This is the kind of propaganda the DLC sends out. As you will recall, the DLC backed the bankruptcy bill. You need to analyse their argurments carefully. They contain massive lies and misleading information. The arguments of the DLC are wrong and in allignment with Dictator Bush on so many issues. Also, if anyone is in Jefferson's or Cuellar's districts, we need to get rid of these guys. The are not on the side of the workers of America, the environment or freedom. Their voting records indicate that they vote Republican on most issues and could not care less about their constituents.
Additionally, if you know of any candidates who are DLC, ask them to quit this Republican organization or lose the support of the Democrats in the next primary.
THE NEW DEM DISPATCH, June 07, 2005
Political commentary & analysis from the DLC
=============================================
< New Democrats Online:
http://www.ndol.org >
Four Reasons To Support CAFTA
We have friends on both sides of the debate over the Central America
Free Trade Agreement, which would provide trade preferences between
the United States, the five Central American nations, and the
Dominican Republic. We understand and share the frustration of many
internationalist Democrats, who have come to view cooperation with
the Bush administration and House Republican leaders as nearly
impossible on trade or any other issue. But the consequences of
CAFTA's fate -- for the American economy, for Central America, and
for hemispheric relations generally -- will remain long after the
current GOP regime in Washington has become a bad memory. As
Representatives Bill Jefferson (D-LA), Henry Cuellar (D-TX), and
others argue, CAFTA's passage is in the national interest and
deserves Democratic support and involvement.
Why? Four reasons for CAFTA are especially important.
First, the United States needs to open new markets and increase
exports if we are ever to regain the economic growth levels of the
1990s. CAFTA is a small part of that process, which must ultimately
include broader multinational agreements and vastly improved
enforcement. But CAFTA could still make a serious and valuable
contribution. The six CAFTA partners are small countries, but they
already absorb $15 billion annually in U.S. exports, including a
quarter of all American textile exports. Rejecting CAFTA will hurt
these American exporters, and will not provide any relief for import-
sensitive U.S. textile producers; foregone textile imports from
Central America will almost certainly be replaced by imports from
Asia. Approving CAFTA will cut tariffs, open markets, and provide a
modest but important boost to American manufacturing exporters.
Second, the United States has a tangible political and moral stake
in our partners' success. All six today are peaceful, democratic
nations -- and bipartisan American trade policy deserves some of the
credit. The Caribbean Basin Initiative, a trade preference program
dating back to 1985, helped bring new urban industries to Santo
Domingo, Managua, San Salvador, San Pedro Sula, and many other
Central American and Dominican cities. Central American clothing
factories now employ about half a million people, and often provide
the first jobs for hundreds of thousands of young women moving out
of impoverished villages. This source of employment has helped
Central America make a crucial transition from the wars, armed
insurgencies, and military repression that characterized the region
in the 1980s.
CAFTA will help make sure this transformation continues as the
economic environment for the region gets a bit tougher. With the
recent elimination of global textile trade quotas, large Asian
countries -- not just China, but Vietnam, India, Indonesia, and
others -- can easily eclipse the smaller industries of Central
America. By broadening the region's duty-free privileges, making
them permanent, and providing more help to rural exporters, CAFTA
will help keep the six partners competitive, and help them speed up
market opening, reform, and diversification into higher-value
industries.
Third, Democratic support for, or at least an open attitude towards,
CAFTA can and should be used as leverage to make the agreement
better. In what is likely to be a close vote in both Houses of
Congress, Democrats could be in a position to demand better policies
to "expand the winner's circle" at home, including broader
eligibility for American workers for the Trade Adjustment Assistance
program, which provides living assistance and retraining to workers
displaced by trade. They could also pursue assurances that the Bush
administration, cooperating with the International Labor
Organization, will make serious efforts to enforce the agreement's
workers' rights provisions, and to build capacity for labor and
environmental regulation in Central America and the Dominican
Republic. None of these improvements can be secured by categorical
opposition to CAFTA.
Fourth, the United States has strategic interests at stake that go
beyond exports and beyond the partners themselves. The great 20th-
century Democratic presidents all viewed democracy and economic
integration in the Western Hemisphere as essential to the prosperity
and security of the United States. Franklin Roosevelt made this
point in the 1930s, calling for hemispheric trade integration as
part of the Good Neighbor Policy. John Kennedy did the same in the
Alliance for Progress, as did Bill Clinton in the Summits of the
Americas.
In key parts of Latin America, the future of the hemispheric
alliance is in serious question. Argentina continues to struggle
after the financial crisis of 2001; all of Latin America remembers
the Bush administration's frivolous approach to that event. Further
north, Venezuela is experimenting with semi-authoritarian populism,
and elected governments have been forced from office in Ecuador and
Bolivia. In such an environment, the CAFTA debate -- as the major
U.S. debate on inter-American relations of this decade -- takes on
additional importance. Latin American governments, news media, and
citizens will closely watch America's response to an agreement with
six countries that remain committed to the principles of democratic
development and hemispheric cooperation.
None of these four reasons make the CAFTA decision an easy one for
Democrats. The administration and Congressional Republican leaders,
over five years of ultra-partisan approaches to issues ranging from
ethics and judges, to Medicare and Social Security, have made it
hard for Democrats to take the long view. But our hope is that
Democrats will take that long view, consider all the implications
for our national interests, and remain true to their heritage as the
party of economic opportunity and peaceful internationalism.
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