George,

The issue of free trade and NAFTA will be an important part of my campaign. Free trade has not only hurt the manufacturing sector in the 5th District, but has done grave damage to agriculture. Tobacco, the region's largest cash crop, has been hit especially hard as US cigarette manufacturers are using less than 50% US leaf in their processing. Other crops, notably apples which are being battered by low cost imports of Chinese concentrates, are also struggling.

Mr. Goode's opposition to free trade, however, is only half the equation. I will argue that the promise of free trade has largely passed working America by. But I will also argue that our nation's promise to make whole those communities which suffer from NAFTA and free trade has not been met. The Bush tax cuts and consequent massive deficits mean that little will be done in the future to rebuild the import damaged infrastructure of many of America's communities. These are cuts that Mr. Goode supports, and his calling for the Pentagon to purchase US made uniforms is but another of his smokescreens.

The Tenaska situation is a bit more complex. As I understand it, the high paying jobs are held by those workers who have specialties unique to the kind of construction they do. That they are always on the road may also account for these envious pay rates.

Unless we are aiming for state based autarky, these are, after all, American jobs. I daresay there are hundreds of Virginia citizens working out of state at any time whose employment would be put at risk by such chauvinism.

The real culprit is the Bush Administration, supported at every turn by Mr. Goode, and its attempt to stampede Congress into tax cuts that will not generate jobs in the near term, if ever. Keynesian economics still applies: budget expenditures on projects that get people working, even if they create deficits, will pay for themselves. There is a world of infrastructure projects where these skilled, but unemployed, building trade workers could find work. Projects that would also benefit our communities: schools, bridges, and highways in parts of the state. I hope these workers will remember this in November, 2004.

Al Weed (electronic mail, May 7, 2003)