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Chair column for January, published in the Kenosha News
Chair
column for January, published in the Kenosha
News
Just a couple decades ago,
"Made in America" meant we shopped at
Wal-mart. They imported an estimated
$25.2 billion of their 2006 inventory from
China. This new way of "doing business"
helped to put the United States' trade deficit
at $68.9 billion in December 2006 alone.
Especially in a time of war, manufacturing
locale is a matter of national
security.
Most companies in China are
partially owned by their government, have
government supplied healthcare, and have
workers that are willing to earn a lesser wage
due to their currency-imposed lower cost of
living. Their currency policy does not
help us. If the United States government
could simply lift the burden of healthcare off
of our employers by providing a universal
health care system, we may have kept the
manufacture of IBM computers in
America.
Although some of our
corporations helped to create trade, safety,
and intellectual protections here at home; most
of our "free trade" counterparts do not allow
these protections to be negotiated between
countries. We could see more job
protection in our country if trade protections
and human rights protections were a Republican
agenda, thus creating a level playing field in
the growing global economy.
Although
China requires their employees to pay for
company-owned housing, forces these laborers to
work 80+ hours a week, doesn't give them a day
off, encourages child labor, and doesn't
provide appropriate work conditions; we in
America have different values due to unions,
which are continually under attack by the
Republican Party. Our unions have been
instrumental in helping with pay, medical
benefits, retirement, paid holidays, vacation,
and age-relevant labor laws. Thank you,
unions, for American labor
values.
Unions helped bring us out of
the anti-worker industrial era from the late
1800's. "Government of the people, by the
people, for the people, shall not perish from
the earth" was one of Abraham Lincoln's most
famous statements. This statement,
however, is only recently represented as a
Democratic value. We the people have lost
to shareholders and corporate lobbyists;
specifically relating to outsourcing our
jobs. Was your "American" car
manufactured in America? If so, it's VIN
starts with a 1, 4, or 5. Do you feel
deceived?
Democrats want to eliminate
the tax cuts for the upper 1%, yet we are
labeled as "tax and spend?" The real wage
in the 50th percentile of taxpayers in America
was down 1.3% between 2004 and 2005. Of
the 4.8 million jobs created between 2001 and
2005, 2.8 million were created to support our
bloating federal government and to support our
criminal war in Iraq. Considering these
corporations that are growing to profit on our
tax dollars pay only 6% of our tax base, we as
tax payers are forced to pay an increasing
share to fuel the fire to keep this
militaristic government growing. Thanks,
Paul Ryan, for towing your party line of the
GOP.
Have you had enough? I have,
and the first 100-hour agenda from the new
Democratic controlled legislature helps to
address lobbyist influence.