Trans-Pacific Partnership bad for America

On a recent Friday, a band of members headed by a passionate woman named Wendie Goetz, visited the Lake Mohawk Country Club in order to protest the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Their quest was to pass literature to small business members that belonged to the Sussex County Chamber of Commerce attending an annual dinner. Their quest was only informational and not confrontational, and by all accounts, many in the chamber were not annoyed.

The TPP agreement is often described as NAFTA on steroids. Yes, it is indeed more problematic than NAFTA. The president has, in his recent speech, made this his signature quest for his legacy. I am not here to tarnish a president or a congress, or bury Caesar, but this is bad. Inequality is indeed rising throughout the world and here. Some 20 years ago, I did a national study of jobs in our economy, and at the time, the Dictionary of Occupational Titles reported 12,486 different occupations. Many of those jobs are gone, and workers are now considered redundant.

Sure, HB-1 visas are a problem bringing in foreign workers to take away the jobs of capable Americans. The reality, however, is that TPP is a secretive agreement, which will allow corporations to ship jobs overseas and push wages down, enable medicines to go up in price, and will among other issues prevent generic drugs manufacture. Indeed, many of our environment and health safeguards will be abridged, and there will an ability to undermine human rights here, as our sovereignty will be lessened. No, you think? Read TPP and study.

Many of us are living pay check to pay check now. Look, Adam Smith, an early economist noted the following: “The disposition to admire, and almost worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition is the great and most universal corruption of our moral sentiments.” Be vigilant on TPP, as no one in DC is!

Bill Weightman
Hardyston