Thursday, July 28, 2005
"Free Trade Stops Wars"
That was the cry of an exasperated Toby Ziegler, as he railed against WTO protestors in a fine West Wing episode, "Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail". And you know what? He's right.
Unfortunately, it's eminently clear that not enough people watched it, or that encouraging hemispheric peace wasn't important enough...given that CAFTA passed the House yesterday by a vote of only 217-215.
Kudos to the Bush administration for pushing this through...and shame on any representative of any party who opposed it. The economic arguments are there. The security arguments are there. The ideological arguments are there. Any member of Congress standing in the way simply lacked the stones to say to their constituents, "The economies of the US, Central America, and the world at large all need to evolve, and this is a step in the right direction."
Unfortunately, it's eminently clear that not enough people watched it, or that encouraging hemispheric peace wasn't important enough...given that CAFTA passed the House yesterday by a vote of only 217-215.
Kudos to the Bush administration for pushing this through...and shame on any representative of any party who opposed it. The economic arguments are there. The security arguments are there. The ideological arguments are there. Any member of Congress standing in the way simply lacked the stones to say to their constituents, "The economies of the US, Central America, and the world at large all need to evolve, and this is a step in the right direction."
Comments:
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On the balance, CAFTA is a net positive (policy-wise), and it should have passed.
I worry about the precedent it sets going forward though, where the White House feels no obligation to consult with the opposition party on trade issues. Whether they said it explicitly or not, that's where most of the Dem opposition stemmed from. Yes, CAFTA could have been better in some areas (labor, environment), but mostly it was about the bad precedent of unilateral policy-making. There's a lot of merit to that position.
Also, they wanted to hand Bush a big L. There's much less merit in that position.
I worry about the precedent it sets going forward though, where the White House feels no obligation to consult with the opposition party on trade issues. Whether they said it explicitly or not, that's where most of the Dem opposition stemmed from. Yes, CAFTA could have been better in some areas (labor, environment), but mostly it was about the bad precedent of unilateral policy-making. There's a lot of merit to that position.
Also, they wanted to hand Bush a big L. There's much less merit in that position.
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