[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16727-16734]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   MEMBERS OF CONGRESS AGAINST CAFTA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized for 
60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, tonight is an unusual, if not 
unprecedented, special order. It is one that I think that the country 
will appreciate and I think our colleagues in this Congress will 
appreciate it; one where we have brought at least a half dozen, and 
more will join us, Members of Congress of both parties to this Chamber 
in opposition to the Central American Free Trade Agreement. I am joined 
by the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones), the gentleman from 
Alabama (Mr. Davis), the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goode), and the 
gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter). There are five of us here now two 
Democrats, three Republicans, and I know a number of Members will join 
us later.
  We are joined together because we believe the Central American Free 
Trade Agreement is not in the best interests of our Nation. We have 
seen that for a dozen years our trade policy has simply not worked for 
the American people, it has not worked for rural, family farmers in 
Alabama, it has not worked for workers in Idaho, in Virginia, in North 
Carolina, and in my State of Ohio.
  Before turning to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones), and 
I think people will just kind of join in a conversation here, I want to 
just point to a series of numbers that really does illustrate why we, 
as Republicans and Democrats, as people that represent small 
manufacturers and family farmers and family ranchers and labor unions 
and environmentalists and religious leaders, and people of faith and 
all of that, why we oppose it. We can just look at what has happened to 
our country's trade deficit in the last 12 years.
  The year I ran for Congress the first time in 1992 and was elected, 
we had in our country a trade deficit of $38 billion. That meant, in 
those days, a trade deficit of $38 billion meant that we imported $38 
billion more than we exported. A dozen years later, our trade deficit 
has grown to $618 billion; from $38 billion to $618 billion in just a 
dozen years. That translates clearly into lost jobs. It translates into 
lost textile jobs in Mr. Jones' State, it translates in the lost auto 
and steel and other jobs in my State. In the last 5 years alone, we 
have seen somewhere between 2.5 and 3 million manufacturing jobs lost, 
not entirely because of trade agreements, but in large part because of 
trade agreements.
  That is why all of us say we want to trade with Central America, we 
want to pass a Central American Free Trade Agreement, but not one that 
is written and negotiated by a select few for a select few. We want a 
trade agreement that all of us can support, that ranchers and small 
farmers and environmentalists and labor unions and small manufacturers 
and small businesses, that all of us can come together and support. 
That is really why we are here tonight as a group of Members of 
Congress from both parties.
  I would like to turn it over to the gentleman from North Carolina 
(Mr. Jones), who has helped lead this operation in opposition to the 
CAFTA.
  Mr. JONES of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Ohio, and I also am delighted to be here in a bipartisan way to do what 
is right for the American people.
  I want to take just a few minutes to talk about my State of North 
Carolina. We all come from Virginia, from Idaho, from Alabama, from 
Ohio, and many other States, and there will be others that will be 
coming here tonight to speak, as the gentleman from Ohio mentioned. I 
do not know how America can work unless we come together, and certainly 
one of the major issues is trying to save jobs in America.
  I want to go back very briefly to NAFTA. NAFTA was passed in 1992. I 
was not here. It was implemented in 1993. In my State of North 
Carolina, because of NAFTA, we have lost over 200,000 manufacturing 
jobs. In the Nation we have lost more than 2.5 million jobs. That is 
just because of NAFTA.
  And what in the world are we going to do with CAFTA? CAFTA is nothing 
but a cousin to NAFTA, and NAFTA itself is not well. It is kind of like 
somebody being sick. NAFTA is sick because it has done nothing to help 
Americans in this country, and it did nothing to help the Mexicans stay 
down in Mexico and make a good living wage with benefits so they would 
not want to come across the border. They are coming across the border 
now between 8,000 and 10,000 a week.
  I want to also say about CAFTA, you cannot have fair trade if both 
countries do not benefit. Those people that want to have CAFTA to 
become the law of the land, in my opinion, I say to the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Brown), the word is greed. Greed. You cannot help the 
American people unless you treat our workers fairly, help them maintain 
their jobs, and not see their jobs sent overseas.
  Before yielding, I want to show just two charts to my friends here on 
the floor. This happened in North Carolina in 2003 and it says, 
``Pillowtex Goes Bust, Erasing 6,450 Jobs.'' This happened in one day's 
announcement, 6,450 jobs lost, gone. The subtitle says, ``Five North 
Carolina Plants Closing in Largest Single Job Loss in State's 
History.''
  I want to share another blow-up of a news article with my friends on 
the floor. This is from the Wilson Daily Times. This is a county that 
Congressman G.K. Butterfield and I share together, it is a split 
county. And it says, this is about 3 months ago, ``VF Jeanswear Closes 
Plant, Last 445 Jobs Gone By Next Summer.'' The two ladies down here at 
the bottom named Brenda Webb and Shivan Battle, will not be able to 
chitchat in the parking lot of VF Jeanswear next year when the plant 
closes. People were actually crying when this announcement was made. 
They are losing their jobs and their benefits and their hopes and their 
dreams.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I want to say to my friends here tonight on the 
floor that I look forward to working with my colleagues day in and day 
out. If CAFTA does come to the floor, hopefully we will be able to 
defeat it. We have a strong support of Republicans, probably 25 to 30, 
and I do not think the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) would bend under 
any circumstances, and I want to thank the gentleman for being the 
leader he has been. I look forward to continuing to work with the 
gentleman, and let us do what is right for America and the American 
people.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his 
leadership, working with both parties in opposition to this agreement.
  I yield to my friend, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis), who is 
still a relatively new Member of this body, has taken a leadership role 
in all kinds of development issues and business issues and understands 
this agreement from a bit of a different perspective, but clearly gets 
it.

                              {time}  2015

  Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding. I thank him for his thoughtfulness and for his leadership on 
this issue over the better part of a decade now.
  And I thank the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones) for his 
bipartisanship and his thoughtful approach.
  I would say to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown), one of the things 
that strikes me about this debate is when I tell many people in the 
business community, I tell some of our editorial writers that I am 
firmly opposed to this agreement, there is a regular refrain that they 
have. They say to me, Mr. Davis, why are you against globalization? And 
they say, why are you against trade? And it strikes me that that is 
such an enormously false way to frame this argument. To say that 
someone is against globalization if they oppose this treaty is a real 
misstatement of what we are debating and what we will be voting on 1 
week from now, and I want to talk about that for a moment.

