The Stimu-less bill the NH twain rubber-stamped on Wednesday included a provision that would require all those supposed shovel-ready projects to get their steel from American companies. That’s right, no foreign steel.
And you thought they cut the 400 million for “protection” out of the bill.
So is this how Obama heals our tarnished image with the global community. Trade protectionism. Who said experience doesn’t matter?
Well, the foreign governments got the message. They are already lining up to give Mr. Obama piece of their mind, suggesting that similar actions against us would have to follow if the provision manages to survive and become law. (Is this the test Biden warned us about?)
Preliminary estimates by several fortune 500 companies peg the potential job losses from a slew of global trade barriers in the tens of millions as the increased cost of global goods, and the problems in acquiring them strain an already fragile US economy.
So yeah, Hodes and Shea-Porter voted for a stimu-less bill filled with lefty handouts, and hundreds of billions in non-stimulus spending, but they also supported trade protectionism on top of it. This must be part of that helping the middle class mantra, right?
So I am of course assuming that they actually knew what they were voting for. I mean you don’t actually vote for 800 billion in pointless handouts after whining about fiscal responsibility and accountability, or about the culture of corruption you’re going to help clean up, do you? You don’t blindly support trade barriers in a global economy that will affect every job sector while you are claiming to create jobs for (your union buddies) do you? Do you?
Is it possible they never even pulled Pelosi’s sunshine yellow post-it off the front, the one that said “just vote yes?” Are their copies filed away in the ‘Victory’ drawer without even one dog-eared page?
No matter how it played out, as the bill meets stiffer opposition in the Senate, the public is learning a lot more about just how bad this bill really is, something our House Reps–the fiscal conscience of congress, seemed unconcerned with in their rush to give Obama a quick victory.
It’s good to know where their priorities lie. Of course we always knew didn’t we, yet for some reason they got re-elected anyway. So you know the old saying, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice…