Denver Needs More, Not Less, Trade
The Democratic Party must be a force for economic progress and demonstrate the capability to govern in the national interest. We must lead the way into the 21st century, ensuring that every American willing to take responsibility has the opportunity to prosper.
Unfortunately, Congresswoman Diana Degette (D-Denver) - in a significant departure from her predecessor Pat Schroeder - took the low road and opposed giving President Clinton fast-track authority. Such authority allows the President to submit proposed trade agreements to Congress for approval or rejection on an up-or-down vote.
In light of the thousands of jobs created from Denver's skyrocketing exports, one can only conclude that Degette felt she had to side with presidential hopeful House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-MO) on this issue, despite the clear economic benefits of free trade to her district. Clearly politically positioning himself as the leader of the “Old Democrats,” Gephardt has made it a point to oppose President Clinton - leader of the “New Democrats” - on a number of key issues, including trade.
Degette and Gephardt are awkwardly arguing against the administration's highly successful economic agenda, a formula that has resulted in unemployment under 5% for the first time in a quarter century, inflation under 3% and skyrocketing consumer confidence. Most Americans realize that expanding trade is contributing to these favorable conditions.
At a time when America's economy is the most competitive in the world, we cannot sustain our economic success without continuing our global leadership on trade. Retreating from the challenge of international competition would be like removing a spark plug from the engine of a moving car - our economy would soon sputter and stall.
President Clinton said it best in an address to the AFL-CIO at its annual meeting last September. “We cannot create enough good jobs and increase wages if we don't expand trade... About a third of the economic growth that has produced 13 million new jobs over the past four and a half years has come from selling more American products overseas. Here's why: We have 4 percent of the world's population and we enjoy 22 percent of the world's wealth. If we want to keep the 22 percent of the wealth we have as 4 percent of the world's people, we have to sell something to the other 96 percent."
Granting fast track authority also represents good politics for Democrats. Our party spent the 1980s in the political wilderness, in large part because the American people lost confidence in our ability to manage the economy. President Clinton has made the Democratic Party once again the party of prosperity, the party that can be trusted to create jobs, restore upward mobility, and increase incomes.
Democrats have and continue to support free trade. From the days of Presidents Andrew Jackson through John Kennedy, Democrats have pushed for open trading because it favors the interests of working families while protectionism only benefits narrow business and financial interests. In fact, it was Democratic presidents that led the country out of the protectionism that so deepened the Great Depression.
Supporting this important legacy continues today. Most Democratic senators favored fast track, along with the vast majority of Democratic governors and mayors. Unfortunately, as a result of Gephardt's clout and enough followers like Degette, fast track was defeated by the House Democratic Caucus, the last stronghold of protectionism in our party.
While supporting fast-track authority, Democrats should not blindly follow the Republican Party's "laissez-faire" policies. Our party should get behind a new social compact with workers - job training vouchers for every displaced employee, lifelong access to career training, portable health and pension resources, performance-based compensation, equity-sharing, and other rewards for employee innovation, along with a new definition of corporate responsibility in a world of borderless markets. This new compact will help Americans succeed, transform workers into stakeholders in the new economy and make America as a whole more successful.
Degette will have a clear choice when she casts her vote on fast track later this year: Will she support a Democratic President whose successful economic policies have helped to boost Denver's economy and brought our party back in favor with mainstream Americans, or will she side with policies that kept us in that wilderness throughout most of the 1970s and 1980s?
Former State Rep. Doug Friednash (D-Denver) and Steve Leatherman serve on the Board of the Colorado Democratic Leadership Council, a think tank that advocates new public policy ideas and the Democratic Party's historic commitment to economic growth, personal responsibility, community, individual liberty and equal opportunity.