[[Page 16728]]

  There are some of us in this Chamber who have voted for every trade 
agreement that we have seen since we have been here. I voted for 
agreements with Australia, with Morocco, with Chile, with Singapore. I 
am someone who firmly believes in this modern economy that we cannot 
disengage ourselves from the rest of the world; and I, by no means, 
subscribe to the label of being anti-trade or being anti-globalization. 
But I think that there is another way. There is a possibility if we are 
thoughtful enough and serious enough about this economy and our 
obligations to build a trade policy that actually prods countries 
around this world to change. There is a possibility of building a trade 
policy that elevates conditions around the world.
  And I would submit that there are two kinds of trade policies. There 
is one set of policies that challenges the rest of the world to rise to 
a higher standard, and there is another set of trade policies that 
takes the world as it is and does not seek to move, does not seek to 
bend it, does not seek to change it.
  And I and so many of us believe in the first kind. I believe in a set 
of principles that say that we can use our trade as we occasionally use 
our economic might, as we occasionally use our political might to 
improve conditions. The reality is that if this agreement is somehow 
passed next week, despite the great opposition to it, it will open up a 
new low-wage market, and it will say to five countries in Central 
American and to the Dominican Republic that your low-wage conditions, 
your failure to protect your workers, your failure to protect your 
women from discrimination laws, your failure to prevent children from 
working, is acceptable in the community of nations, it is acceptable in 
the economic community of nations.
  And I remember, as the gentleman from Ohio does, when President Bush 
gave his second inaugural just a few months ago. Most of that inaugural 
was devoted to the proposition that, as a superpower, we have an 
ability to change the character of this world. Much of that inaugural 
was dedicated to the idea that, as a superpower, we have the ability to 
challenge this world and the most repressive countries in this world to 
move in a better direction.
  Here we stand, just 7 months later; and that challenge is not being 
posed to the House, not by the administration. That challenge is not 
being posed to us. And all of a sudden the same President who told us 7 
months ago that we have in our power to move this world toward reform, 
apparently does not believe that we can do so when it comes to the 
dollars and cents that people earn every day, apparently does not think 
that we can do so when it comes to the quality of community the people 
live in every day around the world.
  There is a very cruel argument that I have heard in the last several 
days I want to mention to you. I have heard it said that if you do not 
support CAFTA that somehow you are not standing by the countries of 
Central America. I have heard it said that if you do not support CAFTA 
that you are somehow abandoning these poor miserable nations and that 
you are somehow leaving them to just be cut adrift.
  What I do not understand is how we can say that we are standing by 
the CAFTA countries when we are not standing by millions of children, 
14 million in the whole region who are between 5 and 14 who got up and 
went to work this morning and who are being put in bed tonight and will 
go back to work tomorrow morning. I do not understand how we can say 
that we are somehow standing by Central America when we cannot stand by 
the rights of women in these countries.
  I do not understand how we can say that we are standing by Central 
America when we cannot stand for the rights of the voiceless and those 
who work and want to express their political beliefs or their desire 
for better conditions in the workplace and can be fired because of 
those opinions.
  I do not see how we can say that we are standing by Central America 
when we are leaving it unchallenged to change itself. That is what this 
debate is about. This is about, to use a word that is used on both 
sides of this aisle very freely, this is a debate about values because 
I define values as what we demand from others, what we demand from 
ourselves and the vision that we offer to others.
  This agreement offers such a narrow vision. It offers such a limited 
notion of what our economy can be. It tells us that we can roll back 
our trade deficit on the backs of unskilled workers around the world. 
It tells us that we can somehow improve certain industries and the 
profits of certain industries by diverting them to low-wage economies. 
And it somehow says that we can trade off the fortunes of our people 
and the fortunes of other people interchangeably without any higher 
standard to lift them both.
  Another point that I want to address, so many of the editorials that 
I have seen on this issue have a certain bloodless quality to them 
because they say if you believe in globalization, yes, you have to 
accept that there are winners and losers, and there will be more 
winners than losers, and the losers simply have to get over it. They 
simply have to adjust.
  Well, like the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones), I represent 
some of the towns in west Alabama that are full of some of the people 
who will lose, families who today are working in textile companies, 
apparel companies, hosiery companies, who may not be able to work there 
if this agreement puts a set of forces in place. And I do not think of 
those people as being losers. I think of them as being families who are 
struggling to build a future for their families. I think of them as 
being people who want their kids to be able to come back and work in 
west Alabama. I think of them as being people who desperately want a 
better life for themselves and their children and their grandchildren. 
And I think that we should keep this in mind as I begin to close today.
  How do we promote and defend a vision to the American people that 
concedes that so many of us will be losers?
  How do we promote and defend a vision and a set of values that 
accepts that so many of our people will be left to fall behind under 
the trends of this agreement we set in place, and that so many people 
in Central America will be left in their substandard condition?
  There is no wonder why this agreement is struggling to pass Congress. 
There is no wonder why, if almost any of us went back to our States, we 
would find either a mystery or we would find out right confusion around 
CAFTA. The reason the case has not been made is because the American 
people are tired of being denominated and delineated into winners and 
losers. They are tired of being told that you may lose, but you have to 
get over it. And that is the final point at stake here today.
  Can we build a trade vision which offers a better way for so many 
workers in our country? Because it is not enough to simply say that, 
well, there are these abstract benefits that are off in the distance. 
We have to be able to talk to people in the gentleman from Ohio's (Mr. 
Brown) district and my district and the gentleman from Idaho's (Mr. 
Otter) district and the gentleman from North Carolina's (Mr. Jones) 
district and the gentleman from Virginia's (Mr. Goode) district.
  We have to be able to talk to them and say here is why your Congress 
is doing this. And right now we could not justify it. Right now we 
could not say to them that these agreements will create a higher 
standard of living in America or abroad. Right now we could not say 
that these conditions will meet the American test of reforming the 
world for the better. We simply cannot make the case. The 
administration cannot make the case.
  So in closing I simply call on my colleagues tonight, 1 week from 
now, or 1 week and 1 day from now when we, in all likelihood, vote on 
this agreement, to vote on their principles, to vote for trade that has 
values lying beneath it, to vote for a vision of how we can reform the 
economies of the world, and not to accept this limited vision.
  And I am reminded so often of something that William Jefferson 
Clinton

