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Six Economic Questions The Presidential Candidates Must Answer

Published 02/22/08 Thomas Heffner - Print Article

Editor's Note: These important questions to the candidates were run as part of an ad campaign before the March 4 primaries in Ohio and Texas; the questions posed are imperative to the vitality of our economy and are as important now as ever. We encourage you to ask the candidates these questions and use their responses to gauge if they deserve your vote in November.

Senators Clinton, Obama, and McCain - the following are six major questions that we demand answers to in order for you to be worthy of our votes.

1. The World Trade Organization "WTO" - Through this agreement (which is in violation of our constitution), foreigners now control our economy and restrict our ability to do what is in our best interest. How will you change it? Read the whole article.

2. The China Issue- Should we allow the Chinese communist government to buy a large percentage of our means of production which they are now doing, which will inevitably place us in colonial status again. Read the whole article.

3. The Truth About NAFTA -What will you do about NAFTA and other job-killing “free trade” deals that are causing our industrial base to crumble? Read the whole article.

4. Living on Unaffordable Imports and Debt- We are now almost totally dependant on foreigners to support us. How will we ever become a productive self supporting country again? Read the whole article.

5. Liquidating Our Industrial Base - We are quickly liquidating all of our major companies to foreign interests, we have sold almost 16,000 companies since 1978. How will you stop this? Read the whole article.

6. Patents and American Jobs – Without patent protection, American companies won't innovate or invent. How will you vote on patent protection legislation, now before congress as Senate Bill S. 1145? Read the whole article.


E-mail editor@economyincrisis.org

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Article Comments From Readers

guest says "Avoiding Corporate Taxes" on 04/25/08
Any company that moves its operation out of this country to avoid paying corporate taxes does not get any government contracts!

guest says "LOL" on 03/09/08
Problem is you might tell people Bayer is dumping pollution in the river but for every one of you unfortunately there are 10 that won't. Americans need a morality check also. We need to start putitng our country before self. With freedom comes self accountability and responsibility. Unfortunately history proves that most Americans are not moral enough nor responsible enough without someone looking over their shoulder. Human nature? There is nothing wrong with government oversight. Just how much and how far it should go is the debate.

guest says "Ron Paul is a Free market Capitalist" on 03/07/08
The problem is the USA is broke. The only way to unburden American citizens from their current $50,000.00 per person debt is to bring all troops home, close all foreign bases, abolish the IRS, disband the Federal Reserve, and slash most of the useless federal programs that do not benefit the average American.

I don't agree with everything Ron Paul says, I'll give you that. But he wants to end NAFTA and CAFTA and the WTO. Stopping those three organizations/agreements would help restore manufacturing to the USA. We can't have $25 minimum wage without manufacturing. Punish corporations for moving oversees and we will see America come alive once more.

It amazes me how many modern conservatives cling to the IRS. The US Constitution gave the Congress the power to tax the people. The IRS is a separate government entity from the Congress. I haven't yet seen the Tax Committee in either the House or Senate.

And yes the EPA is a useless body. Great example. I worked for an aggregate company. The EPA came in an told us one of our country limestone quarries needed to have a $100k vacuum system installed to stop polluting the air. Once it was installed the local farmers were pi**ed at our company because they now had to spend thousands of dollars on limestone for their fields which they never had to do before. In many cases I have had to work with the EPA they were strictly hands off. And that's why they said the air was safe to breath the day after the attacks on the World Trade Center. Oops.

Consumers have greater control over corporations than the bumbling government does. How? Hey if I know Bayer is dumping in the Ohio River at their plant, I tell them and my friends and family I will stop using their products until they physically stop and show yearly proof that they are taking care of the water shed.

And worker safety. That sounds like steel mill and auto manufacturing to me. How many real manufacturers are left in the US? If employees in America had the balls, they would walk out until safety issues are dealt with (union or no union).

And his stance on the PRC, I completely disagree with. We don't need to talk to them. We need to bulk up our borders and military defense. When the PRC Navy comes to California we are toast. But if we pull the troops home we can have a strong defense system once again.

guest says "Ron Paul is a Free market Capitalist" on 03/07/08
Since Ron Paul is a free-market Capitalist who lives in a 18th c. Fool's Paradise, he is by definition utterly ill qualified and incompetent to manage the nations's economy.
What are some of Ron's policies?
*Abolish the minimum wage to make working Americans more competitive with slaves around the world.
*Abolish worker safety standards and programs to protect people from needless harm.
*Abolish the IRS to allow the wealthiest individuals and corporations keep even more of their stolen loot without paying their fair share back to society.
*Abolish regulation on businesses to allow manufactuers to profit freely by polluting the public resources of air, land, and water while leaving the clean up costs to society. Additionally the health consequences to human, animal and plant life across the entire planet would be needlessly injured without compensation or recourse. The biosphere of life on our planet would suffer greatly in order to allow the prime polluters to have free access to profit without responsibility.
* No. I'm sorry. That's not good enough.
$25 minimim hourly wage and $1 million dollar maximum yearly wage are necessary to rebalance the economy and provide economic justice.

guest says "Six Economic Questions The Presidential Candidates Must Answer" on 03/07/08
Ron Paul has answered all of these questions. How? These are the positions he is running on.

Take the "Top Tier Candidate blindfold" off and vote for a true patriot and champion of the US Constitution.

guest says "Yo, why won't anyone answer me" on 03/05/08
Hmm. I need an answer, so deal with it. HAHA!^_^

guest says "What are economics?" on 03/05/08
I have no idea.

guest says "Should their be amnesty for corporate villians?" on 03/01/08
When did it become Constitutional to allow a 2 party system to pervert the will of the American voter, dictate choices and limit candidates to insure a monolithic corporate capitalist agenda?

