It looks like we will soon have two more Dubai-Ports/Harriet Miers moments. President Bush has climbed out on the edge of a limb and it is about to get sawed off because he is clearly flouting the wishes of the American people.
While Bush was using the platform of his departure from Sydney, Australia, to blast "protectionism" and pledge his commitment to "free trade," his Department of Transportation was proving that he values unfair trade with foreign countries above protection of American safety and jobs.
On September 6 at 9 p.m., the Bush Administration opened up all U.S. highways and roads to Mexican trucks and drivers. That gave the green light to the first 38 of up to 100 Mexican trucking companies, and nobody knows how many thousands of Mexican trucks will eventually drive on our roads.
Bush thumbed his nose at the U.S. House, which voted overwhelmingly and bipartisanly on May 15 and again on July 24 to prohibit the entry of Mexican trucks. White House pressure prevented a vote in the Senate. For 25 years, Mexican trucks had been restricted to a commercial zone of about 25 miles in the United States, where their loads were transferred to U.S. trucks. Bill Clinton, bless him, kept this restriction in place.
We have no way of knowing if Mexican drivers are criminals or terrorists or drug peddlers or accident-prone since Mexico doesn't have nationwide criminal or driving-record databases. The professional Mexican drug smuggler who testified against U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean was a legally licensed Mexican commercial truck driver.
U.S. drivers are limited to ten consecutive hours of service, but Mexican drivers typically drive up to 20 hours a day. Even if Mexican drivers are now limited to 10 hours per day, nobody knows how many hours they are behind the wheel before reaching the border.
Big corporations are eager to have their made-in-Mexico-or-China-by-cheap-labor products delivered in the United States by Mexican drivers because they are paid 33 to 40 percent less than U.S. truckers. As Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) said, "commercial interests are being pushed ahead of the safety and security interests of the American people."
Only one or two percent of trucks coming across the border are inspected. The smugglers of illegal drugs, products and people can just consider it a cost of doing business that so few illegal loads will be caught. White House pressure prevented a vote in the Senate.
For 25 years, Mexican trucks had been restricted to a commercial zone of about 25 miles in the United States, where their loads were transferred to U.S. trucks. Bill Clinton, bless him, kept this restriction in place.
U.S. law (since 1971) requires that commercial drivers be able to "read and speak the English language sufficiently to converse with the general public, to understand highway traffic signs and signals in the English language, to respond to official inquiries, and to make entries on reports and records."
Only one or two percent of trucks coming across the border are inspected. The smugglers of illegal drugs, products and people can just consider it a cost of doing business that so few illegal loads will be caught.
The problem is not only the increased wear and tear on our highways that U.S. taxpayers will subsidize, and not only the crowding of our roads that will make driving less pleasant, but it's our worry about safety. Anyone who does much driving on our highways knows how crowded with big trucks our highways already are.
The other Dubai Ports/Harriet Miers moment will be the first anniversary on September 14 of the overwhelming (283-138) passage by the U.S. House of the Secure Fence Act. The Senate subsequently passed it 80-19, and President Bush signed it on October 26 in front of TV cameras.
This law ordered the government to build an 854-mile fence along our southern border. After one year, the Bush Administration has built only 18 miles.
This failure -- or refusal -- to obey the law makes us believe that Bush and Michael Chertoff do not intend to build the fence, and is a prime example of why the American people don't trust our government. The government could hire eight construction firms to simultaneously build 100 miles of the fence and offer a bonus for the company that first completes its hundred miles.
The only rational explanation of Bush's stubborn determination to override the wishes of the American people by opening up all our roads to Mexican trucks is that this is an essential part of his plan for the economic integration of the United States into a North American Community. The only rational explanation of Bush's refusal to build the fence is that he has no intention of stopping the flow of illegal aliens across our southern border.
from the EagleForum.org
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Anyone familiar with this newspaper's award-winning series last year on the dangerous 18-wheelers plying Texas highways understands that our truckers have lots of room for improvement. For them to label Mexico's trucking industry as too unsafe for U.S. highways is hypocritical at best and statistically dubious.
But that hasn't stopped the Teamsters president, James Hoffa, from amping up the hysteria about the "dangerous" Mexican trucks heading our way under a NAFTA pilot program. Others warn that Mexican truckers will help smuggle illegal immigrants. Environmental groups are piling on as well.
On Web sites and blogs, they paint an image of tequila-swilling Mexicans swerving their overloaded, smoke-belching 18-wheelers across our interstate highways, taking aim at soccer moms in minivans full of children.
This is not a migration issue, nor is it about dangerous Mexican truckers on U.S. highways. It's about organized labor invoking Americans' worst fears to protect jobs and undermine the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The time for this debate was during negotiations before NAFTA became law in 1994. Negotiators long ago concurred that it wasted time and money to transfer cargo from one truck to another at the border when a properly certified truck and driver from the originating country were capable of door-to-door delivery.
Successive Democratic and Republican administrations have supported requirements for Mexican truckers to meet rigid standards for safety, licensing, insurance and a written and oral understanding of English.
Sen. John Cornyn shares our concern at the latest attempt to stall NAFTA. The Texas Republican stated last week, "The United States has a legal requirement to begin to allow Mexican commercial trucks to travel throughout the United States. ... If the United States does not abide by its legal requirements, economic penalties can be leveled at U.S. businesses and exports, which will harm Texas jobs."
We fully expect the debate, the lawsuits and congressional blocking actions to continue. That's politics. But invoking the worst stereotypes and scare-mongering tactics is a shameful way to fight.
Post a Comment