‘The people’ have choices to make

By WILLIAM McKENZIE

DALLAS MORNING NEWS

We Americans must love our economic and cultural cycles because we go through them with an eerie regularity. Mostly, we expand with optimism; then, we retrench with fear. Look at the last 100 years.

We rode into the 1900s atop a large wave of immigrants. Then, we recoiled in fear about immigrants in the 1920s.

We grew like mad in the 1950s and 1960s, thanks to a muscular postwar economy. Then, we turned inward in the 1970s after oil prices rocked us.

We held our heads proudly after World War II. Then, we sulked around after Vietnam.

Judging from the rhetoric in this 2008 presidential race, we are racing into another cycle. This time, we’re tumbling again into fear. The last few weeks on the campaign trail provide ready evidence.

In Iowa last week, Hillary Clinton delivered a rock ’em, sock ’em attack on the North American Free Trade Agreement. Yes, that is the same free trade accord that her husband proudly signed into law. Clinton’s rhetoric would have you believe it was time to go over the agreement with the finest of fine-tooth combs.

What a contrast to President Bill Clinton. He marvelously explained how America — and his party — should get ahead of the globalization game, which was reshaping the world. And the world could bypass America if we recoiled too much from a global economy.

Fast-forward to today. Hillary Clinton and most of her Democratic rivals are riding a populist fervor against globalism. Their moves may make for good politics. Clinton especially knows she must appease labor now because she, too, backed NAFTA before starting her run for president.

Yet, this populist skepticism about trade and globalism could lead America down a dangerous path. For one thing, Washington could hurt the middle class by backing away from a global economy.

Don’t take my word for it. Listen to what labor economist Stephen Rose wrote in a paper this fall for the Democratic Leadership Council:

On the whole, the growth in trade and technology over the past three decades has generated meaningful employment growth for the middle class. As a general rule, middle-class jobs are not disappearing. Rather, they are being replaced, often — though not always — by higher-paying jobs.

I’m not saying the anti-globalism crowd is entirely wrong or that NAFTA couldn’t be improved here or there. But let’s be shrewd about what we are doing.

Job training

For example, Rose contends the sufferers are under-educated workers who lack the skills for better-paying jobs. Those are the people we should target with policies like good job training and creative school initiatives.

What we don’t need to do is take a machete to existing trade treaties or run from new ones. Let’s pursue them, and pursue them wisely.

Fear also stalks the Republican primary. You see it most often when the discussion turns to immigration.

Front-runner Mike Huckabee did an about-face last week, not so long after speaking compassionately about immigrant children. His comments brought out the fangs of opponents like Mitt Romney, who gladly uses fear to grab any vote.

Sensing his right side was getting singed, Huckabee moved fast to issue a nine-point immigration plan. It was all about securing the border and cracking down on employers.

Yes, we need to do those things, but we can’t afford to stop the debate there.

We need to think about our own self-interests. Texas farmer J. Carnes told me this fall that his South Texas operation was hurting from a lack of immigrant workers. As an example, he was letting go of 50 acres of onions and 35 acres of cabbage.

As he put it, “We have lost field and product.”

Besides John McCain, which Republican will have the guts to explain why a guest worker program that targets farm workers would help people like Carnes? Or that it would help the rest of us, too? The more those products rot in the fields, the more our store shelves — and pocketbooks — will lose out.

There are other ways we are recoiling in fear. The situation in Iraq is turning members of both parties into raving isolationists. There’s also the safety threat of Chinese goods, which spooks many people.

Candidates who prey on those fears may generate votes at this moment in our cycle, but we really need to think hard about how far inward we turn. A new round of fear could come back to bite us if we end up losing jobs and suffering economically.

X William McKenzie is an editorial columnist for The Dallas Morning News. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.