There is a reason for the uproar over the business deal that will leave six U.S. ports under the management of the government owned Dubai Ports World that goes beyond the obvious discomfort of having an Arab company controlling how goods enter the United States. People are right to be concerned that a country that produced two of the 9/11 hijackers will be managing these large facilities. President Bush has been on television a few times this week to address the issue and his comments have been less than sympathetic. During an interview on Air Force One he said, "I want those who are questioning it to step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a [British] company,". The easy answer, of course, is that no one from Britain piloted a jet airliner during the attacks of September 11th. The same cannot be said for the United Arab Emirates. The fact that he asked that question illustrates one of the President's larger problems.
President Bush chooses not to see how things affect Americans who do not live in Washington. These Americans are the same people who have seen 3 million jobs lost since 2001, who have seen their standard of living decline and who have seen the Federal budget switch from surpluses to record high deficits. As one of those Americans I have a hard time understanding how this President can push tax cuts at the same time that he asks Congress to authorize more spending for the war in Iraq. The tax money coming in covers less and less of the bills we have to pay every month. I may not have a job in the White House but I understand that deficit spending, especially at levels this high hurts the economy.
Security is important but hundreds of billions of dollars have now been spent on the effort in Iraq while domestic spending for America has been cut. The point isn't that spending is just down, as everyone is aware, the bloated Federal busget needs to be cut. What I fail to understand is why we are willing to spend ourselves into poverty for the sake of Iraq when so much needs done here. There is still rebuilding to be done from Katrina. High school graduation rates in areas like Youngstown are at 64%. Murder rates in America remain the highest in the industrialized world with 16,137 people murdered in 2004. Finally, children here do go to bed hungry and they are growing up in conditions that are bad through no fault of their own. After all, when you sponsor a child through the Christian Children's Fund and you choose which country you would like your child to be from, USA is part of the drop down list.
These are issues that many American's wrestle with every day. Is their job being downsized? Is it being outsourced overseas? Here in the Mahoning Valley, Delphi workers are wondering how much of their pay they will have to give up just to keep the same job they had last year. These people do not have the sense of security that our elected officials seem to.
You see, we understand the idea behind the outsourcing. I've read books like Thomas Freidman's The World is Flat and I enjoyed it. The idea is that if we build up the middle class of other countries, those middle class citizens will want a say in their government and eventually will elect a democracy. In theory, democracies are stable. They don't threaten their neighbors and they keep the lunatics down to a manageable size. Therefore, America will be safer. Unfortunately, good manufacturing jobs are not being replaced with high tech, skill driven jobs at a rate fast enough to keep pace. Even if they were, retraining and education are still inadequate to provide the workers needed. This equation is not balanced. Conservatives like Bush want the open borders and global trade because it benefits them but they fail to see the responsibility they have to displaced workers and the workers of tomorrow. People can only buy goods if they have money and they can only earn money by working. Importing cheap goods now while most Americans still have decent jobs is nothing but short term profit taking. After all, folks working at McDonalds and Wal Mart aren't making mortgage and new car payments. However, folks working at GM & Ford can still afford to buy the products they make. If those jobs leave, who will buy the products being imported? Do the math.
It's these issues that reinforce the notion that the current government does not have the interests of the American people foremost in it's mind. Currently we have lobbyist scandals, the President backing the foreign ownership of U.S. ports and the upcoming loss of thousands of automotive industry jobs. None of that is good for us but this President and his supporters want us to ignore it.
Do you want to ignore it?
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