I pen this letter to the editor in response to an article written on August 30 2010.

  http://www.politifact.com/ohio/statements/2010/aug/25/lee-fisher/lee-fisher-says-rob-portman-actually-sucked-jobs-o/

 I remember as a child crossing the center street bridge in Youngstown and asking my father to roll up the windows because the smell of sulfur was so pungent.  I remember then as a young man driving across the same center street bridge seeing the shut down rusted-out buildings.  Now I drive across the same center street bridge with my children in tow and we see for miles in either direction brown fields where the mighty steel mills once roared.

 Little did I know as a child that pungent smell was the smell of jobs-good paying middle class jobs.  It’s all gone now I tell my children  and then explain to them  how decade after decade our region has suffered the effects of unfettered systematic disinvestment in the steel industry that led directly to black Monday and the eventual loss of thousands of jobs here in the Mahoning Valley. 

 After black Monday our jobs loss continued with  NAFTA that despicable trade agreement that erased thousand of hourly and salaried worker at GM Delphi-Packard, GE and other local companies.  As if to pour salt  in our wounds we got CAFTA, most favored nation trading status for China, the WTO and a congress that fast tracked authority on trade.  Lee Fisher understands as we do that fair trade spurs growth while unrestrained free trade is a recipe for economic disaster.

 Did Rob Portman himself pull the switch? - Well no one could do that.  However his attitude did and the attitude of hundreds like him did in fact “suck the jobs out of the Mahoning Valley.”

 I hear  The Plain Dealers and others cite President Clinton and many other democrats as proof that this was not just Rob Portman.  Let’s be honest certain areas of the country have flourished with these free trade agreements and therefore would only make sense for these democrats.  However no one in Ohio should have this attitude and every democrat I know of from this area has not supported these agreements.  It is then this attitude that you should subject to your “truth –o-meter.”   Northeastern Ohio has been deeply hurt by free trade and I know Clevelanders know this all too well.  Subject the attitude of unemployed workers to your “truth –o-meter” and see if they don’t see as we do how Rob Portman and his attitude have “sucked the jobs out of our area.”

 It’s almost laughable if you were not so serious as to tout our “exports” to other areas. (Exporting what exactly.)   Please come to the Valley and tout that to thunderous laughter from Valley residents.  Your article cites numerous studies and many facts and figures.  Come to the Valley spend some time here travel across the center street bridge and then tell us of your facts and figures.  Travel the roads in Warren and Youngstown and see the boarded up houses and see how those cities are almost returning to farm like status from all the vacant lots.  Talk to Mayor Jay Williams of Youngstown or Mayor Mike O’Brien of Warren about how to make a budget stretch because of the loss of the jobs.  We in the Valley are the decedents of immigrants coming to America for a decent wage and a chance at the American dream-a chance to smell the pungent air of jobs.    Those jobs and thousands of others like them all gone.   Gone exactly because of an attitude that free trade reigns over fair trade.  Gone because we compete with one arm tied behind our back.  Gone because of an attitude of Rob Portman and others like him.   Does this fit into your “truth –o-meter” anywhere?

  The truth is that we finally began having an attitude- an attitude of Lee Fisher and others -of enforcing tariffs for tube dumping of Chinese companies that led to the investment of some bright spots like V&M star steel.   The truth is that the attitude of Lee Fisher and others like him understand we cannot compete with the Chinese when they manipulate its currency, prop up its companies with government money, pollute its land, injure its workers, block our goods from its markets or fail to enforce child labor laws. The truth is the attitude of Lee Fisher and others understand that instead of us bringing the world up to our standard we are allowing the world to decimate our middle class.

 So maybe you are right Rob Portman did not “pull the switch” but his attitude did and from that he cannot run.  I hope you can figure this- an attitude of free over fair- into your “truth –o-meter.”  By the way feel free to ask me for a tour of the center street bridge.  I promise to I will have a good attitude.   The smell is good too, but the jobs- well they’re gone.