http://www.illinoisleader.com/letters/l ... sp?c=27904

Making sense of CAFTA

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Are our federal elected officials blind? Do they not comprehend the end results of their actions with the importation of products and favoritism of other countries?

My perspective of America in the past six years is a simple analogy; two trains on single track racing towards each other at a high rate of speed. One train is the importation of people (legal and illegal); the other the exportation of jobs to foreign countries(ie: CAFTA and China most favored nation status). When the trains collide, what will we, the U.S. Citizens, have? Third world status in my opinion.

Look around your neighborhood today, how many people are unemployed, collecting unemployment, off the unemployment roll so you're not counted anymore, or working menial jobs and losing hope daily? Show me a family that has been untouched by the loss of jobs in America. How many more will be lost with the massive jump in gasoline prices?

America's strength used to lie in our ability to manufacture products and be self-sufficient. Today, that ability is gone, given to foreign, cheaper, government subsidized companies in an effort to achieve something incomprehensible to the average citizen.

Our elected officials need to face reality that their actions are weakening America. Every lost job takes away from the tax base exponentially.

Where will the tax revenue come from when an individual that was earning $20.00/hr loses that job and has to take one paying $8.00/hr. How will the elected officials pay for the "PORK" they dole out? How will individuals at $8.00/hr afford; their property taxes, mortgage, utilities, insurance, medical bills, buy food, let alone purchase a new appliance or automobile? Let me know.

I would like to see Congress and the Senate live on $320.00/week, then maybe they would understand that CAFTA and the exportation of jobs is causing the destruction of working class citizens.

Marshall Reagle
Barrington