[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 59 (Friday, May 10, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4186-S4188]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRADE
Mr. GREGG. Madam President, last night an agreement was reached on
this trade promotion authority, on the trade adjustment language, and
the Andean trade agreement, three bills which have been bundled by the
majority leader--there is a fourth one, the general tariffs agreement--
that we have been trying to work through as a body. Last night, I
understand the parties negotiated a comprehensive settlement to these
issues involving trade and trade adjustment.
Trade promotion authority is very important legislation. We as a
nation, and States such as New Hampshire specifically--and States such
as the Presiding Officer's State especially--depend inordinately on our
capacity to have free trade with other countries because our States,
our culture has its competitive edge not in some material or commodity
we produce, such as an agricultural good or oil; our economic advantage
in New Hampshire is that we have people who are very bright and produce
goods that are on the cutting edge.
Unfortunately, in the international economy, when you are producing
cutting-edge goods, there is a tendency of other nations that cannot
keep up to block those goods from coming into their country.
It always works to our advantage to open up a country's trade with us
because the goods which we produce--which are on the cutting edge,
which are the next generation, and always a step ahead of their
competition--become available for sale in that country where we have
opened barriers.
In New Hampshire, for example, almost 30 percent of the jobs are tied
directly to products which are produced and sold overseas. So trade
promotion authority--which is basically a vehicle to allow the
administration to negotiate trade agreements, almost all of which, I
presume, will allow us to enter other markets--trade promotion
authority is very important legislation. This Congress has passed it
year in and year out--for many years. In fact, I voted for it
innumerable times when I was in the House and even had a chance to vote
for it in the Senate.
Unfortunately, in the last few years, it has become tied up with
other issues, but I do believe there has always been a strong
bipartisan consensus to give the President trade promotion authority.
Unfortunately, as I mentioned, we have now attached to trade
promotion authority other issues because people realized around here
that if there is a train leaving the station and you can put something
on it, the odds are you are going to be able to pass it. These are
items which might not pass under a freestanding situation. That is
unfortunate because trade promotion is so important. It should not be
thrown into this type of a bundle. It should be voted on separately.
But the majority leader decided to bundle it.
In that bundle he has put some things which I find to have serious
problems, specifically the trade adjustment language and the expansion
of the entitlements under the trade adjustment language.
There are two major initiatives in this proposal which are going to
significantly expand direct costs and burdens on the taxpayers of
America and will open the door to policy activity in an arbitrary way,
and we cannot see the unintended consequences yet, which I think are
going to be significant and extraordinarily expensive.
The trade adjustment bill, which is not involved in negotiating
treaties, the purpose of which is to assist people whose jobs have been
impacted as a result of trade activity--in other words, if you worked
for a textile mill in New Hampshire maybe 20 years ago, and that
textile mill was put out of business because of trade activity, because
of low-cost cotton goods coming into the country--in fact, it happened
even more recently than that. There are a couple companies in the
western part of New Hampshire that have gone out of business in recent
years as a result of trade activity. If you work for that type of
company, under the trade adjustment authority, you would have certain
benefits accrued to you in the areas of training and unemployment
compensation so you can have an opportunity to get back into the
workforce more quickly and be less impacted by that trade activity.
What is being proposed in this bill, however, is a significant
expansion to benefit those people--well-intentioned, obviously--who
have been dislocated as a result of trade activities, specifically the
expansion of health care coverage and a wage supplement should they not
take a different job. Let's talk about both of these.
Madam President, the health care benefit means if you lose your job
and it is designated a job loss as a result of trade activity, you will
be able to get health insurance. Seventy percent of the cost of that
will be paid by the Federal Government. You will be out of work, but
you will be able to get health insurance. You will have to buy it
through a pooling agreement. You will not be able to go out on the
market and buy it. You will have to buy it through a pooling agreement,
and you will be reimbursed through what is called a refundable tax
credit. It is a tax benefit, a payment which amounts to an entitlement
payment and really is not tax related at all. You will get this money
and be able to buy through this pooling agreement, theoretically
[[Page S4187]]
at least, health insurance. It might not be the health insurance you
want, but you can buy it and get 70-percent support for it.
What is the problem with that? It sounds pretty good. Yes, it is
pretty good, obviously. What does it do? It does a couple of things.
First, if you are working today in America, you may not have health
insurance. You are paying taxes, but you may not have health insurance.
There may be a variety of reasons you do not have health insurance.
This bill says a person who is unemployed has a right to have their
health insurance underwritten to the extent of 70 percent of its cost,
but a person who is employed and may not have health insurance does not
get health insurance. That clearly creates a huge inequity in our
system.
It is a new concept: If you are unemployed, you have a right to
health insurance. But if you are employed and you do not have health
insurance, you are out of luck.
The implications of this are that either you are going to start
covering everybody because, obviously, you are already covering the
unemployed or you are going to leave a large segment of America saying:
Hey, I am working for a living; I am paying taxes for a living; I do
not have health insurance, but I have to pay extra taxes so that
somebody who is not working can have health insurance.
I think that is going to be hard to swallow for people who are
working and do not have health insurance.
In addition, the structure and the way the health insurance is going
to be purchased make very little sense. The pooling agreements do not
exist. In fact, the State that is probably furthest ahead in pooling
agreements is New Hampshire, and we do not even have it up and running
yet.
The concept that one cannot go out in the marketplace and buy it if
they want, that one has to buy it through some sort of structured event
which may mean they are going to get insurance they do not need,
coverage they do not need, costs they do not need, probably get a lot
better deal maybe if they go out and buy it through a different system,
the limitation which basically is forcing them to buy it in one
specific way versus allowing them to use the marketplace, completely
makes no sense. If this is going to be done, which to begin with is to
create a major new entitlement, then it ought to at least be done in a
way that makes economic sense to the person who is getting the benefit
and makes sense to the insurance market so that a healthier insurance
market is made rather than a less healthy insurance market.
