[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 155 (Friday, November 7, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H10319]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          FAILED TRADE POLICY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon [Mr. DeFazio] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, last evening and this morning on 
television, I heard the President and the Vice President say that if 
there were a secret vote on the extension of fast track authority, they 
knew that they would win by a 2- or 3-to-1 margin, because in their 
hearts the 80 percent of the Democratic caucus which is opposing their 
misbegotten trade policy would change their minds if they were not 
being pressured by Big Labor.
  I saw the face of Big Labor here today on the Hill, people in their 
local union jackets with their ball caps, puzzling over maps of the 
Capitol, looking worried, going office to office, and I stopped to talk 
to some of them.
  That is not what is pressuring or pushing the Democrats on this side 
of the aisle. We are standing on principle. We have a failed and 
failing trade policy in this country, a $160 billion trade deficit, a 
huge and growing trade deficit with Mexico, United States jobs going 
south of the border to United States-owned firms exporting their 
capital, exporting their jobs, to access 80-cents-an-hour labor in the 
maquilladora area; people living in pallet shacks, walking over 
bridges, I guess the President would call them the bridges to the 21st 
century, to these beautiful state-of-the-art United States-built 
manufacturing plants. Eighty cents an hour; is that the future that we 
want to push American workers toward? I think not. That is a failed 
trade policy.
  In fact, nothing could be further from the truth than what the 
President and the Vice President said today. If a secret vote were held 
when the pressure was off from the White House, and all the deals they 
are cutting, and the arm-twisting from the Republican leaders and the 
CEOs, the dozens of chief executive officers of the Fortune 500 
companies who jetted into town this week in the luxury of their private 
jets to twist arms and offer their own deals to Members of Congress, we 
would beat fast track 2 or 3 to 1.
  The White House has turned into a virtual trading bazaar. I cannot 
believe what I am hearing from my colleagues; offers from the White 
House of guaranteed $150,000 fund-raisers before the end of the year to 
replace any money you might lose from your friends in labor after you 
sell out the American working people. You know, deals of bridges, deals 
of military projects that no one wants and haven't been funded, pork; 
pork is available.
  Every member of the White House Cabinet is calling, burning up the 
lines. They have got a so-called war room here somewhere on Capitol 
Hill, I do not know where it is, where the 1 or 2 dozen Democrats 
supporting this are working the phones with intelligence, things are 
caught on the floor, two members of the Cabinet and to the White House 
and the President and the Vice President. They are busing people down 
to the White House. They are offering them the sun, the moon, the 
stars, and they can offer it. You know why? Because they offered it to 
everybody for their vote on NAFTA, and they never delivered it. So they 
can give it away twice. Is it not beautiful? It is a little bit like 
Lucy and the football.
  How many times are Members of Congress going to hear the siren song 
of President Clinton, and now Vice President Gore, on these issues; the 
promises that they will fix it all later, or we will have side 
agreements that take care of the environment and labor, do not worry.
  And then people buy that, and then, oops, did I ever talk to you 
before? Do I know you? And now they need us again 3 years later, and 
suddenly we have got these great deals, side agreements on labor and 
the environment, because the Republicans will not let us have anything 
to do with labor and environment in this bill, and they need the 
Republican votes.
  Well then they maybe ought to get all their votes on that side of the 
aisle.
  But what really made me angry was to hear the President question the 
motivation of people on this side of the aisle while he is offering 
people fund-raisers, while he is offering people bridges, while he is 
offering people other projects.
  We have a failed trade policy in this country, and perhaps, just 
perhaps, this weekend the American people will be well-served by this 
body. We will begin to question up or down votes on trade policy, no 
amendments allowed, whatever your concerns or perspectives are, giving 
up our prerogative as Members of the House of Representatives to 
perpetuate and continue policies that are piling up huge and growing 
trade deficits.
  You know, someday those bills are going to come due. The U.S. is a 
trillion dollars in debt overseas, growing at the rate of $160 billion 
a year. Someday someone is going to say, we are not so sure of the U.S. 
economy and the U.S. dollar anymore. We want our money back.
  What is going to happen to future generations? We are at the point 
trade with the deficit where we were with the U.S. fiscal deficit about 
10 years ago.

                              {time}  1915

  People are saying, oh, it does not matter. Is it not nice they want 
to lend us that money and run a deficit? We are losing jobs, 
prosperity. We need a new policy, and we have an opportunity to get it 
this weekend if we defeat fast track.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaTOURETTE). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentlewoman from Washington (Mrs. Smith) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.

  [Mrs. SMITH of Washington addressed the House. Her remarks will 
appear hereafter in the Extensions of Remarks.]

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