RSS Feed MenuMy latest column for CNN.com argues that similar to 1994’s Contract with America, Republicans need to present voters with a platform. A manifesto emphasizing the GOP’s plans to create jobs, tackle the debt and correct the mistakes in the president’s health reform plans could provide the party with a blueprint for governing.
Eight weeks to Election Day, and still no sign of an updated “Contract with America,” the famous Republican campaign manifesto of 1994.
Party strategists may have decided they don’t need a manifesto: they are winning without one. They may also find it too difficult to agree on the manifesto’s content: how do you appeal to Tea Party radicals and swing voters at the same time?
Post-election, though, Republicans will be sorry. The Contract with America helped to discipline the new Republican majority of 1994, enabling Republicans to help achieve important things: welfare reform, a cut in the capital gains tax, a balanced budget.
If Republican majorities arrive in Washington in 2011 without a program, the risk is very real they will fall into trouble: pick the wrong fights with the administration, fail to deliver results, share the blame if employment continues to lag.
With those concerns in mind, let me outline what I think would be a constructive GOP platform for 2010. …
Click here to read the rest.
MSheridan // Sep 9, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Jakester,
Regarding this statement: “Actually the only hope the economy is a Five Year Plan on the 1932 Soviet model”, you’re kidding, right? Command economies don’t work well and I’d hate to see us go down that road. Government money can stimulate economies, but governments should stay out of the business of trying to control them. If we’re going to take any lessons from the 30’s, I’d like to see something like the Civilian Conservation Corps again. One of my grandfathers was very proud of his work in “the C’s” and it makes more sense than simply continuing to extend unemployment insurance benefits.
Rabiner // Sep 9, 2010 at 2:38 pm
Sinz54:
I understand the more nuanced reasons for why the Great Depression ended and why we had such a successful post-war expansion. I also know the difficulties of building large public works projects today versus the 1930s. However what I said wasn’t incorrect in challenging Sdspringy’s comments regarding crowding out and the Great Depression of which I was writing to.
torourke // Sep 9, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Sparty,
“torouke, I was not attempting to be clever or appeal only to emotion. I genuinely wanted to know if you would distinguish between an embryo in a petri dish and, for example, your spouse or child. You draw no distinction between these groups so I applaud you for your logical consistency, but I think your position is utterly crazy. Fortunately, the rest of society agrees with me as well on this issue, which is why we have IVF.”
Hold on there a second. The mere existence of IVF does not mean that society agrees with you that human beings at the embryonic stage of development have no right to life. We have been debating that for a few years now, and while the emergence of iPS cells might make the whole debate moot ( I hope it does) I don’t think either side can claim the sort of victory you are claiming.
“I do not value the embryo less because of its size. I plainly stated that I value it less because of the lack of consciousness, etc. It is absolutely qualitatively different from a born human and even a latter-stage fetus. Consequently, my argument is not an appeal to emotion; it’s an appeal to recognize the meaningful qualitative differences between these groups.”
Okay, and I responded to those arguments about consciousness, and you didn’t even attempt to answer them.
“Your attempt to distinguish between a severely disabled person and an embryo fails for two reasons.”
I wasn’t attempting to make any distinction between the two. I see both as living human beings, and thus persons, who deserve legal protection.
“First, as a society, we do not require evidence that a person is “in the process of dying” before granting the next of kin the right to stop life support. Lots of these patients are not in the process of dying. Indeed many of them can and do go on “living” for many years, decades even in some cases. They are no more in the process of dying than the rest of us. Secondly, already being “in the process of dying” is completely irrelevant to whether or not there will be culpability if another person intervenes and ends the life prematurely. Your own example of the grandfather in the nursing home is proof of that. Instead, culpability depends solely on whether or not there is meaningful brain function. If there isn’t, the next of kin can end the life. If there is, the next of kin can’t. I apply the same approach to an embryo and fetus.”
