fresh voices from the front lines of change

Democracy

Health

Climate

Housing

Education

Rural

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) gave a speech yesterday describing his party's positions on jobs & the economy going into the fall election. Summary: Our economic policies destroyed the country’s economy and millions of lives, but it made a few of my buddies really REALLY rich, so let’s do more of it.

I write about the specifics of Boehner's call to return to disastrous trade policies below, but first I just have to say a few words about his economic ideas in general and how utterly wrong they are. In the speech Boehner said we have an "economy stalled by ‘stimulus’ spending." But according to FOX News' Wall Street Journal, yesterday the CBO reported that "the impact of the stimulus program estimated ... the plan lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.8 percentage points." In addition, the Washington Post reported, "The CBO said the act also increased the nation's gross domestic product by between 1.7 percent and 4.5 percent in the second quarter, indicating that the stimulus may have been the primary source of growth in the U.S. economy."

Boehner also said that "each dollar the government collects is taken directly out of the private sector." This is the old "taxes take money out of the economy" argument, which is intended to trick people into thinking that the money just disappears instead of being used to pay for the schools, courts, agencies and infrastructure that enable businesses to thrive and drive the country's prosperity. If you think that President Eisenhower's spending on the Interstate Highway System "took money out of the economy" you really need to see someone about your problems and not take them out of the rest of us.

Taking direct shots at democracy, Boehner complained about "big government" -- namely We, the People making decisions instead of a few wealthy corporate owners making decisions for us -- and said, "As Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana, recently said, "You'd really be amazed at how much government you'd never miss."

Boehner on Trade

Boehner wants to go back to the trade policies that brought us massive job losses and trade deficits. In the speech he called for “passing free-trade agreements” with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. He doesn’t mention what is IN these agreements, only calls for passing them. These trade agreements were negotiated by the Bush administration. Here are charts showing the Bush administration's record:

Manufacturing_job_decline_China_0.jpg

baltrade

This is bad enough, but these "free trade" agreements create a worldwide race to the bottom, allowing companies to bypass the protections that democracies fought to provide for their citizens, pitting exploited, low-wage workers against citizens in democracies, forcing wages and standards ever lower.

These "free trade" agreements need to be reviewed and reformed, so they protect wages, the environment., worker's rights and small businesses around the world. We have a chance to lift each other up instead of push each other down.

This speech by Boehner is just more calling for a return to the policies of the past: we’ve been seeing the trade deficit soaring in the last few months, as the economy tries to go back to old economy. China is 96% of our trade deficit. Boehner sayting lets go back to the path we followed when we were borrowing $2 billion a day, it took away 2.8% growth in 1st quarter, sapping the recovery. This notion that Boehner calling for continuing course shows a perverse blindness to changes country has to make.

Pin It on Pinterest

Spread The Word!

Share this post with your networks.