Posted by
The Hermit Crab on Monday, November 03, 2008 12:41:47 PM
The Democrat candidates in my area have been running a bit of deception. They have been running ads attacking incumbent Republican Congressman Randy Kuhl, in which they say that Kuhl voted for George Bush's trade deals, and that NAFTA has cost upstate New York 50,000 jobs. A few points:
The 50,000 figure is highly debatable, to put it mildly. NAFTA led to increased exports of goods produced in the USA, which does not necessarily mean fewer jobs. Having the 2nd highest business taxes in the industrialized world -- that's the reason that American businesses "ship jobs overseas". Which party favors raising taxes on businesses again?
NAFTA wasn't George Bush's trade deal. It was Bill Clinton's trade deal. It was implemented in 1994; Randy Kuhl wasn't in Congress yet.
They are particularly tricky in one ad, in which the narrator speaks the acronyms NAFTA and CAFTA (which is one of George Bush's trade deals), hoping the watcher (or listener at the fridge) won't distinguish them. NAFTA and CAFTA never appear on the screen in the TV spot.
President Reagan used to say of arms negotiations with the Soviet Union, "trust but verify". With the Democrats, "don't trust and verify every word" is a wiser course.