Please John, Defend NAFTA

by Steve Soto

Democrats should encourage all efforts by John McBush to run the 2008 campaign as NAFTA’s chief defender, in the midst of an economic downturn that will exacerbate working class misery across many purple and red states. After all, why would anyone argue against stronger environmental and labor standards in NAFTA, unless you are an enfeebled old fart surrounded by Bush’s advisors?

And when McBush wants to paint himself as a principled defender of free trade, Democrats should also gleefully trash the man and his lobbyist staffers, many of whom get their dual paychecks from the same firms that profit quite handsomely from the destruction of our manufacturing base and the resulting outsourcing of those jobs, as well as the disaster capitalism economy.

Defending NAFTA by saying we need to do more for displaced workers, and then calling for making Bush's tax cuts permanent is right out of the GOP playbook. Of course, so is the GOP's practice of not funding retraining programs or unemployment insurance benefits, as is saying with a straight face that we need to protect wealthy people from tax increases. But if that is McBush's economic platform this year, go for it Big John!