[[Page 16729]]

who was elected the same year that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) 
was to Congress. He often said that he was so tired of what was cold 
blooded being passed off as courageous in politics.
  I fear that our indifference to the fortunes of the people who live 
in these countries, our failure to prod their governments toward reform 
looks a lot like that cold bloodedness that President Clinton was 
talking about. And it is so wrong for the editorial boards, so wrong 
for so many lobbyists in this city to say that that cold bloodedness is 
really courage. It is not courageous, and it will not be courageous to 
take your voter card and to stand on the floor in the well of this 
House next week and to vote for an agreement that is so empty and so 
vacant of values.
  I thank the gentleman from Ohio for his good work. I thank our 
Republican colleagues who are here tonight for joining us in that 
bipartisan cause and thank them and hope the American people recognize 
that this is a critical vote, because it is a statement of what kind of 
community we are and how we exist in the international community of 
nations.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I thank the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis). 
The gentleman's comments about when people almost always dismiss us, 
say why are you against trade, why are you against globalization, I 
think you made the case very well that we want to increase trade, but 
we want to do it in a way that lifts people up, those children in 
Central America who have no real protections, that go to work as 
children, not as young adults, but as children, that we could in fact 
use these trade agreements to improve living standards to respect 
American workers and American farmers and improve living standards in a 
developing world.
  But this trade agreement, because it was so narrowly constructed, 
written by a select few for a select few, obviously falls short. And I 
dream of a day when all of us can vote for a trade agreement, that we 
can get 350, 400 votes here, a trade agreement that really does lift 
workers up in the developing world while preserving and enhancing our 
standard of living and respecting workers in this country. There is 
simply no reason we cannot do that, as you suggest.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter), who has 
said particularly interesting things about the issues of sovereignty 
and what that means with both Central American countries and the 
Dominican Republic and with the United States.
  Mr. OTTER. I thank the gentleman for yielding the time.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) for his 
leadership on this effort. It has often been said in the past that all 
that needs to happen for good government to go bad is for good people 
to do nothing. And I want to congratulate the gentleman on the goodness 
that he is doing tonight in organizing this effort to bring to the 
American people the full blush and the full pain that CAFTA would 
really offer us.
  It has often been said and cheered throughout this world that we live 
in that the United States is the standard of living to be desired by 
everyone, to be cherished by everyone, the standard of living that is 
second to none in the world. And I think the gentleman from Alabama's 
(Mr. Davis) remarks relative to some of the globalization efforts that 
are so present in the CAFTA agreement is the one very reason that I am 
against it, because this globalization effort is a race to the bottom 
for the United States.
  We have nothing to do but lose in this agreement. There is not one 
thing that we can gain because it is, as many have already said before 
me, it is a race to the bottom and it is a replay of NAFTA. And all you 
need to do is take a look at the chart up front, and I hope the cameras 
can give that some face time, C-SPAN can give that some face time, 
because it is important to look and see exactly what happened after we 
adopted NAFTA.
  We were told in NAFTA in the early 1990s that we were going to have 
this tremendous explosion in exports from the United States to Mexico, 
and that we were going to be able to increase, at that time, what was a 
positive trade agreement with Mexico. Well, you can see exactly what 
has happened, starting in 1995. We continued to drop down, until today 
we are at roughly 40-some billion dollars in deficit trade with Mexico. 
And that is precisely what we are going to see happen with CAFTA.
  Thomas Jefferson once said that he had but one lamp that illuminates 
his path into the future and that is the lamp of experience. I have no 
way to judge the future except by the past.
  Well, if NAFTA is the judge, the measure that we have to judge 
ourselves by on our success and what we can expect from CAFTA, I can 
tell you folks, it is not near as bad. It is not near as bad as it is 
going to be.

                              {time}  2030

  CAFTA has some unique features all of its own. In his introduction, 
the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) mentioned that I had a new twist on 
it relative to sovereignty. I just want every Member of this House, all 
435 Members of this House, I want them to be prepared when they have to 
go home and explain to their folks at home exactly what they have done, 
for whatever amount of the 435 Members vote for CAFTA, and quite 
frankly, in selling down the drain the sovereignty of this country.
  You see, under our CAFTA agreement, it is interesting that CAFTA is a 
pretty good size document. I am not going to lie to everybody and tell 
them that I have read the entire thing. But I tell you I have read the 
trade part and that was about 20 pages. The next almost thousand pages 
is international law. And the international law is what is going to 
prevail in any business agreement that we have with these five 
``fledgling democracies'' under the CAFTA trade agreement.
  Here is what happens. If I happen to sell something to, say, the 
Dominican Republic, if I happen to sell something to the Dominican 
Republic from one of my entrepreneurs in Idaho, and they get into a 
conflict of what the agreement was or in one way or another this has to 
be settled by a third party, here is exactly what happens under the 
CAFTA rules.
  The Dominican Republic would submit the name of one arbiter. The 
United States would submit the name of one arbiter. And then here is 
the punch line, one of the other non-involved members of the CAFTA 
trade agreement gets to submit a third arbiter. So now what we are 
going to have is two Caribbean Basin members and one United States 
member serving on a court of arbitration in order to solve this 
problem.
  Now, if that does not happen what happens? If these folks cannot come 
to an agreement then what happens, if this tribunal cannot solve it? 
Then we go to the World Bank or we go to the United Nations to solve 
what is otherwise a business agreement.
  Now it is interesting that the best place to be in this agreement is 
not in the United States. We are told constantly that we are going to 
be opening all of these countries up if we will just pass this trade 
agreement. We are not going to be having the duties and the quotas and 
everything that stops all of our goods from freely being imported into 
these other countries. Dead wrong.
  Number one, there are a lot of duties and quotas that will go away 
but there are still quite a few that are going to last into the next 20 
years, so we are still not going to be on a fair and equal trading 
level with the other members of CAFTA. But let us take a look at who 
put all of those duties and quotas in place.
  In 1984 this Congress passed what is called the Caribbean Basin 
Initiative, and we said as long as you add 28 percent of the value to 
whatever good or whatever value added items that you have in these 
Caribbean Basin countries, you can come into the United States with 
those products without quotas and without duty and without fees. 
However, the United States did not have the same agreement going back, 
and so we have done this to ourselves; and yet now we are saying that 
we are going to try to clear all this up with CAFTA.
  I agree with the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown). I agree with the 
gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis). I

