August 13, 2003
Lieberman's Trade Confusion
Lieberman is apparently a free trader now. In a remarkably conservative declaration on Fox News Sunday the presidential hopeful attempted to stake a bold centrist position on Free Trade:
“If we’re for middle-class tax increases, if we send a message of weakness and ambivalence on defense, if we go back to big government spending, if we’re against trade [and] for protectionism — which never created a job — we don’t deserve to run the country.”
Interestingly enough, this statement of support directly contradicts his own proposal to rebuild the American manufacturing industry through various subsidy programs.
Posted by Mike Van Winkle at August 13, 2003 01:26 PMI think that this is rather funny. the Lieb-meister is desperately trying to be a conservative. He has learned that to portray himself as a centrist is his best strategy. He probably learned that from Howard Dean, who has been very successfull at doing so.
Posted by: pete at August 13, 2003 01:51 PMMy offer still stands. I will pay the registration fees if Joe leaves the Dems and ups with the GOP where he would feel more comfortable.
Robbie
Posted by: Robbie D at August 13, 2003 02:01 PMThat is “GOP Congressman” Joe Lieberman right?
How about we swap Lieberman for McCain?
This is the same guy who can’t stand Mortal Kombat and Night Trap on the Sega CD.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at August 13, 2003 02:20 PMAh, the Republicans’ favorite Democrat speaks out.
What silliness…
I wish I could find the article that said, including military spending, the federal budget is up 18% from the last year of the Clinton Administration. Maybe it was a Krugman special.
Anyone else know what I’m talking about or am I just hallucinating again?
Posted by: Jeremy Villano at August 13, 2003 04:39 PMIt’s OK Jeremy, it will pass. Just close your eyes and the monsters will go away.
Posted by: pete at August 13, 2003 05:26 PMProtectionism is bad policy. If the Bush administration wants to benefit the steel industry at the expense of the rest of America, they could get a better deal by taxing us and giving the money to the steel industry than they can by protectionism.
Adding environmental protection and right-to-unionize provisions to free-trade agreements is not protectionism. In fact, it’s good policy.
There are protectionists in the Democratic party, though, and I admit it can be hard to tell who wants to use environmental provisions as leverage to get rid of free-trade agreements, and who wants to use free-trade consensus as leverage to get environmental protection and the right to unionize. But the Bush administration has one of the disadvantages of being in power: a record. And they’re protectionist.
Posted by: Dan Wylie-Sears at August 13, 2003 10:06 PMOk, this is an obvious jab, but I wrote about Bush’s hypocrisy on free trade a few weeks ago. Given Bush’s utter disregard for WTO, one has absolutely no grounds for criticizing ANY Democrat for protectionist tendencies unless one admits that Bush’s policies are just as reprehensible.
Posted by: rjnagle at August 13, 2003 10:24 PM“It’s OK Jeremy, it will pass. Just close your eyes and the monsters will go away. “
Or, if Pete doesn’t like it, he’ll threaten to remove any disagreement with the moral right!
Gosh! I just can’t escape Robbie D! He is following me and I am scared now. But seriously folks, This is a wierd because what the Leib-meister was saying in his proposal that you linked to, seemed to be a proposal in the tradition of the great society. Or great society-esque….is that even a word? Nope.
As my good buddy Jake said…
“How about we swap Lieberman for McCain?”
Now that is some funny stuff!
Posted by: pete at August 14, 2003 11:04 AM
