Candidate Positions

Original source: http://huckabee.wordpress.com/the-fair-tax/

I believe in free trade, but it has to be fair trade. We are losing jobs because of an unlevel, unfair trading arena that has to be fixed. Behind the statistics, there are real families and real lives and real pain. I’m running for President because I don’t want people who have worked loyally for a company for twenty or thirty years to walk in one morning and be handed a pink slip and be told, “I’m sorry, but everything you spent your life working for is no longer here.”

I believe that globalization, done right, done fairly, can be a blessing for our society. As the Industrial Revolution raised living standards by allowing ordinary people to buy mass-produced goods that previously only the rich could afford, so globalization gives all of us the equivalent of a big pay raise by letting us buy all kinds of things from clothing to computers to TVs much more inexpensively.

Original source: http://bush.ontheissues.org/2008/Mike_Gravel_Free_Trade.htm

Q: A lot of Americans are concerned with outsourcing of US jobs. What’s your solution?

GRAVEL: Outsourcing is not the problem. What is the problem is our trade agreements that benefit the management and, of course, the shareholders, and have neglected on either side of the issue, whether it’s in Mexico or in other countries or the United States. That’s the problem that must be addressed. So, no, it’s not outsourcing. But I would add to it, it’s the way all of these people want to finance health care, on the backs of businesses, that make them uncompetitive in the world. That’s part of the problem. And our system of taxation is also part of the problem because it makes us uncompetitive in the world.

DODD: I disagree. I think it’s a huge issue here. The fact of the matter is we’re exporting a lot of valuable jobs in this country and we shouldn’t be doing it.

BIDEN: The bottom line here is we’ve got to make it more attractive to have jobs here in America and for corporations to be here.

Original source: http://www.speculativebubble.com/politics/joe-biden.php

SEN. BIDEN: I agree with everything that was said here. But the bottom line here is that eliminating the tax breaks is not going to keep jobs here in America. We’ve got to make it more attractive to have jobs here in America and for corporations to be here.

You’ve got to take the burden off the corporations with a health care system that’s universal, so we’re not at a competitive disadvantage. You’ve got to have a better education system to provide for the highest-tech jobs that we educate our folks for, so we’re not importing 400,000 computer engineers to work in Silicon Valley. And you’ve got to deal with the innovation and infrastructure needs in this country — tunnels, bridges, et cetera — which we haven’t done to make us more competitive.

Original source: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/05/14/100008849/index.htm

On globalization

“It’s not complicated. If you have capital and you’re well educated, the odds are that a global economy will benefit you. But the vast majority of Americans don’t fit in that category.”

Original source: http://www.speculativebubble.com/politics/christopher-dodd.php

SEN. DODD: Yes, I disagree. I think it’s a huge issue here. The fact of the matter is we’re exporting a lot of valuable jobs in this country and we shouldn’t be doing it. I offered legislation that was passed that prohibited the Defense Department for outsourcing contracts, going off our shores here when many hard-working Americans ought to be allowed to do those jobs.

I talked earlier about providing tax incentives. When you have people literally driving to the international airports to fly to some country to provide some funding for a local project in those nations, bypassing the very communities that could very well use those kind of jobs and economic growth, that is wrong. I will continue to do what I can to see to it that we limit outsourcing American jobs.

Original source: http://nymag.com/news/politics/powergrid/34457/

But for the current senator, much of this apparently seems dubious, at least as a road map to the future. “We just can’t keep doing what we did in the twentieth century,” she told a reporter from Bloomberg, adding that we may need “a little time-out” before the enactment of any further trade deals. Accordingly, in 2005, she voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Last month, she announced her opposition to the South Korean Free Trade Agreement. She has backed legislation that would impose trade sanctions on Chinese goods unless Beijing stops holding down the value of the yuan. She has even repeatedly spouted skepticism about the wisdom of NAFTA—while stopping short of blaming her husband for its deficiencies. “NAFTA was inherited by the Clinton administration,” she informed Time magazine. “I believe in the general principles it represented, but what we have learned is that we have to drive a tougher bargain.”

Original source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/obama-power-challenger-_b_36129.html

“People notice what’s going on overseas and they say we are not afraid to compete. But as globalization advances and corporations bottom lines know no borders and our young people are competing against children not just in California or Florida or Illinois they are competing against folks in Calcutta or Beijing.”

“At that point parents start saying why aren’t we doing everything we can to prepare our young people making them adept at math and science so that they can get the jobs of the future and be the innovators of the future? Why wouldn’t we invest in early childhood education to bring every child up to par? Why wouldn’t we start paying our teachers more and help develop training for them to recruit the best and the brightest for the classroom? Why on earth would we start increasing the cost of student loans at the precise time we know that our young people are going to be needing a college education more than ever?”

Technorati Tags: Barack+Obama, globalization

Original source: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3738/is_200407/ai_n9458651

Globalization enthusiasts, including McCain and Senate Armed Services Chairman John Warner, R-Va., invert that argument, asserting that if the Navy and other service branches can’t peruse foreign markets for subsystems and componentry, they will miss out on low-cost, high-quality alternatives to American manufacturing and jeopardize critical military capabilities and readiness. They could also damage key alliances that will form the backbone of future coalitions in the war on terrorism and other potential conflicts.

Technorati Tags: McCain, globalization

Original source: http://2008gravel.blogspot.com/2007/03/mike-gravels-views-on-climate-change.html

Global climate change must be made an issue of national security. We must act swiftly to reduce America’s carbon footprint in the world by passing legislation that caps emissions. However, any legislation will have little impact on the global environment if we do not work together with other global polluters. Fighting global warming can only be effective if it is a collective global effort.

As President, Senator Gravel will see that the U.S. launches and leads a massive global scientific effort to end energy dependence on oil and integrate the world’s scientific community to this task. A national public works program to rewire the country towards new energy technologies would create tens of thousands of new American jobs.

Original source: http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=1192

Do you want to make stopping global warming a central cause?
I don?t try to get into the middle of the science of global warming.

…..

But do you believe there?s a human role in climate change?
There may be. But whether there is or there isn?t, it doesn?t release us from the responsibility to be good stewards of the environment.