Economists disagree with Democratic economic policies? No way. You mean to tell me these Democrats just say whatever they need to say to get votes, regardless of whether it is actually sound economic policy?

The North American Free Trade Agreement is once again a prime scapegoat for the nation’s growing economic troubles, drawing blame for sending jobs overseas and flattening wages for U.S. workers. That sentiment has intensified as the economy has deteriorated, a fall punctuated last week by the steepest job decline in five years.

Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.) have fed the anti-free-trade view in campaigning ahead of the Pennsylvania Democratic primary April 22. Facing voters in a state that has lost more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs since 2001, Obama has promised to stand against trade deals that cost U.S. jobs, while saying Clinton supported NAFTA in the past. Clinton counters that she has always opposed the deal, even as her husband signed it as president, and she has promised to call a “timeout” on future trade deals if elected president. “I don’t think NAFTA has been good for America,” she said.

But is that judgment fair?

Many economists do not think so…

But many economists blame the march of technology and the increasingly dominant manufacturing role of China, not NAFTA, for that shift.

Overall, they said, NAFTA has been a net plus, if a modest one, for the U.S. economy. Even as the number of factory jobs dropped, manufacturing output in the United States was up 58 percent between 1993 and 2006, as U.S. plants produced more goods with fewer workers. Exports are at a record high, and trade among the three NAFTA partners has tripled since 1994. Meanwhile, overall employment in the United States has grown 24 percent and average unemployment is down since NAFTA went into effect. Some cities along the border with Mexico have grown, and farm exports have gone up.

Damn those facts! Or, as Obama supporters might say, “G-d Damn those facts…and America, too!”

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