I see what you’re saying now. You’re right in that the Supreme Court, post-Cruzan, has allowed patients or their next of kin to deny extraordinary medical treatments to patients who do not wish for them–or for their next of kin to make this decision. At the same time, the same court suggested that food and water could be considered extraordinary medical treatments. So the Supreme Court has already taken us down the road to the right to euthanasia and assisted-suicide. Yet at the same time, both euthanasia and assisted-suicide are illegal in every state of the country except Oregon (and maybe Montana.) If Michael Schiavo or a doctor had injected poison into Terry, they would have committed a crime under Florida law, even if Terry had explicitly asked them to do so before lapsing into her state. So culpability does not have to do with brain function, but rather with intent. States allow people to deny life-saving treatment and cause the death of a person as long as the willing of that person’s death is not the only, or even primary, reason to withdraw treatment. Thus people who feel more comfortable dying at home may be taken off of life support at the hospital. Given the Supreme Court’s ruling in Cruzan, it may not seem like much of a difference to inject someone with poison rather than take them off of food and water, but the Supreme Court has made such a distinction to try to allow people to make medical decisions for themselves while not opening the door to euthanasia and assisted-suicide. The Supreme Court, and the states who allow people to refuse life-saving treatment, are thus not saying that people who are in an coma are not persons with a right to life. If that was the case, then you and I could go and kill people who are in comas right now. Clearly we cannot do that. So your attempt to equate human embryos and fetuses with patients on life-saving treatment does not work. The argument about consciousness itself does not work either, as I have pointed out in my previous post. It is impossible identify a non-arbitrary point along the range of consciousness that neatly divides persons from non-persons. Again it would also put you in the position of having to argue that people who do not have the ability to immediately exercise their innate capacity for reason (say infants) have less of a right to life than people who can. Peter Singer is right when he challenges those who side with him on the personhood question to embrace the full extension of what it entails–infanticide among other pleasant things.
“Again, I don’t know how developed the embryo/fetus should be before we disallow abortions, but I still haven’t heard any argument that leads me to think we should be treating a 10-day old embryo (especially not one sitting in a petri dish in a frig somewhere) the same as a 6-year old child.”
Well, I presented some in my previous post, so why not start with those? The argument concerning human equality seems like a pretty good place to begin.
Watusie // Sep 9, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Hold on there a second. The mere existence of IVF does not mean that society agrees with you that human beings at the embryonic stage of development have no right to life.
Really? Then why aren’t there people out there picketing IVF clinics for keeping human beings in frozen storage?
Why aren’t the nice suburban couples who use IVF being prosecuted for child neglect and abuse regarding the “human beings” they leave behind or discard en route to getting the one they want?
I’ll have a lot more respect for the “pro-life” position when it becomes logically consistent and goes after IVF clinics BEFORE it goes after abortion clinics – afterall, there is no equivalent to Roe v. Wade protecting IVF, so there are no obstacles in your way.
midcon // Sep 9, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Passing on the never-ending abortion debate, let me add that I believe David Frum is right. There is likely to be a mid term backlash and the Dems will get hosed by the voters for their lack of performance. But two years later, the GOP will get the same treatment unless they have a plan. What neither party recognizes is that they are essentially fighting over the entitlements for tail ends of the bell curve. The “haves” and their tax breaks and TARPs and the “have nots” for their free everything. And both completely ignoring the middle.
Well, the middle has become pretty disillusioned about the whole mess. Why should the ends get all the entitlements? When does the middle get theirs? Look at the rate of strategic defaults in housing. People who can afford their mortgage but are so far upside down they will never live long enough to build any equity . Their response to this is to walk away or buy a house at today’s pricess and bail on their existing home (buy and bail). Americans in the middle have decided that they want entitlements as well and if the government does not give them any, they will simply take them. The culture we continue to build in this country is one of irresponsibility. Too big to fail; too poor to stand on their own two feet. Why should I act responsibly if no one else has to? The middle class feels betrayed and believes they are being played for suckers. Many of them have decided the only way to get ahead is to become entitled to something for nothing like the ends. That’s what this election will be about – what’s in it for me. If the Republicans want my vote – then show me the money!
SpartacusIsNotDead // Sep 9, 2010 at 3:50 pm
torouke, first of all, thank you for a thoughtful discussion.
“The mere existence of IVF does not mean that society agrees with you that human beings at the embryonic stage of development have no right to life. ”
To the extent society speaks through the laws it enacts, it does agree with me that the cells produced through IVF are not entitled to the same protections as a fully born human.
Your point about the patient’s intent is a very good one. But, my point in raising the example of the patient was not to demonstrate that laws related to an embryo and the patient are (or should be) alike in every way. Instead, I was showing that there is already a scheme in which we permit the early end to a life, and the circumstance almost always involves the lack of brain function. As a society, we’ve pretty much settled on a set of conditions that would permit the ending of a life. This is one of them.