[[Page 16730]]

think what we ought to do is go back and repeal the Caribbean Basin 
Initiative and then start from the get-go. And then we can say 
something to them about their environmental concerns, our environmental 
concerns. Then we can say something to them about the unequal labor 
laws or labor practices in the relative countries. But as it stands now 
we simply do not have the opportunity to do that.
  So there is one area that I would like to pay special emphasis to. I 
know a lot of people have said to me over the last couple of weeks, you 
are way over-concerned about the CAFTA agreement and what it is going 
to do to the sovereignty of the United States.
  I say this to you, that I have stood here on this floor and I have 
watched every Member on this side of the House and many Members on the 
other side of the House that have voted against any attempt to take one 
of our warriors that is fighting for freedom in Iraq or Afghanistan or 
any foreign country, and any attempt to put them before any kind of a 
tribunal outside the United States we have resisted and correctly so. 
Yet these are the same people, a majority of which now is willing to 
offer up our economic warriors to international tribunals.
  It seems terribly inconsistent to me that if it is correct to deny 
the courts, any foreign court to hold judgment over our soldiers, it 
ought to be the same way with our trade agreements. But anyway, I would 
direct everybody's attention to Article 10. Just read Article 10. 
Beyond its plain language we have now got hard evidence how the CAFTA 
tribunal system would work in real life and how it would create real 
advantages for foreign companies other than the United States, because 
a similar system was established in NAFTA and that is the one I would 
like to draw your attention to.
  A case was brought under that system in Loewen v. The United States, 
and this has set a legal precedent that should scare us all. In that 
case a Canadian funeral home conglomerate named Loewen challenged the 
judgment of a Mississippi State court that ruled against it in a 
private contract dispute with a Biloxi, Mississippi funeral home. The 
only government action in question was the normal function of a State 
court in a private business dispute.
  The Canadian company under NAFTA rules claimed that having to follow 
the standard rules of U.S. Civil Procedure in court, such as posting a 
bond, violated their NAFTA foreign investor rights. And the World Bank 
tribunal in that case ruled that the State court's normal operation was 
``governmental action,'' and therefore regulated by NAFTA and that its 
conduct violated the Canadian conglomerate special NAFTA granted 
investor rights. It is just tenfold that bad in CAFTA.
  So I would hope that if those who are watching, those who are sitting 
at home thinking that their folks in Congress are working in their best 
interest, I would hope that they would take the opportunity in the next 
week, which we should be voting on CAFTA next week, to call their 
Congressman and find out why they are voting away the sovereignty of 
the United States, the Constitution, and especially Article III of the 
United States Constitution.
  Why are they voting to put that into foreigners' hands? Why are they 
taking away those great precious gifts that our Founding Fathers fought 
so hard for and worked so hard for? And now we seem to be in a rush to 
put once again for whatever reason another trade agreement called CAFTA 
ahead of the Constitution of the United States.
  In closing, I would just say to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) 
again that I took a look at that first chart that he had up there that 
showed we had some $610 billion in trade deficit last year, $610 
billion. Let us use the United States Department of Commerce's own 
figures. The United States Commerce Department constantly touts that 
for every billion dollars in foreign trade we will create 40,000 jobs. 
So if you just do simple mathematics and multiply that, you would see 
that that is 2.5 million jobs that we have lost since the inception of 
NAFTA.
  I say again, CAFTA is the same song, second verse, just a little bit 
louder and a whole lot worse.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss another reason for my opposition 
to the Central American Free Agreement or CAFTA. What I would like to 
highlight today is that CAFTA establishes a double standard--greater 
rights are given to foreign investors operating within the United 
States than are provided by the U.S. Constitution for our own citizens 
and businesses.
  The foreign investor protection provisions in CAFTA's Chapter 10 and 
the establishment of a separate ``court'' system available only to 
foreign investors form the core of this double standard. This aspect of 
CAFTA is called ``investor--state dispute resolution.'' It shifts 
decisions away from Congress and out of the Federal court system 
established by Article III of the Constitution, or even our State court 
systems, and into the authority of international tribunals--even though 
the dispute concerns activities and parties operating within the United 
States! Furthermore--and the U.S. Trade Representative's office is very 
careful NOT to mention this--CAFTA's Chapter 10 allows investors from 
the CAFTA nations operating in the United States to challenge U.S. laws 
in U.N. and World Bank tribunals!
  Here's how it works:
  CAFTA grants foreign investors from the CAFTA countries operating 
within the United States special rights set in international law but 
NOT in U.S. Constitutional law. CAFTA allows these foreign investors to 
use U.N. and World Bank tribunals to seek payment in U.S. taxpayer 
dollars for the losses caused by complying with the same domestic 
policies that apply to U.S. citizens and businesses.
  These special rights are laid out in Article 10 of CAFTA, which 
contains the rules that will govern investment among parties to the 
agreement. Of key interest is Article 10.5. Here we read that CAFTA has 
a Minimum Standard of Treatment for foreign investors set forth by 
``customary international law'' and established in ``principle legal 
systems of the world.''
  So once again, the standard of review in these CAFTA Article 10 cases 
is not U.S. law but rather international law set in CAFTA. And 
furthermore, it is not a U.S. court that hears and settles these 
disputes occurring within the territory of the United States. Instead 
CAFTA Article 10.16.3 gives jurisdiction over these kind of disputes to 
international tribunals established under the auspices of the United 
Nations or World Bank!
  So you have international tribunals judging whether foreign investors 
operating within the United States are being provided the proper rights 
and protections!
  American investors here at home are not allowed to bring cases before 
this special CAFTA tribunal system. American companies and investors 
use the American court system while companies and investors from the 
Central America use the CAFTA tribunal system. So CAFTA will give us 
two separate and unequal systems of justice: One for American investors 
and companies and another for Central American investors.
  Some of my colleagues might say, ``Well, you've shown that there are 
two different systems here, but that doesn't mean there is 
inequality.'' Others might say, ``Butch, you're only blowing smoke 
here,'' or, ``It won't be so bad.'' To all those I say, ``Just read 
Article 10.'' Beyond its plain language, we have hard evidence of how 
this CAFTA tribunal system would work in real life and how it would 
create a real advantage for foreign companies operating within the 
United States.
  A similar system was established by NAFTA. And a case was brought 
through that system, Loewen v. U.S., shows the threat that expansion of 
this system through CAFTA would entail. In that case, a Canadian 
funeral home conglomerate named Loewen challenged the judgment of a 
Mississippi State court that ruled against it in a private contract 
dispute with a Biloxi funeral home. The only government action in 
question was the normal function of a State court in a private business 
dispute. The Canadian company claimed that having to follow the 
standard rules of U.S. civil procedure--such as the posting of a bond--
violated their NAFTA foreign investor rights.
  The World Bank tribunal in the case ruled that the State court's 
normal operation was ``government action'' regulated by NAFTA and that 
its conduct violated the Canadian conglomerate's special NAFTA-granted 
investor rights! The United States only escaped paying hundreds of 
millions of dollars to the Canadian firm as a result of an error by a 
bankruptcy lawyer, who reincorporated the failing conglomerate as a 
U.S. corporation. That terminated the company's ``foreign'' investor 
status and led to a technical dismissal of the NAFTA claim.

