I was gonna post that myself; glad you beat me to it. It basically makes the point I was trying to make yesterday better than I could.
uncwest's concerns about the political viability of lower trade barriers are legitimate, but could be overcome, I believe, if an administration was truly interested in moving forward on the issue. (I say administration, because the legislative branch is incapable of thinking of the good of the nation as a whole, and bound by nature to represent an agglomeration of small special interests rather than a larger public one.)
What it would take would be first, straight talk about just how much the US benefits from the current world system and thus just how much it is interest to preserve and strengthen it. second, straight talk about the positive sum nature of free trade. third, honesty about how rich we are as a country and thus how possible it is for us to afford a free trade policy, and even to afford compensation for the few losers such a policy would create. A small fraction of the money spent on the recent tax cuts, for example, could underwrite generous compensatory benefits for those who would lose jobs because of truly open US markets.
All this would require a combination of brains, pro-trade-ideology, a willingness to use government creatively in the public interest, and great political skills. It was tailor-made, in other words, for Bill Clinton, and his unwillingness to put much political capital behind such a project is a huge black mark on his presidency, IMHO.
tb@selfcenteredscumbag.com |
