[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 94 (Friday, June 12, 2015)]
[House]
[Page H4246]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      STOP TRADE ADJUSTMENT ASSISTANCE AND SAVE AMERICA'S ECONOMY

  (Mr. DeFAZIO asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, how many times will Congress pretend to be 
fooled by yet another job-killing trade agreement.
  First, there was NAFTA. They told us it would create hundreds of 
thousands of jobs. Unfortunately, they neglected to say they would be 
south of the border, and they would be at the expense of American 
workers.
  Then there was the WTO. We are going to level the playing field--
yeah, it is at bargain-basement prices--and compete with Chinese 
workers at 25 cents an hour and unfair trade practices.
  Now, the Obama administration has a new paradigm--Korea. ``This is 
the model for the future. It is going to be great.'' We are already 
running larger trade deficits with Korea. We have already lost 50,000 
jobs.
  Now, the last, biggest, worst trade agreement--the Trans-Pacific 
Partnership. Ironically, a key vote will be over something called trade 
adjustment assistance. That is right; it is critical. We have to have 
that because hundreds of thousands or millions of Americans are going 
to lose their jobs, so we need to retrain them for McDonald's or other 
high-level jobs. Secondly, of course, the trade adjustment assistance 
is funded by cutting Medicare.
  So this is the critical vote. Ironically, this is it. They have got 
the votes from corporate America and the Obama administration to jam 
this thing through unless we kill trade adjustment assistance. We can 
stop it here today and save America's economy.

                          ____________________