Re-Employ America

ted economy was put into place; the North American Free Trade Agreement. The economists said it would become an economic failure; they were right. Since then, the United States has entered into free trade agreements with 18 more countries. These have been touted as the best economic growth incentive for manufacturers which would then create more jobs. In fact, more jobs were created, but not in the United States. The agreements eased manufacturing restrictions that other countries had in place. With these restrictions lifted more American manufacturers moved to these common market countries. With those movements came lobbying efforts to ease the tax requirements on imported products. With relatively tax free income for moving offshore, most non-food consumer products started entering the United States with almost no real production cost. It was the combination of these two factors that created some of the most successful “multi-national” corporations in the world. These same factors also created the largest unemployed and underemployed population of all of the “industrialized” nations in the world. American manufacturing jobs were replaced with service sector employment opportunities which paid as much as one-third of the manufacturing jobs. These low paying entry level jobs created more economic problems in local communities and spread like a plague to the nation with a few years. As large manufacturing was lost in communities across the country other businesses were effected through the loss of consumer patronage. This led to small businesses closing almost as fast as they during the Great Depression. This domino effect spread fast to other businesses and then to government. The lost institutional tax base was the first to go and created shortfalls in local government funding which led to greater state and federal help. The personal tax base followed and had the greatest impact. The first budget cuts came in form of reduced services such as law enforcement and other emergency services. Public education was next, not just schools but public libraries and museums. Infrastructure was next, with less growth and maintenance came more job losses. Communities started to look to state governments for help, these were also suffering, which led to federal assistance for non-federal obligations. As Americans had less personal income, social service assistance grew. Social welfare use has almost quadrupled since 1994 to almost $65 billion in 2011, inflation considered. With less middle-class Americans paying income taxes, use and excise taxes contributing to local public services to federal obligations and more of these same middle-class Americans needing social assistance, the national budget cannot get balanced which has led to a national debt that may take 20 years or more to recover. Re-Employ America was founded on the principal that with more consumer products manufactured in the United States, more middle-class Americans will become self-sustained, less use of social economic assistance and more taxes being paid thereby taking financial pressures from local to federal governments. This will then lead to better and balanced budgets. Educating voters and elected representatives at all levels as to the economic importance of increasing our consumer products manufacturing in the United States.