[[Page 16731]]

  Still--and this is the point--the substantive legal precedent has 
been established under NAFTA and would be expanded under CAFTA. Foreign 
investors don't have to follow the standard rules of U.S. civil 
procedure while U.S. citizens and companies must! Foreign investors 
don't have to accept as adequate the normal functions of a domestic 
court system, while U.S. citizens and companies do!
  Even the prospect of such a fundamental change in our jurisprudence 
has prompted the Conference of State Supreme Court Chief Justices and 
the National Association of Attorneys General to oppose the so-called 
``investor-state'' system's grant of rights that extend beyond U.S. 
law. In fact, Congress specifically included language in the 2002 Fast 
Track legislation to prevent the recurrence of this NAFTA problem in 
CAFTA. The Fast Track legislation required that future trade pacts 
grant to foreign investors--and I quote--``no greater substantive 
rights with respect to investment protections than U.S. investors in 
the United States'' and that. The law also requires that future 
agreements include ``standards for expropriation and compensation for 
expropriation, consistent with United States legal principles and 
practice'' as well as ``fair and equitable treatment [standards] 
consistent with United States legal principles and practice . . .''
  Yet, although some words included in NAFTA's investor protection 
system were changed relative to CAFTA's provisions, CAFTA clearly fails 
Congress' test. Even worse, CAFTA goes beyond NAFTA and expands on what 
sorts of U.S. domestic decisions and actions are subject to 
compensation claims in international tribunals.
  Here's what that means: When U.S. companies obtain mining, logging or 
other concessions on U.S. Federal lands their rights under U.S. law are 
determined in domestic courts. However, CAFTA will enable foreign 
investors with the identical contracts to take their disputes with the 
U.S. government to the U.N. and World Bank tribunals.
  Mr. Speaker, the problems with CAFTA are manifest, and they are not 
by any means restricted to the areas of trade or even the broader 
context of economic policy. They would have a profound impact on the 
way Americans understand the rule of law, thereby undermining 
confidence in our government and our system of justice. For all these 
reasons, I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing this agreement.
  I yield back the floor and I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Brown) once again for his leadership.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I thank the gentleman very much. I think his point 
about sovereignty really strikes a chord with so many Americans.
  As the gentleman suggested with what happened with the Loewen case in 
Mississippi with the Canadian lawsuit, a company in another country can 
sue the U.S. government or can sue the State of Idaho, or can sue the 
City of Akron, Ohio, and that corporation from another country can 
actually overturn by a CAFTA tribunal or a NAFTA tribal, can overturn a 
law that was democratically obtained, the Governor and the State 
legislature in Idaho enacted or that the Mayor Plusquellic in the City 
of Akron enacted or that the U.S. Congress enacted, that a corporation 
from another country, a private interest can come in and undo a 
democratically obtained rule or regulation, whether it is an 
environmental law or a public health law or what the gentleman is 
talking about in Mississippi with the funeral homes, a whole host of 
issues that we in this body certainly make wrong decisions, but they 
are democratically attained rules and regulations that State 
legislatures, city council, county commissioners, Congress does and 
they should stand unless a court of law in our own country strikes them 
down as unconstitutional. But a company in another country should not 
be allowed to come in and undercut what we think are important public 
health laws or other laws in our Nation.
  Mr. OTTER. The comments of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) jarred 
loose one of the comments that I did not make in my informal remarks 
but I do have written in my formal remarks. But for those people once 
again that are listening at home I would just like to tell them that 
under Chapter 10 in CAFTA you can expect any Federal law that we make 
in the future, that we pass in the future, any State law that is 
presently in existence or that we pass in the future, any local law 
that presently is in existence or that we pass in the future, we are 
going to have to conform with the CAFTA statute at minimum, because 
without doing so then we are going to be in violation once again of our 
CAFTA agreement. And once again we are turning our future, our economic 
future, our trading future over to the World Bank and to the United 
Nations.
  I thank the gentleman for helping me make that point.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. That was very well said. An example is if in my 
City of Lorain, Ohio, if the city council would say that if police cars 
that the City of Lorain were buying, if they passed a law, had to be 
cars made in Lorain County, Ohio, we make cars in that county, that a 
CAFTA or NAFTA tribunal, a company in another country, one of the other 
governments could sue saying that is an unfair trade practice. You have 
to open it up under bid for any other government or any other country 
or any other company outside that county.
  I mean, a buy America law, a buy Idaho law, a buy Ohio law, whatever 
you might want to pass could easily be struck down by one of these 
CAFTA or NAFTA tribunals.
  We are joined today by the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goode), who 
has also been a long time advocate for sovereignty issues and for 
workers in this country and for fair trade instead of the free trade 
problems that this country has gotten into in the last decade or so. I 
thank him for joining us.
  Mr. GOODE. I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown), and I want to 
thank him for his steadfast diligence on this issue. I want to thank 
the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones) who spoke previously, the 
gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter), and the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. 
Davis) for being here tonight during this hour to address what I think 
is one of the most important issues to come before the 109th Congress.
  Before we began this special order on CAFTA, the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Hunter) and the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Cunningham) told about Admiral Stockdale and his heroics during the 
Vietnam War. That brought to mind what Admiral Stockdale and Mr. Ross 
Perot were saying in 1992.
  Though the two major party candidates, Bush and Clinton, were 
supporters of NAFTA, they said that NAFTA would create a giant sucking 
sound of the jobs going out of this country. And I will have to say on 
that issue, time has certainly proven Ross Perot and Jim Stockdale 
correct. And I only have to tell about the situation in the county 
adjacent to my home county.
  Martinsville and Henry County had more manufacturing jobs on a per 
capita basis than any jurisdiction in the Commonwealth of Virginia. 
That was known as the sweatshirt capital of the world. Tultex 
sweatshirts were all over this country and all over the world. Pluma 
was another textile manufacture. Sara Lee was there. Those jobs and 
those companies are all gone. Tultex went out of business. Pluma went 
out of business.
  I will never forget the Chamber of Commerce there in Martinsville, in 
Henry County in the early 1990s when my predecessor was there and the 
questions came about NAFTA. Would the jobs still remain in the United 
States of America? And the speakers there and the proponent of NAFTA 
said, oh, yes, only a few low-end manufacturing jobs will be going to 
Mexico.

