Reply #327: Straw man

[cuke]

No one has claimed that everyone benefited. You are tilting at windmills.

As far as other factors, the health care costs of manufacturers (particularly in the auto industry), the development of competitors overseas in industries like steel, as well as many other factors. And if they didn't open in Mexico, they would have opened somewhere else. There is nothing illegal about opening a plant overseas, and the benefits of doing so were there with or without NAFTA. NAFTA'a effect on outsourcing has been marginal at most, which explains why most of the jobs are NOT going to Mexico.

And wrt unemployment benefits, not at all. Pithy sayings are cute, but it has nothing to do with reality. The Clinton's and the dem party as a whole have a long record of strong support for the social safety net. Not a perfect record, but a strong one nonetheless. You can only make a case otherwise by ignoring the long list of things that were done while emphasizing one or two times when they failed to do the right thing.

The bottom line is that even after the recession, the american people were still enjoying the benefits of the strong economy that Clinton built, at least until * destroyed that.