In this proposal, it will not be positive for health insurance for
energizing better coverage. There is a major new entitlement being
created under this bill, which is being created in back rooms
somewhere, which has never really gone through the light of day of the
committee process and which has very little to do with trade--in fact,
nothing to do with trade, for that matter--and is opening the door to a
huge new issue of how we deliver health care coverage in this country.
As a result, it is setting down a path which we may not be able to
get off and which may basically lead to a massive expansion along the
lines of what was proposed by President Clinton of the way we address
health care in this country, which is essentially a nationalization
system. I do not think that is too far fetched a step to take. This is
more than just putting your toe in the water as to moving down that
road. When we start insuring people who do not have jobs and give them
health insurance when there are people who do have jobs who do not have
health insurance, it is going to be incredibly expensive. Who pays in
the end? Well, the money we use in the Federal Government does not come
from the sky. It comes from the wage earner. It comes from people who
have to pay taxes.
This is a huge, brandnew entitlement being put together in the middle
of the night--this one especially in the middle of the night--which has
not been properly vetted and which has significant issues surrounding
it.
The second concept in this bill which raises very serious public
policy questions is this idea the Federal Government is going to come
in and say to somebody who has lost a job as a result of trade activity
that if that person goes out and finds a job that does not pay them as
much as they had in the job they lost as a result of trade activity,
the Federal Government is going to come in and arbitrarily pay a
portion of the difference between what that person earned under their
job prior to the trade activity and the job after the trade activity.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator's 10 minutes have
expired.
Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent to proceed for another 5 minutes.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. GREGG. I appreciate the courtesy of the Senator from Missouri.
What is the practical effect? Let's take an example. If someone is
working, for example, for a steel company, which is an example that is
fairly current considering the discussions, and they were being paid
labor union wages at a very high rate--let's say they were making
$40,000 a year, maybe more--and they lost their job allegedly because
the steel was no longer competitive with the foreign steel that was
coming in--there are a lot of factors that may have led to that,
including the fact that wage rates were no longer competitive--and then
they move out of that job and take another job--let's say they decide,
well, I would like to teach; I have done steel for 20 years and I am
tired of it; I want to do something else, maybe I want to go into
teaching--and they get a teaching job at a private school, say a
Catholic school that does not pay too much--it is more of a social
service really--and they are getting paid $20,000 to do that, the
$20,000 they are not making the Federal Government is going to come in
and supplement and say, we are going to pay the difference or a portion
of that difference.
Well, that creates all sorts of unintended consequences and adverse
selection issues. I can see a lot of people saying, I am going to close
my company down, claim the trade caused them to close their company
down and they are going to go out and get another job which pays a lot
less, which is a job they always wanted to have; they are tired of
doing this job, and they will let the Government pay the difference.
The implications of this are absolutely staggering. One does not have
to think too long to see what the implications are. And who is paying
the cost? Where is this money coming from? The American wage earner,
the people still working for a living, working hard, they have to pick
up that difference. Essentially we are going to pay people not to be as
productive as they were before, because in our society theoretically
people are paid based on their productivity. The implications for our
economy are significant; the implications for the Federal Treasury are
significant; the implications for our taxpayers are significant. It is
a public policy initiative of huge import, and maybe we want to do it,
but I do not think we want to do it in the middle of the night the way
this bill is proceeding.
The trade adjustment language in this bill raises very significant
problems, and to hook it to the trade promotion authority raises the
question: Is it worth the price of getting trade promotion authority to
put in place these types of expansive public policy initiatives which
involve huge implications on the expenditure side of our Government?
That is a question with which the Senate has to deal.
Obviously, the Senate may be supportive of it, but it is a question
with which we have to deal. I think it is a question we should vote on
because it is way outside the budget and a point of order is
appropriate to these two issues because they are outside the budget. We
ought to at least have a supermajority addressing this issue rather
than having it passed on a simple majority.
I thank the Chair, and I especially thank the Senator from Missouri
for his courtesy.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. BOND. Madam President, first, I support and second very strongly
the comments made by my good friend and colleague from New Hampshire. I
am a traditionalist, and I like to see things
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come out of the committee because, frankly, committee work ensures
there is full consideration of all the measures that come to the floor.
We have seen leadership rewriting bills--the farm bill, the energy
bill, the stimulus bill--and the products are not good.
What my colleague from New Hampshire has described seems to me not
only a very expensive, very bad policy direction that has been taken on
this trade adjustment assistance, it is beginning to smell to me like
an effort to love it to death. I have been around legislative bodies
long enough to know if one does not want to stand up and kill
something, such as trade promotion, they do not want to come out and
say, no, I am not for free trade, the best way to kill it is to put so
much stuff on it that it sinks.
This was not done in committee. This was not done in the light of
day, as the Senator from New Hampshire said. This was done behind the
scenes. This was an effort to sabotage trade promotion. I hope this
body will say no. Frankly, if it were to go to the President with all
of this junk on it, I hope he would veto it and send it back.
We need trade promotion authority. We do not need a huge new
socialistic program to have the Federal Government paying people's
salaries when they are working. Trade adjustment assistance
traditionally as we have had it, yes, it makes a lot of sense, but to
have a whole new health care program, not going through the committee
structure, a whole new income supplement program not fully considered,
not aired out, put on this bill, I think is an outrage. I hope it does
not take a supermajority to get this--or 41 votes to get it off.
I hope we have an up-or-down vote and the people who are really for
trade promotion authority, the people who want to give our farmers the
opportunity to produce and sell in the world market will stand up and
say no, we need trade promotion authority clean, not with all of these
love handles on it.
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