[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 155 (Friday, November 7, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H10320]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        OPPOSITION TO FAST TRACK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Lipinski] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LIPINSKI. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight in opposition to fast 
track. There are many, many, many reasons to oppose fast track. 
Certainly one reason you could oppose it is because of the hypocrisy of 
President Clinton and Vice President Gore when they spoke about 
pressure being put on individuals to oppose fast track.
  The hypocrisy is that it has been the President, the Vice President, 
and the Republican leadership that have been putting pressure on 
individuals in this body to support fast track. That is where the 
pressure has been coming from, that is where the intimidation has been 
coming from, and, as I say, that would be one reason to vote against 
fast track right off the bat, the hypocrisy of the Clinton 
administration.
  You could also vote against fast track because none of our trade 
policies over the last 15 to 20 years have done anything whatsoever to 
improve the standard of living or the working conditions of foreign 
workers. Our trade policy has done nothing to improve the environmental 
conditions in foreign nations where we have signed trade agreements. 
Those would be more reasons for voting against fast track.

  But to me, the most important reason for voting against fast track is 
the fact that it will continue the downward slide of the standard of 
living of all American working people.
  Twenty years ago, the standard of living of the American working man 
and woman was tops in the world. Because of the trade policy that we 
have followed in these 20 years, there has been an erosion in that 
standard of living. NAFTA accelerated that erosion considerably.
  If we support fast track tomorrow or on Sunday in this House of 
Representatives, we simply are saying to the American working man and 
woman that we do not care about your standard of living. We do not care 
if your standard of living falls down by 25 percent, 50 percent, 75 
percent. All we care about is what profits the corporations in this 
Nation and in other nations of the world can make at the expense of 
American working men and women.
  With the economy that we have in this country, the large economy, the 
strong economy, the prosperous economy, every nation in the world wants 
to get into this economy, wants to trade with this economy. Because of 
that, we should be in a position to negotiate trade agreements that are 
totally and completely advantageous to the American working man and 
woman.
  That is what we should be doing. That is what we could be doing. And 
if we can defeat fast track in this body this weekend, then we can 
start to turn things around and start rebuilding the American dream for 
the American working man and woman.

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