Is Sen. Sherrod Brown lying?

The GOPers in Congress have been rubber-stamping for about seven years.

This year, there was a sea change, remember?

No more rubber stamp, right?

Sen. Sherrod Brown, Fair Trade over Free Trade

You wrote a book titled Myths of Free Trade: Why American Trade Policy Has Failed. Is that a sentiment that will find supporters in the new Congress?

The overwhelming number of Democrats… think our trade policy has gone in the wrong direction. They think that our trade policy encourages companies to leave the country. They think our trade policy has caused more and more businesses to outsource. I am certain that we will see a very different Democratic Party, and a very different Republican Party, when it comes to trade.

A lot of Republicans voted for me, frankly, because of my position on trade. The voters in both parties understand our trade policy really has betrayed the middle class.

Will any new trade agreements make it through Congress?

There will be no major bilateral trade agreements that pass the House and Senate, unless there are solid environmental and labor standards [in the agreement].

There’s simply no reason that this Congress and our government should protect the drug companies, but not protect workers, that they should protect Hollywood films, and not protect the environment. That’s an overwhelming sentiment in this freshman class, in both parties, in both houses. And it’s an overwhelming sentiment now in the majority in both houses overall.

The North American Free Trade Agreement was passed under the administration of former Democratic president Bill Clinton. Will “Clinton” Democrats slow your efforts to change U.S. policy?

The so-called Bill Clinton wing of the Democratic Party has evolved into the mainstream Democrats, which [is what] we are. There has been an evolution since China in the late ’90s, there’s been an evolution among almost all Democrats, that these trade agreements simply need to be constructed in a different way, for fair trade, not for free trade.

Is there common ground with Republicans on trade?

I think there’s tremendous common ground on trade … [with Larry Craig (R-ID)] … with Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in the Senate, with Walter Jones (R-NC) in the House. We will find lots to work on. So I think we come down in the same place, in opposition to bad trade agreements and in support of good trade agreements.

There is no blank check involved in Fast Track authority, either in the fiscal sense or in any other.

Fast Track simply says that Congress shall, quickly, vote yes or NO on a bill, without added (subtracting) anything.

No earmarks, for example.

If Congress doesn’t like the bill, it won’t pass.

Don’t worry about it; it isn’t hard to miss the point when the blinders slip down over your eyes.

The questions I addressed, as you will note in rereading my post, had ZERO to do with immigration. That’s why you got confused: different subject altogether.

[I can feel the sheepish grin crossing your face right now!]

The topic under discussion here was the BusinessWeek and SirotaBlog items, above.

My comments were addressing the subjects in the articles:
—The concept of labor shortages (cf my PRD comment);
—The simplistic analysis of the reason why real pay might or might not rise (cf my “BusinessWeak”); and
—the effect of NAFTA on the Mexican economy, and particularly employment and poverty (cf the rest of the post).

There, see? Not a single word about immigration. No number spinning required.

So, take off the blinders and look around. Not every subject is related to your pet peeve.

By the way, there is no way of determining, from the information in the article, nor from the statistics I researched and quoted whether the growth in Mexican jobs, incomes and the economy were sufficient to generate enough jobs, paying good enough wages, to satisfy growth in the labor force and demand for higher pay.

Inadequate information on which to form the conclusion you so readily embraced.

—————————-

Bill,

Reality check: the US, Canada and Mexico – either together or individually – do not have free trade with China. Never have.

Oh, and in response to Mr Konop’s No. 5 above, the distance between where we are and the bottom has expanded vastly since NAFTA began. Verifiable fact.

This policy is a race to the bottom!