Gill campaign: McNerney’s pledge against President Clinton and Local Jobs
Former President Bill Clinton is scheduled to visit the Sacramento area tomorrow to show support for Jerry McNerney and several other Democratic Congressional candidates.
President Clinton might be interested to learn that McNerney staunchly opposes, and even ridicules, one of his signature issues: trade agreements that create American jobs.
In his recent book, Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy, Clinton argued that Congress should “[p]ass the pending trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama” in order to boost the U.S. economy. As Clinton noted, “We don’t have a trade deficit in goods and services with the countries with which we have trade agreements” — a central argument for their passage.
But McNerney voted “no” on each of those trade agreements, despite the significant benefits they promised for local farmers and port workers. In fact, he’s voted against every trade agreement that Congress has considered since his election.
President Clinton might also be interested to learn that McNerney in 2006 signed a pledge, known as the “New American Compact,” in which he vowed to oppose “the roguery of Free Trade.” That’s right: McNerney signed a pledge to oppose the “roguery” of trade agreements supported by local farmers, ranchers and port workers.
President Clinton surely would be interested to learn that the text of McNerney’s radical pledge alleges that free trade is “breeding terrorism.”
These are the same trade agreements that the Obama administration estimated would create up to 280,000 American jobs and generate $12 billion in new exports. The same agreements that eliminated foreign tariffs on local products including dairy, cherries, asparagus and wine. The same agreements that, like Ricky himself, have earned the unequivocal support of the California Farm Bureau Federation.
The 9th District simply cannot afford a Congressman who has pledged to vote against its farmers, ranchers and port workers.
