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Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
You, I, and Rep. Cardin all think tariffs are bad, as a rule.
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Since this was all you said, I would assume that you like most rational people would conclude that California, if it could, should not institute tariffs to encourage Alabama to adopt our enviromental, safety and labor laws. Why - because it would hurt consumers and destroy free trade.
CAFTA is a bill that will eliminate tariffs between the CAFTA countries and the United States. Eighty percent for now and all tariffs completely in the next twenty years. Yet, you and these other "experts" that is not enough for you. You want the bill also to include labor and environmental protections or you don't vote for it. This does not make sense. If getting rid of Tariffs perse is good then why not do it? If someone offer you hundred dollars you don't turn it down and take nothing because you wanted $110. You take the hundred dollars.
CAFTA eliminated tariffs and that is a good thing. It does not create a level playing field in you opinion but why does that justify killing the whole bill. You are willing to allow an uneven playing field between Alabam and California. Why not one between America and CAFTA?
Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
OK, but perhaps the question is not whether to have CAFTA at all, but whether to have CAFTA with the flaccid labor law enforcement provisions, or CAFTA with the sort of provisions that were a feature of previous trade agreements. The Administration could have gotten the votes of people like Cardin if they had followed those precedents, so why did they water them down?
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Those provisions of NAFTA were included to buy Democrat votes. The business community did not want them. Republicans had to suck it up because Clinton put them in there. Many Republicans voted against NAFTA because of those provisions arguing that NAFTA was not really a free trade bill (sound familiar). But the business community pointed out that the bill was still better than no bill. So the true Free Traders voted for the bill because it was better than the status quo (even with the NTB Labor provisions). Bush figured on this one he could get the bill through with out these provisions and he was right. But even if you wanted those provisions this bill is better than no bill at all. This bill was negotiated by a Republican president so they can't expect all their riders to be in there. The vote they faced was either eliminating tariffs or not.
