First, a qualification. Patrick Buchanan is a vile racist, but even a racist can analyze some aspects of the GOP correctly as evidenced by the excerpt below. The main hole in Buchanans analysis is the exclusion of the democrat partys contribution to hollowing out of American jobs. He also misses it totally and goes somewhat on the racist end with his conclusion that hispanic immigrants are seeking handouts. The situation is that theyre given assistance not because of some liberal altruism or because theyre looking to be on the dole, but because these are a taxpayer subsidy to those who hire them. They cant live off the low wages, so the true cost of living is shifted to the taxpayer instead requiring that they be paid a living wage by agribusiness and the other industries that employ them. In other words, higher wages means less welfare. His racism blinds him from that sort of analysis. At the Cold War’s end, the GOP reached a fork in the road. The determination of Middle Americans to preserve the country they grew up in, suddenly collided with the profit motive of Corporate America. The Fortune 500 wanted to close factories in the USA and ship production abroad — where unions did not exist, regulations were light, taxes were low, and wages were a fraction of what they were here in America. Corporate America was going global and wanted to be rid of its American work force, the best paid on earth, and replace it with cheap foreign labor. While manufacturing sought to move production abroad, hotels, motels, bars, restaurants, farms and construction companies that could not move abroad also wanted to replace their expensive American workers. Thanks to the Republican Party, Corporate America got it all. U.S. factories in the scores of thousands were shut down, shedding their American workers. Foreign-made goods poured in, filling U.S. stores and killing the manufacturers who had stayed behind, loyal to their U.S. workers. The Reagan prosperity was exported to Asia and China by the Bush Republicans. And the Reagan Democrats reciprocated by deserting the Bush Republican Party and going home. But this was not the end of what this writer described in his 1998 book, “The Great Betrayal.” As those hotels, motels, restaurants, bars, fast-food shops, car washes, groceries and other service industries also relished the rewards of cheap foreign labor, they got government assistance in replacing their American workers. Since 1990, some 30 to 40 million immigrants, legal and illegal, have entered the country. This huge increase in the labor force, at the same time the U.S. was shipping factories abroad, brought massive downward pressure on wages. The real wages of Middle Americans have stagnated for decades. What was wildly wonderful for Corporate America was hell on Middle America. But the Republican Party had made its choice. It had sold its soul to the multinationals. buchanan.org/blog/gop-lost-middle-america-6210?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PatrickBuchanan+%28Pat+Buchanan+Update%29
Posted on: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 03:28:45 +0000
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