David Brooks of the New York Times just can't help himself when it comes to making stuff up in order to make Democrats look bad. In his Op/Ed Piece today, titled "The Democratic Tea-Party", Brooks compares Congressional Democrats to the Tea-Party for voting against a Procedural measure, one that effectively kills off Trade Promotion Authority for now. Brooks idiocy knows no bounds as his anger tinged piece aims, and misses, at destroying the credibility of a vote against TPA.
The first part of his argument, and the only one that truly deserves attention, is that Trade Deals, though they may not make much difference in wealthy countries, help poorer ones exponentially. Here, and only here, he has a point. Certainly, he is right that in the short-term, Trade Deals can, if done right, raise living standards in poorer countries. It can also level the playing-field for emerging markets, lifting some people out of poverty.
But lets take a look at how some of those poorer countries are doing after years of Free-Trade. For example, we'll take a look at Guatemala, which has had a Trade Deal with the US since 2005. CAFTA or the Central America Free Trade Agreement, was signed in 2005 and included the nations of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic and Costa Rica. According to that agreement, Guatemalan citizens, as well as any other signatories of the Trade Deal, are supposed to be guaranteed the right to Unionize. But, things haven't quite worked out too well for Guatemalan laborers.
Guatemalan Banana Harvest workers in the small city of Escuintla, aware of their right to Unionize, finally did so in 2007. Less than a year later, their Union President Miguel Angel Ramirez was shot dead. About a month after his murder, the Union's Secretary General's daughter was reportedly raped by armed men. Neither crime has led to an arrest, let alone a conviction. In fact, reports of abuses in labor practices have been reported repeatedly by human rights groups, as workers in these Central American countries report being threatened, attacked, raped and murdered for their efforts at unionizing.
This is how Corporation's handle the problem of Unions in third-world countries. But I'm sure that's an isolated incident; Right? After all, why would David Brooks be on his tirade against the Democrats? Well, not quite.
Since the implementation of US style Free-Trade, CAFTA has led to a flood of refugees fleeing Central American nations. And make no mistake, as In These Times reported recently, the flood of refugees that began pouring into the US last summer hasn't actually stopped. Instead, we sent billions to Mexico to stop them, often with violence, at their border.
Meanwhile,Crime in Central America is reaching epidemic proportions. According to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, Guatemala is listed as having the 5th highest intentional homicide rate in the world. El Salvador, comes in just ahead at number 4. And lastly, Honduras has the honor of being the nation with the highest homicide rate in the world.
Free-Trade has done nothing more than to exacerbate corruption by concentrating power in the hands of huge Multi-National Firms; free to capitalize on the lawlessness that pervades the highest levels of the Government and the Economic Elites in Central America. No great lift from poverty, no security, no well-paying jobs. If anything, it has entrenched the powers-that-be in those nations while actually making ordinary workers even worse off.
So if we take out Brooks's first argument, we are left with his second point. Which is that Democrats are damaging our own economy, by rejecting TPA. But if, as Brooks says, Trade Deals don't make much of a difference in wealthier countries; than how is it that Democrats are hurting the economy by rejecting one?
Here is where David Brooks's notorious fact-checking methodology lapses make his argument dubious at best. He quotes Jason Furman,, Chairman of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisors, in a speech he gave at the Brookings Institute. In the course of his speech he mentions that since WWII, lowering tariffs has contributed to 7.3% of American incomes over that period. The speech, which I should mention is specifically targeted at arguing in favor of President Obama's Trade Agreements, specifically TPP, TTIP, the Information Technology Agreement, the Trade Facilitation Agreement, Trade in Services Agreement and the Environmental Goods Agreement. Never mind that most of us have never heard the President even mention any but two of these agreements, Furman actually starts off the speech by acknowledging that the middle-class has been hollowed out and that Productivity has far outpaced wages in recent decades.
Far from the damning evidence that David Brooks refers to in his Op/Ed, Furman actually points to evidence that Trade Agreements have made little difference in growth while destroying quality of life, a much broader way of determining the health of an economy. Here too, Brooks is so quick to reference someone, that he doesn't actually bother to read his own evidence; or if he does, he deliberately warps the facts, as most conservatives do, to back up his argument.
The rest of his piece uses his fun, Furman facts to point to Trade Agreements as the lone way to boost exports and growth. Yet, since NAFTA was signed in 1994, the US Trade Deficit has ballooned every year with steady determination. Even in Honduras, whom according to Brooks should have experience robust growth, didn't see it's Trade Deficit budge until last year, and even then it was still quite large. So, someone didn't bother to read too far into this.
Even if by some Grace-of-God David Brooks were correct, House Democrats aren't rejecting Free-Trade Per se. In fact, most House Democrats have stated multiple times that they are OK with Trade Agreements. What they reject is the lack of a Democratic process in approving Trade Promotion Authority. The President negotiated the deal in secret, with input from Corporations, Multi-National Firms, International Trade Lawyers with absolutely no input from workers, Unions, environmental and human rights groups and not a single member of Congress.
They also are becoming disillusioned with Free-Trade Agreements, mainly because of one specific clause, the ISDS provision. ISDS allows Corporate Firms to sue Governments over regulations that they believe interfere with profits. By allowing Firms to take their gripes to an international Tribunal where highly-compensated Trade-Lawyers determine if said Government must reimburse the Corporation's lost profits.
Meant to insure that emerging markets don't take any action to stifle foreign investment, the provision has instead been used repeatedly to challenge Environmental and Labor Laws that countries pass to protect workers and residents. Surely someone as privileged as David Brooks would hate to see raw sewage and toxic waste dumped in his back yard.
So to put it bluntly, David Brooks is an angry, lazy, elitist conservative who should stick to the Social issues he's known for.
A little Disclaimer: I had some other links to add to my point in this piece but they weren't formatted to link through DailyKos. So I apologize that I couldn't add those added little punches to David Brook's writing face.
Also, I am not the only one to pick up on Brooks's inconsistencies. A recent Salon piece documented a peculiar inconsistency in a odd fact he gave in a speech the author attended. Later Brooks referenced the same 'fact' in one of his books. Worth reading the link.