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Ross Overby’s VisionI want our nation to be on the leading edge of technology. The world should respect our innovation and ingenuity. The Republican stance is that we are great consumers of low cost goods. The drive toward "Free Trade" agreements such as NAFTA, CAFTA and other such trade agreements are all about imports. The Republicans have forgotten the importance of our exports and the need to build the skills of the Americans that bear the brurden lost jobs, the American factory worker. What were once seen as safe professions such as engineering, graphic design, and computer technology are at risk.
We Need Equity in Trade
I am not against the reality of trade; in the long term we all benefit; what I am against is the sucking vacuum of a political system that does not stand up against agreements that are one sided, where our jobs leave and their goods come in. We need equitable trade agreements that open foreign markets to us as much as we open our markets to others.
We need to recognize that those cheap goods that flood our stores are made by workers that have no voice in their employment conditions. We need to recognize that those cheap goods that fill our stores took their toll on the environment. Our trading agreements should reflect our values of fair labor and good environmental stewardship.
Looking After Our Interests is not Protectionism
We need to help companies stay in the United States. We help companies by lowering the cost of heath care for their employees; we help companies by providing strong tax incentives when they invest in research and development; and we help companies when we have educated Americans graduating from our Colleges and Universities.
Trade inevitably results in the loss of some jobs, but we should not sit idly by an watch the jobs leave. My opponent's voting record on NAFTA and CAFTA alone resulted in North Carolina losing more than 170,000 manufacturing jobs. I want to focus on building exports into our trade areeents and I want to focus on creating new jobs in areas of our country hardest hit by global trade. We need to create enterprise zones in the areas of our country most affect by the transition to a global economy.
We need to focus on the workers displaced by trade. For too many people, the skills honed over generations are not suited for the age of technology and information. We need to expand new skill training programs that rebuild the skills of our hard working middle class. We help our fellow Americans as they work through a crisis because that is what Americans do. |
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