                              {time}  2045

  And Sara Lee had in the thousands, manufacturing jobs in Martinsville 
and Henry County. Those jobs went away pretty fast, and they went 
south. There are a few distribution jobs left there with Sara Lee. Our 
unemployment went over 20 percent for a time, fell down to 16 percent 
not too long ago; and, thankfully, it is slightly above 10 percent now. 
At least it is heading in the right direction.
  So to those who say that CAFTA, which as the gentleman from Idaho 
(Mr. Otter) so correctly pointed out is simply a NAFTA cousin, is going 
to bring us a lot of manufacturing jobs and prosperity, I say beware. 
Do not forget those who gave the warnings

[[Page 16732]]

about NAFTA. When NAFTA was passed, they were saying we will be 
bringing more into this country. And the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. 
Otter) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) have shown us how the 
trade deficit with Mexico has soared. If we adopt CAFTA, that trade 
deficit with Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, and the 
Dominican Republic will be heading in the same direction with NAFTA.
  Now, I heard proponents of CAFTA say, we have got to get in the 
economic barrel with those in Central America and Mexico so we can 
counteract China; let us pass CAFTA so we can counteract the huge trade 
deficit that we have with China. And I can remember those who spoke 
around this country on behalf of Permanent Normal Trade Relations and 
Most Favored Nation trade status with China, saying how great that was 
going to be for the United States and jobs in this country. The trade 
deficit with China is way over $100 billion and rocking on towards $150 
billion.
  I say the answer to the trade deficit with China is not CAFTA; the 
answer is let us renegotiate. Let us take a look at PNTR and reevaluate 
that. Let us attack the problem where it is, not create another 
situation like NAFTA that could result in even a greater deficit with 
those countries.
  I have heard, pass CAFTA because it will help stem the flow of 
illegal immigration from Central America. Well, let me say this. Take a 
look at NAFTA. Illegal immigration was a problem in the early 1990s, 
but it is a monstrous problem now. NAFTA has not solved the constant 
flow of illegals across the Mexican border into the United States.
  So do not be sold off on an argument about passing CAFTA and that 
will reduce the flow from Central America.
  I submit that the greater interaction between the entities in South 
America and the United States will result in more illegal immigration, 
not less; and all we have to do is look at the NAFTA model.
  Lastly, I want to make a few comments about globalization of our 
world economy. I believe in trade, but I think trade has to be done 
with hard-nosed negotiation on the part of the United States with 
individual countries and with regions of the world. And it has to be 
focused on trade. You have to focus on individual items. It is nuts and 
bolts work.
  When we have an agreement like CAFTA, when there is an agreement like 
NAFTA, when there is an agreement like PNTR with China that has a whole 
lot in it besides trade, I say be wary. Some of the richest people in 
this world are in this country, and some of them are supporters of 
CAFTA. They were supporters of NAFTA and PNTR with China. They say if 
we have a one-world globalized economy how great it is going to be for 
the United States.
  Let me say one thing. We are not gaining in manufacturing in this 
country. China is the big gainer of manufacturing in the world. It is 
not this country. Other countries are rapidly catching up. We are the 
premier country in the world now. We are able to protect our citizens. 
We are able to give a land of opportunity to so many, the richest 
people in the world, the Warren Buffets and the Bill Gateses of the 
world. I salute them for their work and their business acumen. They 
have done well. That is the American Dream: work hard and this is the 
land of opportunity.
  Well, let me tell my colleagues what can happen. If we go down this 
globalized route, which, as the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter) said, 
is a rush to the bottom, if the United States is not the premier 
country in the world, we will see a lot of persons in this world go 
from a Bill Gates or Warren Buffet status to the poor house mighty 
quick if China or Russia or the Arab nations in the Middle East take 
over the number one position in the world.
  I am thankful the United States is number one. I want us to be always 
number one. But these trade agreements do not enhance that status. They 
hurt us. And I ask that when CAFTA comes up that my colleagues vote for 
America and vote ``no'' on CAFTA.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Virginia. 
What he said about manufacturing and job loss, I put that and the truth 
he has spoken about what has happened in the last 10 years next to the 
promises made for CAFTA.
  I remember from a dozen years ago when President Clinton made this 
same promise. He said, under NAFTA it will increase employment in this 
country, it will create jobs, it will mean we will have more 
manufacturing and export more goods abroad. And he said it would lift 
up the standard of living in the developing world. President Bush says 
the same thing, that it will mean more jobs. He has said it on trade 
agreement after trade agreement after trade agreement, as did his 
predecessor: it will mean more jobs, more production and manufacturing 
in this country, more selling jobs overseas and raising the standard of 
living, in this case in the five Central American countries and the 
Dominican Republic.
  Well, all we have to do, and the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter) and 
I were talking about this chart a moment ago, all we have to do is look 
at this chart to realize what they are saying just does not make sense. 
There is an old Ben Franklin quote where he said, ``The definition of 
insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a 
different outcome.'' That is really what our trade policy is. They make 
the same promises, expecting a different outcome, and continue to get 
the same kind of failed trade policies and failed results.
  But look at this chart. The average wage in the United States is 
$38,000. The average wage down in these Central American countries and 
the Dominican Republic is 6,000; Guatemala, $4,100. The average 
Nicaraguan makes $2,300 a year. These trade agreements do nothing to 
lift up their living standard so they will make more money. But under 
these trade agreements, we hear promises from supporters of CAFTA that 
we are going to sell more products. Whether it is from Virginia, Idaho, 
or Ohio, we are going to sell more products to these countries.
  But Nicaraguans are not going to buy cars made in Ohio, and Hondurans 
are not going to buy textiles and apparel from Virginia, and 
Guatemalans are not going to buy lumber from Idaho. These trade 
agreements are not about our selling products to those countries, 
because people in those countries do not have enough money to buy 
software from Seattle or steel from West Virginia. These agreements are 
about outsourcing jobs to Guatemala or exploiting workers in Honduras 
or sending manufacturing to Nicaragua.
  They are not going to lift those people up because there are no labor 
standards in this agreement, and they are not going to mean a better 
standard of living or more exports for the United States simply because 
these people cannot buy our products. Unless we are trading with a 
country that can buy our products, or unless we are doing something to 
raise the standard of living in these countries so that they can buy 
our products, these trade agreements are destined to fail.
  So we end up doing what the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter) spoke 
about a minute ago, we end up with a trade deficit going from $38 
billion in a dozen years to $618 billion and all kinds of job losses. 
In my State of Ohio in the last 5 years we have lost 220,000 
manufacturing jobs. In Virginia and the Carolinas, they have combined 
to lose almost 300,000 manufacturing jobs. In the great Northwest, 
Washington, Oregon and Idaho, they have lost 100,000 manufacturing 
jobs.
  In State after State after State, because of these failed trade 
policies, because our trading partners are not buying our products, 
because these trade agreements are all about moving our companies, our 
jobs, outsourcing them to these countries, this trade policy simply is 
not working.
  Mr. OTTER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I just want to 
say that the gentleman makes a great point. This is the first time I 
have seen that chart and had it explained the way the gentleman has 
shown it.

