[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 20 (Wednesday, February 1, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H1030-H1031]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                              PESO BAILOUT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hastings of Washington). Under a 
previous order of the House, the gentleman from California [Mr. Hunter] 
is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I also want to talk about the bailout, the 
new Clinton unilateral, nonparticipation by the legislative branch 
bailout. And I was just speaking with my friend the gentlewoman from 
Ohio, Marcy Kaptur, who has really been a leader in trade and leader on 
this issue, about what is happening to our country and what is 
happening to American workers. And I hope that there is a silver lining 
to the cloud of this bailout issue which hovers over Americans right 
now, which the President is attempting to dismiss with this use of the 
Exchange Stabilization Fund, if he is to bail out Mexico without 
requiring Congress to vote up or down.
  The silver lining that I am looking for is a realization in this 
body, in the House of Representatives, of the fact that our blind 
adherence to free trade, that is leveling all borders, all tariffs 
between us and the rest of the world, regardless of the circumstances, 
regardless of whether
 or not they let us into their borders, regardless of the displacement 
of American workers, relying on the blind adherence on the Republican 
side and the Democrat side in some cases.

  Let us talk a little bit about the peso bailout and some of the 
conservative Republicans who recently have testified in our forums.
  Bill Seidman is a conservative Republican renowned economic leader, 
former chairman of the FSLIC, a guy who knows bailouts, and he made a 
couple of good points in his speech to our forum when he said, ``Do not 
bail out Mexico.''
  First, he does believe in the free market and he could not understand 
why people who believe in a free market and who believed in NAFTA would 
now believe that somehow the politics and the economics of subsidies to 
Mexico now make sense.
  He pointed out that Mexico has gone through in the last 10 or 20 
years a number of devaluations, and they have not had these disastrous 
apocalyptic effects that all of the deep breathers tell us are going to 
happen now if we do not bail out Mexico with a $40-billion-plus 
package. Here is Bill Seidman, a renowned conservative economic expert 
relied on by this Nation in very difficult times saying we do not have 
to do it, let the market adjust it. He made a great statement. He said 
this issue should be resolved between Mexico and her creditors, let us 
resolve this between creditor and debtor.
                              {time}  1850

  Let us stay out of this as the United States of America. In listening 
to witness after witness on the Democrat side and the Republican side 
across the political spectrum coming up and testifying against the 
bailout, it occurred to me that this has revealed another aspect of 
national policy that should be looked at very closely.
  If this is free trade, this is the result of free trade where a tiny 
nation economically like Mexico, which has approximately the economy 
the size of New Jersey's, can be in a position to pull the United 
States down because it 
[[Page H1031]] has a downturn. Have our policymakers who have outlined 
a free-trade policy for the United States supposedly with a deep 
intellectual base really been right when the effect of their policy is 
to handcuff the United States to Third World nations in deep water that 
do not know how to swim? That is what we have done.
  If we have lost our independence and if we now are committed to bail 
out every nation which becomes inextricably linked with our economic 
well-being through our trade policies, is that smart?
  Regardless of whether or not you like the trend lines on the exports 
and the imports, is it right for us to give up our independence and 
link ourselves with these nations? Does that mean we are now going to 
link ourselves with Argentina, we are so linked that we now have to 
bail them out if they have a problem, or any of the other dozens and 
dozens of Third World nations which now will call on the United States 
to help bail them out because we have a substantial trade relationship?
  Now, let me just conclude by giving one ``I told you so'' and ``Let's 
look at this thing in the future,'' to all of my colleagues, my good 
friends, who supported NAFTA. The claim by the pro-NAFTA advocates on 
this floor was that Mexican workers were going to achieve a larger 
standard of living, go above that $1,900 per capita per year income, 
and they were going to get up there to the point where they were making 
enough money to buy large amounts of American consumer goods and 
increase our exports. This devaluation has decreased the capability to 
buy by about 30 percent. This proves that NAFTA was wrong.


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