By: GARY WECKSELBLATT
Congressman Patrick Murphy said "failed economic policies" cost Bucks County 15,000 jobs - 35 percent of its manufacturing base - and called for the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement during an economic forum he hosted at Pennridge High School Thursday night.The two-term Democrat from the 8th District organized a three-man panel of two labor leaders and a Bucks County business owner that spoke of the need to rebuild the nation's shrinking manufacturing sector.Murphy said redoing the NAFTA deal is "crucial" to America's economy and said he was also against the Korean Free Trade Agreement and recently voted against the Peru trade deal that the White House supported."We're in the worst recession since the Great Depression, and we've got to stop bad trade deals," Murphy said.The congressman also said:China "needs to play by our rules" and grant U.S. companies more access to their markets.The federal government should do more to support a "buy America" agenda.Companies should be rewarded "for good behavior" with tax incentives.The panel was made up by Mike Russo, former president of the United Steelworkers of America Local 4889 that represent employees at Gamesa USA; Scott Paul of the Alliance for American Manufacturing; and Jim Horan, president of Y-Carbon, a Bristol company that develops renewable energy.Russo, a former employee at US Steel, called NAFTA a "scam.""They told us it would create a middle class in Mexico that would buy our products," he said. "They promised it would reduce illegal immigration. These trade deals are a race to the bottom."He pointed out that American workers and employers are forced to deal with things like Social Security, child labor laws, environmental regulations and the worker safety regulations that other countries may ignore, making U.S. products more expensive.As manufacturing jobs disappear, he said, people are forced into minimum wage jobs, lowering the standard of living."Your kids, my kids, they're not going to live like we live."Scott, who spoke of the need to protect with government spending, said that on its own U.S. manufacturing produces the ninth largest economy in the world. "It's still sizable but not what it used to be."He called for a national manufacturing policy, which he said was installed by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in 1791 because he wanted U.S. Navy ships built in America."That kind of dropped after World War II because no one could compete with us," he said.Murphy answered more than a dozen questions from the crowd of about 100 on a warm July night. He stayed around to answer several more following the 90-minute meeting. Click here to read more...
