html

Now do you know why it's a head-up-his-ass decision?

:eyes:

[Greyhound]

6. I do! I do!

Not saying to avoid the surprise for the short-term memory impaired among us, or the "good old days that never were" crowd.

[Idioteque]

7. NAFTA was and remains a good idea.

I suggest reading this article by Krugman.

[greendog]

15. That article was written 10 years ago...

...just 3 years after NAFTA's passage.

[FreakinDJ]

17. Sure if they had added the Human Rights clause

Sure if they had added the Human Rights clause

Gephardt was right

[stevedeshazer]

30. Evidently, it didn't affect you.

Congratulations.

[HughBeaumont]

31. And . . .if you're NOT a well-monied "industrialist"?

NAFTA at ten is and remains today a failure for the labor and environments of the middle classes of the nations involved. Of course, I don't think it's intent was ever to HELP the labor of the nations involved, but what American economic policy or theory ever DOES? Just love these Republitarian anti-labor viewpoints. Disgusting.

[Greyhound]

34. Your name certainly fits. n/t

[idlisambar]

41. you'll need to try harder than that (n/t)

[ToeBot]

44. Note the last line:

"A complete copy of this issue of The New Democrat or a subscription can be obtained by calling DLC Publications."

[HereSince1628]

9. It was a Clinton program, I expect Hillary is still fully behind it.

If there is still a United States at that point, the off-shoring is undoubtedly going to be a national issue in 2008.

[raysr]

12. It wasn't a Clinton Program,

it was a Reagan-Bush Program that Clinton signed and I absolutely was blown away when he signed a Republican Wish Bill into law.

[CGrantt57]

14. Wrong...wrong...wrong....

Please...go read.

Clinton honored the agreement, but, this frickin' meme that "Clinton brought us NAFTA" is just so much twaddle.

See my link above.

[raysr]

16. "Developed in the 1980's"

The impetus for NAFTA developed in the 1980s. Its roots lie in the United States-Canada Free Trade Agreement of 1988—implemented by the United States-Canada Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act (19 U.S.C.A. § 2112 note )—which, by the mid-1990s, had already eliminated most trade barriers between the United States and Canada. With the world gradually becoming divided into large regional trading blocs where goods and services move freely, as in the European Union, NAFTA's supporters saw the inclusion of Mexico as necessary for North America to compete internationally.

http://www.answers.com/nafta&r=67

[HereSince1628]

21. Yes, and it developed in parallel with the DLC's shift from labor

to corporate support. Indeed, NAFTA formed an harmonic resonance with corporate interests that the DLC not only fondly remembers but constantly works to maintain today. Just look at all the effect of that legacy on all the DLC free-traders still trying to tell us that selling our factories to China and India is a good thing. I understand this. Clinton matured in a south that spent the 60's and 70's developing at the expense of northern cities with higher wages. Clinton saw NAFTA as just another form of "jobs going south." Having been raised on the side benefiting from that it's easy to understand his inability to recognize the down-sides which were clear to Unions who had lived this on a regional scale.

Instead, Clinton saw it as consistent with the "need" for democrats to not concede corporate support. When Clinton was presented with the notion that he could do NAFTA and get corporate support he had no real objections.

He should have insisted on issues of labor and environmental standards. He was presented with plenty of arguments from US labor unions supporting that. But, he didn't. Clinton supported NAFTA over legitimate objections from labor that now have turned out to be true. He presented democrats with fantasies about how useful it would be as a tool of international development even as it improved everyone's economies. He not only signed NAFTA, he worked to sell it.

The orchard he made possible is bearing bitter fruit.

[Ksec]

23. NAFTA was a repuke issue that Clinton adopted

He thought it would make repukes less viscious towards him. It didnt.

Same as welfare reform. Repuke issues adopted by Clinton.

[kentuck]

24. He succumbed...

And so did Biden, Kennedy, Kerry, and others. It's difficult to say it was a wise vote, looking back.

[HereSince1628]

25. Clinton's signature is on it. History ain't gonna change that

and if the DLC's candidates are going to gain back labor in 2008 they are going to have to address a policy that has turned out badly asymmetric and needs serious reform.

[TheFarseer]

43. Now Canada and US free trade is a good idea

You can only have free and fair trade with countries that have a similar standard of living or it just won't work. That's what we're seeing now with Nafta and WTO.

[AJH032]

13. Not necessarily

For example, Hillary voted against CAFTA. Bill and Hillary do not share the same brain.

