Posted on 07/25/2002 9:53:05 PM PDT by Libertarian Jim
Just crossed the AP Wires...Congress and Senate agree on a fast-track trade bill.
WASHINGTON- Urged on by President Bush, House and Senate negotiators agreed late Thursday on a bill that would give the president broad powers to negotiate new trade agreements while extending more benefits to Americans hurt by foreign competition.
Sen. Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said it would become "the most historic trade legislation" ever passed by Congress.
The trade bill has been at the top of Bush's legislative agenda since he took office, and in recent days he has urged Congress to move quickly to give the nation's faltering business communities a needed jolt of good news.
Negotiators reached agreement on the compromise package shortly before midnight. The House is expected to vote on it Friday, its last day in session before leaving for its August recess. The Senate is likely to take up the legislation next week, its final week before leaving for a monthlong vacation.
The package combines the "fast track," or trade promotion, authority the president says is vital if the United States is going to take a leading role in future world trade negotiations. The authority, which Congress has failed to renew since it expired in 1994, allows the president to negotiate trade agreements that Congress can approve or reject but cannot change.
Baucus said the compromise also contains 85 percent to 90 percent of the language in the Senate bill that provides extensive new benefits, costing up to $12 billion over 10 years, to workers who are dislocated as a result of foreign competition.
"We believe we have achieved our goal" of satisfying both those wanting to advance America's trade agenda and those concerned about the effects of trade on workers, said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif.
The Trade Adjustment Assistance part of the bill provides a 65 percent tax credit to help workers dislocated by trade buy health insurance. It also extends existing financial and training benefits for those affected by trade to secondary workers such as suppliers to plants hit by foreign competition. The Senate bill had a 70 percent credit, while Thomas had asked for 60 percent.
One of the last sticking points was whether workers laid off when their plants are moved overseas should also receive benefits. Thomas said he was satisfied with language worked out to specify who would qualify in such cases.
The benefits package was essential to Democrats involved in the negotiations. "Trade Adjustment Assistance is the core of the whole thing," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. "I don't think there's a whole lot of give on the Democratic side."
The two sides removed language in the Senate bill, strongly opposed by the White House, that would have given the Senate the power to remove provisions in a trade agreement that weakened U.S. laws on dumping and foreign subsidies. Instead, they agreed to take steps to ensure that trade negotiators fully consult Congress.
Bush on Tuesday urged Congress to take up the trade bill before it goes home. "This is an important part of a legislative package necessary to create jobs and keep the economy going," he said.
The House passed its bill in December by a 215-214 vote. Most Democrats opposed it, saying it did not adequately protect worker and environmental rights.
The Senate version passed 66-30 in May included a broad package that also extended health benefits to workers laid off because of trade and included renewal of a preferential trade agreement with four South American countries.
It would be even more interesting if it didn't.
We are subsidizing "displaced" workers?
Why? Most of them are union I bet and they will get help finding work through their local and they have been grossly overpaid and underworked anyway.
I will reserve judgment on "fast track" itself, but these subsidies seem unnecessary..
(well, except to pass the bill at all. that was most likely a deal breaker wit the dems.. )
The "cannot change" part is the key, All the other provisions can be avoided by the way the trade agreement is written. This should be a big plus if the President leaves the State Department out of the trade negotiations :-). My bet is investors will like this tomorrow and the Bull's will rule the day tomorrow on Wall Street
I have questioned a few of the Presidents decisions, but I do believe he has our best interest in mind when he is negotiating international agreements. His stand against the U.N. alone has earned him my respect as someone who is serving our best interest and not his political popularity abroad and here in the States.
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