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Why did Davis skip CAFTA vote?
September 2, 2005
The promise by the Bush administration and big business that the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) will revive the U.S. textile industry is a pipe dream and ignores the enormous surge in China's textile exports, according to a report by the Economic Policy Institute.

Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, the model for CAFTA, more than 500 factories and 90,000 apparel jobs have disappeared in Mexico since July 2000. In the same period, the United States has lost 212,000 textile jobs and 305,000 apparel jobs. Those who think this treaty will save U.S. textile jobs or build up these industries in the CAFTA countries will be badly disappointed, said the report's authors, Robert Scott and David Ratner.

It is easy to figure out why the U.S. Commerce Department reported the nation's trade deficit for June reached $58.8 billion, up from $55.4 billion in May. We aren't selling much. Our representative, Jo Ann Davis, did not vote on the barely passed CAFTA. Where was she?

In July, Davis was on the spot to vote against providing birth control to poor women looking to prevent or delay high-risk pregnancies. Is she opposed to birth control?

She didn't "take a walk on this one." Just who is she looking out for?

J.B. Kenley

Port Haywood