The Disadvantages of Openness
The fact that today's Republicans are more open to the lower classes has a disadvantage. Some of the new recruits are ot-nay oo-tay ight-bray. For example, they seem to be protectionist:
Six in 10 Republicans in the poll agreed with a statement that free trade has been bad for the U.S. and said they would agree with a Republican candidate who favored tougher regulations to limit foreign imports. That represents a challenge for Republican candidates who generally echo Mr. Bush's calls for continued trade expansion, and reflects a substantial shift in sentiment from eight years ago.On the other hand, maybe this is due to Lou Dobbs.
This protectionist attitude has not penetrated very far into the right-wing blogosphere. There are lots of anti-immigration right-wing blogs, but not many protectionist blogs. I suppose the minimum IQ needed to run a blog discourages protectionist blogs. Okay, there's one … and another one … and even a third …
Where are the protectionist think tanks?
According to a common left-wing belief, the right side of the political spectrum is dancing to the tune of corporate shills. The marching orders are distributed via the think tanks making up the “right-wing noise machine.” In that case, wouldn't we expect to find protectionist think tanks? Googling for "protectionist think tank" found no results. There are lots of corporations that benefit from protectionism but any effects of their corporate shills don't seem to penetrate very far. Judging by past events, the left-side of the blogosphere will either claim that protectionism has been suppressed by corporate shills or they will attribute the new protectionism mentioned above to the nonexistent protectionist think tanks.
3 Comments:
Opposition to free trade--0% tariffs--is not necessarily protectionist. There are two types of tariffs: revenue tariffs (reasonably low tariff rates meant to put cash in government coffers, allowing for taxes to be reduced elsewhere) and protective tariffs (very high rates that aren't meant to be collected, but just to impel purchase of the domestic product.)
Supporters of revenue tariffs such as myself are very much pro-import--because you need imports to pay the taxes. (That's how we funded government in the 19th and much of the 20th centuries, and for a good chunk of that time we didn't need an income tax as a result.) To suggest otherwise would be like saying that people who support state sales taxes don't want people to buy anything. Of course they do--for how else would sales taxes be effective?
The problem with free trade is that a 0% tariff rate is too low, and it requires government to more heavily tax domestic labor via higher income tax rates to make up for the lost revenue. The higher domestic taxation works to protect foreign products from American competition. Effectively, free trade is reverse protectionism.
Got to go off on my hobbyhorse again here: Who is "anti-immigration" and what makes them "anti-immigration"?
Do note that I do believe in free trade: with friends and allies only.
That is to reward those that help the Nation and embrace freedom and liberty. Those who don't do so, can pay a price... fair is fair: you don't care so much about the US, are a despot or have a tyrannical government, then there is a price to that.
I don't see that as 'protectionist', per se, I see that as supporting the friends and allies of the Nation and those who support liberty and freedom... of course that means adhering to that no matter what the cost because we hold liberty and freedom to be without price as a Nation.
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