A "Destructive Path" Indeed
By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Democrats | Economic Ignorance | Economy | Free Trade | Protectionism — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Good on the Vice President for raising the alarm concerning America's increased and worrisome slide towards protectionism. I continue to be befuddled over the fact that we are not embracing free trade more fully as a way of enhancing prosperity for lower and middle income individuals and families and as a way of diminishing the power and intensity of recessions when the business cycle goes south. If ever there was a case of shooting oneself in the foot, the embrace of protectionism would constitute it.
It is, by the way, incumbent on McCain to push the free trade message as much as possible during the election campaign and to find a way to do it that will make clear the harm that will come to the United States if it continues to go down the protectionist path--not to mention the many benefits that we would enjoy if we actually embraced free trade. Elections have consequences and we have to choose whether we want to face the consequences of educating ourselves about the benefits of free trade and being in a better position to make the right policy choices as a consequence, or whether we will countenance having free traders avoid making the arguments against protectionism altogether, thus letting the protectionists own the debate and sabotage good policymaking in the process.