15% Tariff

America IS losing both jobs, and factories overseas. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com... http://onlinembastudy.blogspot.com... http://www.commondreams.org... http://minnesota.publicradio.org... http://www.csmonitor.com... While it is true that technology is a portion of this, it is not the only factor. Cheap labor abroad is unfair to the American worker because other countries do not implement the same moral employment codes that the U.S. does. I used the American Revolution as an example because it is what America is becoming all over again; this time to the rest of the world. It is not only unfair labor costs that hurt American manufacturing. There are numerous examples of foreign companies, backed by their governments "dumping" their products in the United States, in order to kill the U.S. industry. In many cases they have been all too successful. Take America's tv companies for instance. Sony, helped along by Japan's Ministry of Industry and Trade, dumped tv's into the American market at below production level costs and ran American companies out of business. By the time the U.S. government caught on and took action all but one of the U.S. tv companies was out of business. The same is true of Airbus, which receives subsidies from European governments. In it's first 25 yrs airbus did not make a penny of profit. They were kept alive by foreign socialist countries. One executive warned that if Airbus had to give away planes, they would do it. Richard Evans of British Aerospace said, "Airbus is going to attack the Americans, including Boeing, until they bleed and scream." While I am all for free-market competition, I am not for socialist countries destroying our industry by dumping. A tariff would fix this problem by raising their prices and giving our industries a fair chance. You say that "we build all our weapons here". But Manufacturers importance to National Security is not that simple of an issue. Commander of the Pacific Forces, Admiral James Lyons warns, "All of the critical components of our modern weapons systems, which involve our F-16's and F/A 18'S, our M-1 tanks, our military computers-and I could go on and on- come from East Asian industries." Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William Crowe Jr. said "The U.S. defense industrial base is already in danger of becoming too dependent upon foreign sources for strategic supplies." Former Commerce Official, Erik R. Pages says, "The Bush Administration was forced to intervene with foreign governments on over thirty occasions to guarantee delivery of critical military parts.. we could have run into some real problems. We were sweating bullets over it, and the military was sweating bullets too." This is not to mention that all of those overseas factories producing our military computers are more susceptible to terrorism and espionage. And, in the example above, the problems faced were with friendly nations that were supporting us. Imagine if even a few of these nations were neutral or worse, opposing us. Our military power would be greatly compromised. In the years 1869-1900 there were very high and far reaching tariffs in place due to the Republican party's dominance during that time. America's prosperity was growing during this time. During this time, -the gross national product quadrupled - The U.S. government ran surpluses up till 1893 - the national debt was reduced by two-thirds -custom duties provided 58% of this income- Between 1870 and 1900 commodity prices fell by 58% -real wages, despite a doubling of the U.S. population rose 53% -U.S. industrial production rose by 4.7% per year -America's exports grew by 5% a year during 1870-1913, while free-trade Britain's grew by less than three percent. (tariffs do not hurt exports) America also passed Great Britain in Manufacturing output by 1913 due to this protective tariff wall. In the 1895 "History of the Republican Party" there are records that every time a tariff was placed on an item, the price of that item fell. This is also reflected in the fact that the price of commodities fell along with a protective tariff. In conclusion, we ARE losing jobs overseas to cheap, but unfair, labor costs. We are also losing jobs due to foreign socialist countries dumping their products here in order to destroy American companies. Our military computers, tanks, and jets are being increasing produced abroad. This causes problems because they are more easily subject to terrorism and espionage abroad, and if the countries they are located in were to stay neutral or fight against us, we would have serious problems getting our necessary military equipment. Also, during the times that America has had a protective tariff we have been an extremely prosperous nation, surpassing other free-trade nations. Prices have fallen during these times, the government ran surpluses and real wages increased. A tariff should be enacted in this country.