“The argument about consciousness itself does not work either, as I have pointed out in my previous post. It is impossible identify a non-arbitrary point along the range of consciousness that neatly divides persons from non-persons.”
The point at which the line is drawn is not arbitrary. It is based upon our understanding of human development. The fact that our understanding may later change or even that reasonable people could differ on where the line should be drawn today does not make the drawing of the line arbitrary. We have a pretty good understanding today about when a fetus starts to develop brain function and consciousness. This is not guesswork.
“The argument concerning human equality seems like a pretty good place to begin.”
Look, I agree with you that human life begins at conception. That’s a scientific fact. We simply disagree on when an embryo should receive the same protection as a born human. You grant it at conception. Others also grant it at conception, unless the conception is the product of rape or incest. Yet others will grant it at conception, but then take away the protection upon the occurrence of some later event such as severe injury or the commission of a crime such as murder, or even a crime that did not physically harm anyone else (treason). I grant it only after there has been significant cognitive development in the fetus. Except for allowing an abortion only in the event of a rape or incest, all of these positions seem logical.
SpartacusIsNotDead // Sep 9, 2010 at 4:13 pm
Carney,
When a higher court overrules the Prop 8 ruling, then you can tell me that SSM is not constitutionally protected. Until then, both the rationale for protecting SSM and the jurisprudence for doing so are unquestionable.
You may not agree with the jurisprudence enuciating the various levels of scrutiny for state-approved discrimination, but it’s well-settled law. And when you apply that well-settled law to the case of SSM you inescapably come to the conclusion that SSM is constitutionally protected. The only way you can avoid that conclusion is if you ignore all of the preceding jurisprudence.
Your question to me was whether SSM was constitutionally protected. The answer is clearly “yes” and the fact that SSM conflicts with your religious views is entirely irrelevant.
Fairy Hardcastle // Sep 9, 2010 at 5:34 pm
Someone mentioned Scalia for support on sodomite marriage. Here he is in July in a speech:
“He also argues that judges, including his fellow jurists who are considered the top legal minds in the country, have no place deciding the tough moral issues of the day, including abortion, right to die and same sex marriage. That is best left to the people of a society, he said. “”Surely it is obvious that nothing I learned in my law courses at Harvard Law School, none of the experience I acquired practicing law, qualifies me to decide whether there is a fundamental right to abortion or to assisted suicide,” Scalia said. “What I am questioning is the propriety, indeed, the sanity of letting value-laden decisions such as these be made for the entire society.”"
Exactly.
abk1985 // Sep 9, 2010 at 7:29 pm
I just want to say that I have been a Republican when times were bad, and I’ve been a Republican when times were good.
torourke // Sep 9, 2010 at 11:05 pm
Sparty,
Thank you also for the discussion.
“To the extent society speaks through the laws it enacts, it does agree with me that the cells produced through IVF are not entitled to the same protections as a fully born human.”
Whoops, I was confusing the federal funding for ESCR with the practice itself. Okay, I’ll concede the point to an extent, although I still remain hopeful that iPS will make this whole debate go away.
All of the science and none of the ethical concerns…what’s not to like?
“Your point about the patient’s intent is a very good one. But, my point in raising the example of the patient was not to demonstrate that laws related to an embryo and the patient are (or should be) alike in every way. Instead, I was showing that there is already a scheme in which we permit the early end to a life, and the circumstance almost always involves the lack of brain function. As a society, we’ve pretty much settled on a set of conditions that would permit the ending of a life. This is one of them.”
Well, actually the scenario you describe rarely occurs, as there just aren’t that many people out there in comas or PVS. Many, many more people are removed off of life-saving treatment to die at home, and quite a few make the calls themselves, which means they have the brain function to make this call. If I understand your argument, you are saying that because we allow medical treatment to be removed from people with limited brain function, then that suggests that we have concluded that people with limited brain function–human embryos and fetuses–may also be…allowed to die? That won’t work though because in destroying embryos or fetuses, we are not allowing them to die, we are actively killing them. I don’t see how this line of thinking advances your overall argument. But maybe I’m still missing something.
“The point at which the line is drawn is not arbitrary. It is based upon our understanding of human development. The fact that our understanding may later change or even that reasonable people could differ on where the line should be drawn today does not make the drawing of the line arbitrary. We have a pretty good understanding today about when a fetus starts to develop brain function and consciousness. This is not guesswork.”
