A BELEAGUERED PRESIDENT, A FIZZLED “ECONOMIC STIMULUS PACKAGE”, AND A NAFTA TIME BOMB
- Lindsey Grant
- May 1, 1993
- Forum Papers
- Forum Paper
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A BELEAGUERED PRESIDENT, A FIZZLED “ECONOMIC STIMULUS PACKAGE”, AND A NAFTA TIME BOMB
An NPG Forum Paper
by Lindsey Grant
May 1993
The President is facing a mounting crisis over unemployment and wages, which will come to the front as the Senate debates the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). His “stimulus” package was largely irrelevant to the problem. The package, even by its sponsors’ optimistic calculations, would have generated less than one-sixth as many jobs as are needed by foreign workers entering the U.S. labor market annually. Sooner or later, the President is going to have to face the reality of limits, and a good place to start would be to look at the labor supply side, which means looking at immigration. Like Presidents before him, he won’t want to do it. but he may find the nation ahead of him and, paradoxically, behind him if he takes on an issue that has become a political taboo. Lindsey Grant is an erstwhile Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Environment and Population Affairs, editor of this NPG FORUM series, and a writer on population and environmental issues. ā¢
For President Clinton, it has been a short, rough honeymoon: the early reversal when he faced the prospect of a mass migration of Haitian boat people; the fracas over gays in the military: Congress’ rejection of his proposal to allow AIDS sufferers to migrate to the U.S.; the backdown over grazing fees and mining rights; the withdrawal of his first nominee for Attorney General, who showed a remarkably cavalier attitude toward the immigration laws that an Attorney General is pledged to uphold. The Senate deadlocked over his S16.3 billion “economic stimulus” package. Coming up: Senate debate of his predecessor’s North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and Hillary’s proposals for national health care.
In most of these issues, we seem to see a man who is predisposed to be generous to everybody, suddenly facing unexpected and rising resistance. A certain realism seems to have invaded Congress, and perhaps an awareness of limits; even America is not omnipotent.
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Lindsey Grant is a retired Foreign Service Officer; he was a China specialist and served as Director of the Office of Asian Communist Affairs, National Security Council staff member, and Department of State policy Planning staff member. As Deputy Secretary of State for Environmental and Population Affairs, he was Department of State coordinator for the Global 2000 Report to the President, Chairman of the interagency committee on Int’l Environmental Committee and US member of the UN ECE Committee of Experts on the Environment. His books include: Too Many People, Juggernaut, The Horseman and the Bureaucrat, Elephants in Volkswagen, How Many Americans?