Tom Daschle wasn’t the worst Democrat you could have in the Senate–yes, a back-handed compliment. Kind of populist on some issues. But, since he was defeated for re-election, he’s turned into a real corporate hack mouthpiece. Especially on trade.

He’s flogging really bad trade deals. And Lori Wallach has a very good rejoinder to his distortions regarding NAFTA (and I link to this even though she uses the non-word “incentivized”…):

And Daschle’s assertion that the historic rise in U.S. income inequality “has [little] to do with trade agreements” ignores the broad academic consensus  that the current model of trade has contributed significantly to the widening income gap. The only debate among economists has been the degree of the effect.

A recent Economic Policy Institute study estimates that unbalanced trade was responsible for more than 90 percent of the rise in U.S. wage inequality between 1995 and 2011. That period was marked by NAFTA and similar pacts that have incentivized the offshoring of decently-paid U.S. jobs and forced Americans to compete with low-wage workers abroad. As hundreds of thousands of trade-displaced manufacturing workers have joined the glut of Americans competing for lower-paid, non-offshoreable service-sector jobs, real wages have fallen and income inequality has risen.

Sad to see Daschle stoop so low. But, I guess everyone is entitled to a paycheck. No matter the source.