But you must realize that even people on your side of this debate disagree about what level of consciousness it takes to qualify as a person. Is it the detection of brain waves? Is it the ability to recognize a voice or face? Is it the ability to engage in higher levels of cognition? Who knows? Who ultimately makes this decision? This is what is so arbitrary about it. You earlier wrote that human embryos cannot think and are completely dependent on the mother, and I replied that this is true, but it does not follow from this that they are not persons, because I don’t see how infants are that different from embryos under this rubric. Even if you were to come up with a hard and fast rubric that detection of brain waves=person, lots of people on your side are not going to see it this way. So where does this leave us? It’s just much more sensible and straightforward to let all living members of the human species live.
“Look, I agree with you that human life begins at conception. That’s a scientific fact. We simply disagree on when an embryo should receive the same protection as a born human. You grant it at conception. Others also grant it at conception, unless the conception is the product of rape or incest. Yet others will grant it at conception, but then take away the protection upon the occurrence of some later event such as severe injury or the commission of a crime such as murder, or even a crime that did not physically harm anyone else (treason). I grant it only after there has been significant cognitive development in the fetus. Except for allowing an abortion only in the event of a rape or incest, all of these positions seem logical.”
I think there are serious philosophical problems with the sort of dualism that is at the foundation of making any distinction between living members of the human species and persons. As in, I don’t find this dualism to be logically tenable. But I’m under no illusions that I will convince anyone, let alone everyone of my position. I would be thrilled to see Roe overturned so states can begin chipping away at the late-term abortion license. Heck, it would be a great day to see our abortion license become more like Europe’s! But I appreciate your tone and arguments.
Fairy Hardcastle // Sep 10, 2010 at 9:03 am
This notion that a human being is only a part human being or not really human is reiminiscent of something. . . it’s coming to me . . . oh right: our slavery past. This person is too small to be a protected human. This person has no ability to do math or sing or dream so there is no reason to protect her. This person needs 119 days from zygote to have full-fledged brain waves so before that it’s quite alright to rip em up and out. What is the ultimate expression of slavery? When you can take the life of another human and there is no criminal punishment. Thank you sexual revolution, moral relativism, and lazy, selfish, thinking for giving us an even more barbaric practice to deal with. I fear it is not over yet with scientists pushing to find the ultimate cure in our defenseless sisters and brothers. As earlier noted, what if scientists felt that the most potent of stem cells were in the one-second old baby? Quick stuff her back in, get out the partial birth abortion scissors and let’s start our experiments. Sounds a little extreme Fairy. Ok, well then the best place to start experimenting is probably Chicago hospitals where aborted born alive kids are left to die in a comfort room. Why let good human material go to waste?
Traveler // Sep 10, 2010 at 9:35 am
(Please accept my apologies for cross posting, but the following comment may be relevant to the discussions here on economic issues.)
“Hi Tribe,
Here’s an idea about a carbon tax. Don’t we already subsidize oil and gas to the tune of many billions per year? Somebody will have a more precise figure, but I know we taxpayers paid for half the Macondo drilling costs (which we will not get back from any settlement). At $500,000 per day, not an insignificant sum. Multiply that by all the other wells, add in the depreciation allowance and other subsidies, and it sure adds up. I think it would dwarf the net “cost” of a carbon tax or potential subsidies for renewable energy technologies. So lets work toward balancing the budget by eliminating the oil industry subsidies, while making a level playing field for renewables, with absolutely no “market intervention” by big government. Tea partiers should love this idea.
While we are at it, lets also drop the huge subsidies we spend on roads so rail can compete more effectively. Did you know that cars are not responsible for highway repair costs? Any transportation engineer will tell you that one fully loaded truck causes the wear of thousands of cars. This is because truck loads are so much higher, compared to car loads. So the next time you see “this truck paid $5462 in taxes” you can assume it probably cost well over twice that much in increased repairs, the difference of which we taxpayers pay. So we directly subsidize truckers. Meanwhile, railroads that can carry freight much more efficiently are far less subsidized.
Then lets look at what do we do about ag subsidies. All they do is distort international markets, and keep food unrealistically cheap here. I can buy $5.99 porterhouse steaks every week, but is that sustainable? Food expenses are at an all time low as a percent of family costs. And subsidies for ethanol? What a joke. It just means that we keep out Brazilian sugar cane ethanol.