[SOS]

10. Hopefully when Obrador wins this year in Mexico

he will withdraw Mexico from Nafta. He has already said that it is unacceptable as it is now.
Neoliberalism is dead in Latin America.

[FreakinDJ]

18. Wages in Mexico WENT DOWN

Not up as a result of NAFTA

It was not a good idea for us or them

[HereSince1628]

26. That's the pattern. Right now in China wages and benefits are

being reduced under the pressure of the BIG BOX retailing bloc.

[hailmary]

19. As Thom Hartmann and Mike Malloy often say:

Bill Clinton betrayed us with NAFTA. Anyone ever hear him defend himself for that? ...or apologize?

[Jigarotta]

20. a swell idea for whom?

certainly not for the common folk just trying to get by selling their wares. Flood in imports by US subsidized into third word countries by a powerful back up. small Farmers lose, The small always lose. That's the program. It's intended. Then the small have to work for the Big factories, cuz mom and pop can't make it no more in this 'free trade' thingie that is so wonderful and work for the company store at slave wages.

That is what Free Trade is about, but I know most know that here. It's a free for all for the larded fat 2%-ers pigs.

[Ksec]

22. Dump NAFTA and bring back regulation

DeRegulation of many industries has been a disaster also. Nothing promised has happened. The only industry that has worked in dereg has been the Ma Bells. More choices and lower prices. (excluding cellular)

[manic expression]

27. It was smart for the rich

and terrible for everyone else. Just like the RW reactionaries wanted.

[doc03]

28. NAFTA is the biggest reason we lost in 2000

I live in eastern Ohio, and if not for NAFTA Gore would have won Ohio and WV in 2000. The first answer you get from any x-Democrat here is Clinton passed NAFTA. This drove thousands and thousands of Union people over to the Republicans. Even though the argument can be made that there were far more Republicans that voted for it in Congress it will always be blamed on Clinton. WV was always a sure thing for Democrats up until 2000, it has turned solid Republican since then. If we took that one little state in 2000 Gore would be in his second term today. Didn't Gore cast the deciding vote for NAFTA?

[Elwood P Dowd]

33. No, Gore didn't cast the deciding Senate vote

but he did debate Ross Perot on Larry King. He did do everything in his power to pass the implementing legislation. Bill Richardson, Robert Matsui, Tom Foley, and many other House Dems deserted us on NAFTA. It was dead there and never should have made it to the Senate. Clinton, Gore, and a few dozen Dems took the money and sold us down the river. Now you see the results.

[doc03]

37. I thought Gore had to cast his Vote as VP to put

the NAFTA vote over, I must have it confused with another vote. The results of NAFTA were predicted by Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan and both parties labeled them as nut cases.

on edit: There were many that predicted what would happen if we occupied Iraq and they were labeled as un-patriotic. The MSM keeps it quiet that Bush 41 predicted the mess too.

[Elwood P Dowd]

38. I think NAFTA got about 60 votes in the Senate.

Some of my friends labeled me a nut case for not supporting it, but their favorite words were protectionist, isolationist, or racist. Amazing that you can express an opinion based on research and economic facts, yet get blasted and called names by the uninformed. Same thing happens here on DU all the time.

[doc03]

39. NAFTA vote here

Senate

for 61----against 38
34 R---------------10 R
27 D---------------28 D
I'm guessing Gore was the 61st vote

House


for 234-----against 200
132 R---------------43 R
102 D---------------156 D
---------------------1 I

[Poiuyt]

40. That "giant sucking sound"

I'll admit, I thought Ross Perot was kind of nutty too. But he was right about NAFTA

[mdmc]

29. God Bless Bill Clinton

and the free trade Democratic nominee in 2008.:eyes:

[RB TexLa]

32. amen

[bemildred]

35. Good for who, that's the question.

It certainly wasn't good for ordinary American workers.
It's been great for multinational corporations.

[Elwood P Dowd]

36. NAFTA destroyed Mexican agriculture

Millions of workers and farmers who depended on the small to medium size farms were devastated when the giant agribusinesses took over. Since NAFTA, the number of Mexican citizens living below the poverty line has increased by 19 million. The NAFTA cheerleaders promised us a more prosperous Mexico with less poverty, less illegal immigration, and an expanding middle class. When you examine all the promises made about NAFTA, each and every one turned out to be 180 degrees out of phase.

[Triana]

42. I hated NAFTA and I damned Clinton for

supporting it. It's one of the dumbest things he ever did. And, I hate CAFTA too. Same reasons.