Hillary Clinton, despite what she has stated, has always been for NAFTA. She was the "closer" in several pro-NAFTA meetings, as per released records while she was First lady. Bill Clinton SIGNED NAFTA. The China free trade laws were supported by both Clintons with Bill signing that into law.
Fast forward to tonight's primary race. If you look at the absolute devastation economically from the Clintons supporting the free trade legislation, you'd think that a light bulb would light in some of the working class minds that they are being duped. Are they that uninformed by these policies?
Since January 2001, West Virginia has experienced heavy job losses in industries that typically provide higher wages and good benefits—11,000 lost manufacturing jobs and 1,900 lost information jobs. Despite offsetting gains in other industries, West Virginia still experienced a net job loss of 1,200 jobs between January 2001 and August 2004.
West Virginia is losing jobs, in part, because of unfair trade rules and because corporations here, as around the United States, are shipping good jobs overseas. In 2003, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that at least 11 West Virginia companies slashed jobs from their payrolls due to trade. These cuts affected an estimated 898 workers. The Dean Co., EIMCO LLC and Pechiney Rolled Products LLC alone cut 488 jobs; some of these jobs were shipped overseas. NAFTA alone has cost West Virginia 3,482 jobs.
Meanwhile, jobs in West Virginia’s growing industries aren’t as good as the jobs in West Virginia’s shrinking industries.* Average wages in the state’s growing industries are 33.8 percent lower—$12,070 per year less—than those in West Virginia’s shrinking industries. In West Virginia, growing industries have lower health coverage rates than industries that are shrinking; nearly two-thirds (62.3 percent) of workers West
Virginia’s shrinking industries have employer-provided health coverage, while one-half (51.0 percent) of workers in West Virginia’s growing industries have employer-provided health insurance.
Too many workers unemployed:
In August, 43,829 West Virginians were unemployed. Workers unemployed the longest suffer most. From the end of December 2003 through September 2004, 9,937 West Virginians reached the end of eligibility
for unemployment benefits but still could not find jobs. Because the president and allies in Congress have refused to renew the emergency unemployment program no longer have federal benefits to fall back on
for basic support.
Declining health coverage:
Job loss and exploding health costs have shrunk the rolls of West Virginians with job-based health coverage and swelled the ranks of the uninsured. Between 2000 and 2003, the number of West Virginians with employer-provided health care fell by 123,000, a 12.5 percent drop. In 2003, 296,000 West Virginians were uninsured, an increase of 46,000—18.4 percent—in just three years.
Lower incomes, greater poverty and more bankruptcies:
West Virginians are struggling to get by. Half of all West Virginia households have incomes of $32,763 or less, lower than all but two states. More West Virginians slipped into poverty: In 2003, 310,000 West Virginians were poor—49,000 more than in 2000. And personal bankruptcies rose 29.2 percent, from 8,369 in 2000 to 10,811 in 2003.
http://www.showusthejobs.com/yourstate/upload/WV.pdfStates like Ohio and Pennsylvania have pretty much the same level of damage from the Clintonian policies, which just so happen to be McCain policies. Reminding voters in those states of how McCain policies equal more of the same will be one of Obama's critical messages in the General Election.
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