The historic challenge facing Americans today is
to turn away from unilateral use of military force and address our
deteriorating economy. The Iraq war could cost as much as $3 trillion;
the human cost is incalculable. The U.S. intends to maintain 60 permanent
bases in Iraq. The fact is that the Iraqi people don’t want us
occupying their country. Many see the proposed U.S.-Iraqi Security
Agreement as an attempt to colonize them.
Unilateralism is bad. We need to build cooperative
relationships with other countries and peoples and trust more in the
United Nations. Politically, we need to take the military “toys”
away from leaders like George W. Bush who do not know how to handle
them responsibly. We also need to scale back the so-called “war
on terror”. We cannot afford those things any more. Neither can
we afford the 103 additional secret service agents hired to protect
Bush after he leaves office. A maximum of five agents should do. The
imperial presidency is a luxury we can no longer afford.
Back to basics. The federal budget is seriously
out of balance. The national debt has risen from $5.7 trillion in
October, 2000, to $9.4 trillion today. The Iraq military adventure
is part of the reason. Another part is the ill-conceived prescription
drug benefit which, some experts say, carries a $17 trillion unfunded
liability. It’s a give-away to the drug companies engineered
by their lobbyists. Until he was called on it, President Bush never
vetoed a spending bill. The tax-and-spend Democrats have more than
met their match in the borrow-and-spend Republicans. A pox on both
their houses!
Our nation’s trade deficit exceeds $700 billion
annually. Evidently, the current recession and deteriorating value
of the collar have not produced the turnaround in our trade accounts
that was expected. Meanwhile, educational hucksters beat the drums
for young people to spend tens of thousands of dollars annually to
attend classes at their institutions to be trained for the global
economy while their economics professors tout the necessity of free
trade. Have they no shame? Those kids can’t compete in the free-trade,
low-wage economy that is developing worldwide. Take their money and
run. (Everyone else does it - why not the academics?)
So, what do we do about trade? First, recognize
that the deficit has two main components. Part is due to our nation’s
oil imports. Another part is due to outsourcing of manufacturing production
to low-wage countries, especially in Asia. We need to plug both leaks.
The solution to our soaring imports of petroleum
is a crash program to develop renewable sources of energy. We need
to replace gasoline-powered automobiles with hybrids, electric cars,
and cars powered by hydrogen. Wind power, abundant in Minnesota, is
the ultimate source of this energy. I see the current energy crisis
as a way to revitalize the rural parts of our state.
With respect to outsourced production, I favor
changing the world trading order to allow national governments to
use tariffs to regulate multinational business. “Employer-specific
tariffs” would encourage businesses to raise wages and reduce
work hours in their foreign production centers so that eventually
we had thriving consumer markets and real trade between nations, not
an exchange of goods for debt. This scheme envisions a world of cooperation
among nations to solve their common employment and resource problems.
Our future depends on it.