[[Page 16733]]

  In my other life, prior to being elected to the United States 
Congress at the turn of the century, I was the president of a large 
international company. In fact, I traveled to, worked in, and in many 
cases built plants, but sold product in 82 foreign countries. In fact, 
I supplied McDonald's restaurants with french fries in those countries 
throughout the world. They wanted a good french fry, and of course 
Idaho raises a great potato, and so subsequently we would go into these 
countries.
  It is interesting the demographics that McDonald's does, just like 
any fast food joint or any business goes through. If you take a look at 
the chart the gentleman has there, if they were making the minimum wage 
at a 40-hour week, at let us say the Federal minimum wage, they would 
be making, my quick math here, they would be making about $10,480 a 
year. That is a 40-hour week, 52 weeks a year, and they would be making 
about $10,480 a year. The highest income, family income, average in 
Costa Rica, comes to $9,000, if I can read that from here. Am I right?
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, for a guy his age, my colleague can 
see these numbers pretty well.
  Mr. OTTER. I thank the gentleman for that. But more interesting than 
that, more interesting than that, my colleague, is that the $9,000 that 
those folks make in Costa Rica is half of what our United States 
Government says is the poverty level for a family of four, which is 
$18,000. We say if you make $18,000 or less in this country, you do not 
have to pay any taxes. You are at the poverty level and so we are not 
going to put any more burdens on you. Yet they expect these people to 
suddenly rush in and buy french fries at 50 cents a pound, beef steak 
at $3 or $4 a pound. And so who are they kidding? Who are they kidding 
when they say we are going to have these billions of dollars' worth of 
new exports that are going to be going to these countries?
  The other thing I wanted to point out is that it is interesting how 
we constantly shift the paradigm on why CAFTA is so important. 
Initially, of course, and when you are talking to an old businessman 
and an old international grocery salesman like myself, and you tell me 
that we have some opportunity here to build trade, I am all for it. So 
I say, well, show me the numbers. Show me the numbers, like McDonald's 
used to. They would go in and take a look at the net disposable income, 
and they would say we cannot afford to build a McDonald's down here, in 
one of these countries, because who could buy our product?
  Who can go in there and buy a hamburger, two all-beef patties, 
special sauce, onions, lettuce, pickles, cheese on a sesame seed bun, 
plus french fries, and a diet Pepsi or Coke or whatever else they would 
be selling? Because you see, quite frankly, there is no one in that 
country at that average wage that would have the net disposable income 
to do it.
  So when the trade agreement did not work, suddenly we shifted the 
paradigm to political. We have to do this for these five countries down 
there, because if we do not, they will go down the drain to communism. 
They will go down the drain to Fidel Castro and to Hugo Chavez from 
Venezuela, and Ortega is going to take over again, and these other 
folks are all going to be taking over. So we absolutely have to allow 
these countries to do this.
  Well, now, did we not start this in 1984, and have we not given them 
every economic benefit? And if this is as far as we have gotten since 
1984, in 20, 21 years, I am a little concerned that if this is as far 
as we have gotten, we are not going anywhere with CAFTA.
  So finally, when the political argument did not work, now they have 
shifted it to immigration. And my good friend, the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Goode), said it very succinctly, and that is that that is 
the exact same thing they told us with NAFTA.

