I caught David Gergen on one of the political shows, and his comment that HRC had always opposed NAFTA surprised me, especially considering how many times she’s supported it publicly. During the Ohio debate, Tim Russert played several video clips in which she stated her support for NAFTA, one as recent as 2004, and she’s never given public indication of opposing NAFTA until now.
On another show just the other day, Lawrence O’Donnell, who was chief of staff of the relevant Senate committee during the 90s, contradicted Gergen:
“-O`DONNELL: You`re right, Dan. By the way, I was working with Hillary Clinton at the time in the Senate when she was trying to pass her health care plan. And her only problem with NAFTA was she wanted it to go after the health care plan because if that`s come through the same committee that I was running and so, her problem was just sequential. She`s never been against NAFTA until this campaign.”
I find both Gergen and O’Donnell credible, which makes reconciling their accounts somewhat difficult. One thing is clear, Clinton has never publicly opposed NAFTA until recently. Her recently rediscovered opposition thus looks less principled than expedient.
Dee Dee Myers, Clinton era White House Spokesperson, was on today’s Tim Russert show and reiterated the claim that HRC was always opposed to NAFTA. But I’ve found that claim challenged once again, this time by Robert Reich in his blog.
http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2008/02/hillary-and-barack-afta-nafta.html
Reich’s statement accords with Lawrence O’Donnell’s, which was that her only real objection was to the timing.
Reich goes on to provide some needed sanity on the issue of NAFTA. And I have to admit that I also supported NAFTA initially. Coincidentally, I recall writing on the issue while taking a class in Political Economics, and some of the course material for that class was written by Robert Reich.
NAFTA is an issue that I’ve debated many times, and even though I’ve changed my position somewhat since then, much of my original analysis has largely survived the test of time.
It’s quite clear to me at this point that free trade agreements are not simply an application of Ricardo’s Comparative Advantage. Moreover, I utterly reject the Washington Consensus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Consensus
However, trade issues have become emblematic for economic inequities within the U.S., which are indeed a problem, but they are not caused by free trade per se. Our trade policy is hardly an example of the free market a work, however.
Inequality has been exacerbated by government policies, which is an issue that hasn’t received it’s due. It would probably be better to focus on U.S. macro-economic policy itself — but this comes with considerable political risks. To cite one easy example — tax policy has become steadily more regressive. Billionare Warren Buffet’s comments about paying a 17% tax on his income while his secretary paid over 30% is a case in point.
The following article provides an interesting look at the general issue of economics and trade.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=13&ItemID=12674