Get the idea? There is all sorts of stuff to trim that really doesn’t make things better for us in the long run. Lets start with that and see how far we go. Of course, nowhere, since both parties are whores to these industries. But if Republicans ever had the backbone to challenge these subsidies I might pay attention. As it is, “cut taxes for the top 1%” is so lame as to defy comprehension.
So let’s level the playing field and reduce our national expenses to help balance the budget, while letting the free market determine which sources of energy, transportation and food production are more efficient. Sounds like a winner all around. But will it ever happen? It better, but not the way the debate is framed these days.”
Watusie // Sep 10, 2010 at 10:31 am
Fairy This notion that a human being is only a part human being or not really human is reiminiscent of something. . . it’s coming to me . . . oh right: our slavery past. This person is too small to be a protected human. This person has no ability to do math or sing or dream so there is no reason to protect her. This person needs 119 days from zygote to have full-fledged brain waves so before that it’s quite alright to rip em up and out. What is the ultimate expression of slavery? When you can take the life of another human and there is no criminal punishment.
A zygote is not a person, is not a human being.
Fairy Hardcastle // Sep 10, 2010 at 10:50 am
A person is an individual life of human nature. A zygote is an individual. It is not a conceptual idea, it is an individual life. It will not suddenly become a theoretical proposition. Neither does it have a dog, cat, or any other animal nature. Give it1, 2o, 9, 10, 12, or 50 months the zygote will morph into a dog or cat. It has a human nature. It is an individual life of human nature and is a human person.
In fact, if you know anything about the pregnant mother’s body it undergoes massive changes to support the new distinct individual life. The mother’s body becomes subservient to the new individual’s life. Her life is geared toward the new life. The new individual is growing precisely so that it can be outside the mother. The life functions in the mother and the new individual are geared toward these things: (1) sustaining the mother, (2) nourishing the unborn , (3) preparing the unborn from the very beginning for life outside the womb and (4) nourishing the unborn after it is born by way of breastfeeding. This of course is to completely ignore the incredible psychosomatic developments in the mother which urge her to bond with the new life unborn and born.
The effort to justify the summary extinction of the new human boy or girl is based only the fact that one person can always exercise the ultimate power of destruction over that boy or girl and that the boy or girl is too small to be seen clearly and cannot say whether or not they want to be exterminated except if you look at every bodily development from the very beginning of the new individual’s life which shouts out — I want to live under the warmth of the sun and feel the cool of breeze and hear my mother’s and father’s voices clearly.
Watusie // Sep 10, 2010 at 11:11 am
Give it 9 months and it will become a person. But it isn’t a person, any more than an acorn is an oak.
Fairy Hardcastle // Sep 10, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Watusie, you cannot accept your own arbitrary principle. If a baby accidentally delivers at 7 months not even card carrying coven members will say that the baby can be scraped up with scalpels because it didn’t meet the 9 month mark. If a baby is delivered at 5 months same thing. You should switch back to your birth principle, which, while inadequate, at least can be consistently applied.
But what about your own eyes?: http://www.michaelclancy.com/story.html. I don’t know if you are a photographer or not, but this man provides fairly technical information about the equipment he used.
Your analogy of course cannot work for an acorn is an oak seed like the sperm cell is a human seed. The better analogy is the germinated seed and that is an oak.
Watusie // Sep 10, 2010 at 1:44 pm
Upon birth a baby ceases to be a fetus and becomes a person.
A fertilized egg is not a chicken. Or even a chick. It is a fertilized egg.
If you actually believe that a zygote is a person, why aren’t you doing something about IVF clinics which are “imprisoning” millions of “persons” in freezers? There is no Roe vs. Wade decision stopping you.
Fairy Hardcastle // Sep 10, 2010 at 1:53 pm
I am doing something about.
Watusie // Sep 10, 2010 at 3:19 pm
Oh really? Amazing that you’ve never mentioned it before, and how convenient that you can claim it now that you are backed into a corner.
Fairy Hardcastle // Sep 10, 2010 at 7:18 pm
You never asked me before.
Watusie // Sep 10, 2010 at 7:29 pm
Cellophane.
sinz54 // Sep 11, 2010 at 9:31 am
midcon: Well, the middle has become pretty disillusioned about the whole mess. Why should the ends get all the entitlements? When does the middle get theirs?