When did it become Constitutional to allow businesses to import illegal laborers to undercut American workers and families and jeopordize American security?

When did it become Constitutional to deport American's jobs to China and India for the benefit of multinational corporations?

When did it become Constitutional to sign away America citizens trading rights and priveleges and agreements to an anti-democratic WTO?

When did it become Constitutional for the wealthy and corporations to offshore profits in Lichtenstein, the Cayman Islands and the Isle of man to evade taxes and shift the burden to the public?

When did it become Constitutional to attack and occupy sovereign nations like Iraq, Grenada,Vietnam or Korea or fund contras or secret militias to achieve an agenda of the Military Industrial complex?

When did it become Constitutional for the Congress to ignore their duty to impeach a president for high crimes and misdemeanors?

When did it become Constitutional to allow a President signing statements to effectively nullify the will of the people through congressional expression?

When did it become Constitutional to suspend habeas corpus?

When did it become Constitutional for torture to be an American instrument of war?

When did it become Constitutional to grant retroactive immunity to telecoms for illegal spying and retroactive immunity to any American official involved in torture?

When did it become Constitutional to use Presidential signing statements to abrogate the will of the people expressed through the congress?

You have the Democrats and Republicans to thank for ruining our nation.Those wealthy corporations and individulas who are their underwriters are the principal beneficiaries for skewing our democracy ever closer towards oligarchy.

Should we now grant amnesty to those same corporate villians and wealthy thieves whose goal is to turn our nation and its workers into a banana republic and slave colony?

guest says "That's ridiculous!" on 03/01/08
Retroactive taxes will be a necessary tool of a future just economic policy not only to return unearned income and stolen assetts to the very people and workers who were fleeced but to save the union from pending economic collapse from obscene greed and give citizens the capital to generate new jobs.

The consequences of failing to recover the stolen wealth of workers and retirees and pensioners and investors means that permanent immoral theft of public and private assetts from the workers is an official policy. This has been ther de facto policy of the Bush administration from the beginning but our nation and her people will simply no longer stand for that abuse.

Saying yes! to organized corporate theft will be a essentially a terminal sentence on our nation.

The wealthy have been engaged in legalized theft of our nation through tax loopholes,sweetheart deals, escaping liability for global warming and pollution, offshoring businesses, insourcing illegal aliens, manipulating gas and oil prices through margin buying and refinery shutdowns, and laundering taxpayer money into the corporations via the Iraq occupation.

Justice imposes demands for the preservation of any nation.The rule of law and our Constitution have been repeatedly violated and abused by both Democrats and Republicans who now seek to be rewarded with another term in office.
If we care about the health, wealth and future of our nation, we must not stand back and allow organized corporate theft to continue at taxpayer and citizen expense.

guest says "25 Year Retroactive Tax?" on 03/01/08
As much as I dislike the abuses of many corporations, this is simply a very bad and evil idea. It is bad enough to be constantly changing the "rules" but such a retroactive tax is clearly unconstitutional and would serve no useful purpose. Moreover, it would only impoverish most of its targets, leading to further reductions of jobs. You might as well advocate murdering them or just be honest and announce plans to steal their property.

guest says "ECONOMY" on 02/28/08
I JUST READ WHERE BUSH DIDNT KNOW THAT GAS WAS GOING TO $4.00 A GALLON,AND THAT FREE TRADE HAS BOASTED HIGH PAYING JOBS FOR AMERICANS AND THAT THE COUNTRY IS NOT IN A RECESSION.AND I THOUGHT HOWDY DOODY WAS A CLOWN,ANY MORE OF YOU BUSH LOVERS THAT KEEP BELIEVING THIS IDIOT,NO WONDER WERE IN PROBLEMS,AND YOU KNOW WHAT,WHO COMING UP IS ANY BETTER,WHAT A SORRY STATE WERE IN

guest says "ECONOMIC QUESTIONS" on 02/27/08
ARE YOU KIDDING ME, THESE 3 IDIOTS HAVE NO CLUE WHAT IS THE MATTER,THATS WHY THEY ARE AVIDING THE QUESTIONS ABOUT THE ECONOMY,SUB-PRIME,FROM THAT IDIOT IN THE AHITE HOUSE WHO SPENT US INTO OBLIVION TO THE GREED OF SPECULATORS,BANKS, MORTGAGE COMPANIES,LETS LET THE CHINESE AND EVEYONE ELSE BUY US UP,BECAUSE WE ONLY ELECT IDIOTS,CHARLTONS AND INCOMPETENCE,GOOD BYE AMERICA

guest says "Ralph Nader" on 02/24/08

back in 2000 Ralph Nader said that his first act in office as President would be to cancel NAFTA and the WTO. Pure courage.

Ralph Nader is officially a candidate for President. What does this mean? It means that America has one last best hope of saving itself from utter greed and mismanagement and incompetence that are the hallmarks of the Republican Party and cowardice, complicity, and fear which are the hallmarks of the Democratic Party.

Give America a fighting chance! No living American has a longer or better proven record of public service than Ralph.

VoteNader.org

guest says "Justice must be served" on 02/23/08
Its a good start to ask where the presidential candidates stand on these issues.
There should be more.
7: Do you believe legal America workers
working a 40 hour a week should earn a living wage? ($25 per hour/52K per year)
8: Do you believe that there should be a 25 year retroactive tax to recover excessive and improper gains by both corporations and individuals who benefitted from Republican tax cuts?
(Income in excess of $1 million per year should be taxed at 100% since it is both unnecessary and harms low and middle class workers)