                              {time}  2100

  They said if we just pass NAFTA, we will stop all of this illegal 
immigration, all of this desire for these folks to come from Mexico 
into the United States.
  Well, it is estimated before we passed NAFTA we had something like 
800,000 illegal aliens in the United States, and now it is estimated we 
have something like 10 million illegal aliens in the United States. 
Well, it sure worked for NAFTA, and I have no doubt in my mind NAFTA 
plus CAFTA equals SHAFTA.
  I hope that this House is smart enough to turn back this effort to 
sell our sovereignty down the drain for some questionable promises of 
either economic increases for us in trade, political stability in that 
part of the world, or finally reduced immigration problems that we have 
at home.
  I think that is a very important chart. I hope we get an opportunity 
to have some real face time with that chart on television as well.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman talks about stability 
of those governments. I have heard the whole series of arguments. It 
was not much different with NAFTA. The President started off telling us 
NAFTA would be great for businesses, workers, and small manufacturing. 
People just were not buying it. Then he shifted it into a national 
security argument and an immigration argument, and then whether it was 
NAFTA or CAFTA, the President, whoever the President was in each one of 
those, would shift into the old issue of stability of those 
governments. President Clinton said it with NAFTA and Mexico. Now they 
are talking about political stability in the Dominican Republic and in 
the five Central American nations, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, 
Costa Rica, and in Honduras.
  But when we talk about stability, the opposition to these agreements 
in these countries is widespread and strong. There were all kind of 
demonstrations. There have been at least 45 demonstrations in the five 
Central American countries with 150,000 people at least participating 
in those demonstrations, and these are farmers and small business 
owners and workers and ranchers and people who came from the 
countryside, hiked into the cities and protested at their legislatures.
  In one of the five Central American countries when the agreement 
passed, they did it in the middle of the night. The legislature met, 
they had to surround the building and nobody knew about it. All of 
those kinds of things have happened. If you talk about stability, you 
want a trade agreement that people of all stripes can buy into.
  As I said earlier, I look to a day when the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. 
Otter), the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis), the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Goode), and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown), people 
who have very different political philosophies and have very different 
kinds of districts, can sit down and write a trade agreement that the 
Catholic bishops in Central America will support and Jewish and 
Lutheran leaders in this country can support. They oppose this 
agreement.
  I look forward to a day when labor unions and large corporations and 
small businesses and farmers and ranchers both in Central America and 
in the United States could support, and where we would put 350 or 400 
Members of Congress together and pass an agreement. But to pass an 
agreement by 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 votes, to do it in the middle of the 
night, to keep the rollcall open and try to twist arms to pass it when 
it is clear that a majority of people in our country oppose it, we have 
seen these rallies that you have been to, and others, in opposition to 
this trade agreement here, where a majority of people in Central 
America and the Dominican Republic oppose it. There is simply no sense 
in passing a trade agreement that is not inclusive and does not have 
Ohio and Idaho's interests in hand. All four members of the Idaho 
delegation, Senators and Representatives, are going to vote against 
CAFTA.
  Mr. OTTER. Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons that Idaho is so firm 
against CAFTA, and I have received phone calls from companies in Idaho 
that say we need you to support CAFTA. Absolutely I have. I am not 
going to try to kid anybody and say I have not. I have had some phone 
calls from folks in the agricultural business that tell me that they 
bought into some of those arguments.

[[Page 16734]]

  But for the most part the commodity groups in Idaho are supporting 
each other. And they have said yes, CAFTA may be good for us, but we 
remember when we asked the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter) and the 
gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Simpson) and everybody to vote against the 
Australian trade agreement because it was bad for the dairy industry 
and it was not too handsome for the beef industry. And so now the beef 
folks and the dairy folks are remembering that the sugar beet folks and 
the other farm commodities in Idaho supported them.
  But all I need to do when they call me and say we want you to support 
CAFTA, I just need to remind them where we were in the early 1990s 
before NAFTA. Since NAFTA in my congressional district alone, since 
NAFTA passed, we have lost 32 sawmills, lumber mills in the State of 
Idaho. You do not just lose a lumber bill. The people of Clearwater 
County, Idaho, in a little town called Pierce, had a plywood mill that 
they had to close down as a result of not being able to compete with 
the Canadian lumber, and not having a softwood agreement with Canada. 
As a result, they had to shut down the mill.
  That went on in many little towns. In the town of Cascade, Idaho; 
Council, Idaho, it worked its way south in my district, just inside the 
Continental Divide. We eventually shut down over 30 lumber mills and we 
laid off 14,000 families. Those 14,000 families no longer had an 
economic future in their business. Some of them were four and five 
generations in Idaho. The great Boise Cascade Company no longer has an 
operating unit in the State of Idaho and with the exception of maybe 
one or two scattered around in the south of the United States, no 
longer has an operating mill.
  When those 14,000 families lost their jobs, school districts started 
to die because the property values of their homes went down because the 
main employer in the town closed up the mill and left. So there were no 
jobs, and so suddenly the equity that they had been building up in 
their house, and maybe it was two or three generations, suddenly that 
equity vanished just like the sawmill did, just like their hope for an 
economic future in the State of Idaho.
  So you do not just lose a job in a State like Idaho and in a town 
like Pierce, Idaho, in Clearwater County, or Cascade, Idaho, in Valley 
County, or Council, Idaho, in Adams County, you lose school districts 
and you lose property tax base and you lose people. Eventually you lose 
families. That is what it cost the State of Idaho. That is why all four 
members of Idaho's delegation are opposed to CAFTA.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, that is the same in my State of Ohio. 
When we talk about numbers and the trade deficit, we talk about the 
millions of lost jobs, but it comes down to every family that loses a 
job, what they go through, every neighbor, every school district, the 
police and fire protection they lose, the equity in their house, all of 
the things that happen that destroy families and destroy communities. 
That is what we all need to remember when we are debating these large 
numbers and billions of numbers in trade deficits.
  I thank the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter). We were joined this 
evening in a very unusual bipartisan special order with Republicans, 
the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones) and the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Goode), and Democrats, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. 
Davis), in opposition to the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

                          ____________________