For the middle to “get theirs,” the United States as a whole has to improve. You’re right that right now, the liberals are handing out goodies to unions and minorities while the conservatives want to hand out tax cuts to businesses.
But for there to be a “rising tide that lifts all boats,” the United States has to respond to new structural challenges: The rise of India, China and Japan as strong economic competitors to the U.S. The aging of our infrastructure. The skyrocketing national debt. Global warming. Etc.
That will take a long-term commitment, like the way the building of the Interstate Highway System took over 20 years.
Right now, there’s no one on the horizon who is talking about that.
Everybody is frantically trying to get us out of the current recession and back to full employment. But it won’t happen, unless we make the longer-term commitment. If we won’t, all we’ll get is stagflation.
All these structural problems I listed, are leading us into a kind of geopolitical/economics “cusp.” We need to rethink our role in the world, just as we did after World War II with Bretton Woods (yes I know it was during WW2) and with NATO.
Unfortunately, nobody is doing that. Everybody is still talking like this was still the 20th century, when the United States was the undisputed world leader of everything.
Traveler // Sep 11, 2010 at 10:10 am
Sinz,
You are right that the selfish unearned way of life that we squandered is here no more (unless you are in the banking business). But occupations that actually generate economic resources are sucking fumes these days because there is so much less economy left once the debt fueled segment was exhausted.
I share your loathing of handouts to unions and pension funds as a continuation of policies that created staggering amounts of unearned wealth (on paper) that our kids will have to pay for (if not renegotiated). This fallacy is still promulgated today with BO’s “prevailing wage” order. That wage is earned by unions representing some 6% of the labor force. Scarcely prevailing, yet it increases costs by at least 30-40%. When carpenters are charged out at $11o per hour, something is really wrong. I can’t get my experiments built as a result, even though I have private sector quotes on budget.
Likewise, handouts to businesses that don’t need them (eg., oil, trucking and agriculture) have totally skewed our cost of living and means of production and transport. Add tax cuts for people that neither need them, nor spend them, and you get the most idiotic incentives of all. Some claim that they are reinvested, but where? Not in US businesses. They are sitting on a ton of cash already.
This is the real discussion that needs to be had on this site, but nobody seems to talk about this. While abortion is a complex issue worthy of discussion, it really is totally irrelevant to most of us that just want to eat.
Sinan // Sep 11, 2010 at 12:47 pm
I wonder sometimes how rational people can come to the conclusion that a nation should not have a plan for the long term health of it’s economy. Do any of you conservatives ever consider the fact that we are getting annihilated by a communist state who runs their economy directly? Do you folks realize the lack of a cohesive industrial policy is killing us? By opening up our enormous markets to cheap foreign supplies, we have assured the eventual destruction of our manufacturing base without even attempting to create a new economy to replace the labor intensive industries that kept 300 million people out of poverty for so long. I fail to see how individuals acting in their own self-interest will ever compete with the same type of individual working in conjunction with a strong state. We must address the problem that free markets are doomed in an era where top down central planning and hundreds of millions of highly educated people can obliterate us industry by industry. In the late 90s, the company Huawei did not exist. They created a company out of the thousands of highly educated engineers available and then proceeded to copy and re-engineer the world’s best networking products. Now, they dominate us in all areas. They sell a DSL port to BT for less than 30 dollars a port. The cost of that port in the USA is more than 30 dollars a port. We cannot compete with them. Take any telecommunications or networking product area and they will soon price us out of the markets. We need to wake up folks and start renegotiating these absurd trade deals so that we can compete. Unless you want all of us to work for Chinese or Indian firms making peanuts, we better start charging them a fee to enter this market or we die.
Sinan // Sep 11, 2010 at 12:53 pm
Traveler…
The economy was not fueled by union labor inflated by collective bargaining. That is an absurd right wing talking point that is false on every front. We do not have anywhere near the levels of union participation as a Germany yet they have a much better economy than ours. The problem was free money. Credit is too easy to get at the personal level. We must re-examine our love affair with credit cards, second mortgages and spending more personally than we can afford. Our economy was driven by too much personal debt which then inflated the economy beyond our ability to pay. Since our exports are tied to our trade agreements and our competitiveness, we have been counting on domestic demand. Real wages for Americans have fallen over the last 30 years because the unions are less powerful and because we have decided to open our markets to competitors who do not play by our rules. We must stop this nonsense of scapegoating the few decent paying jobs we still have and start asking ourselves how we can make more of them.