FEINGOLD WORKS TO REIN IN SKYROCKETING TRADE DEFICIT
Dorgan-Feingold Legislation Based on Warren Buffett Idea is Second
Bill in Feingold’s Four-Bill Series Addressing Domestic Issues
September 14, 2006
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, along with Senator
Byron Dorgan (D-ND), is introducing legislation to help reduce America’s
skyrocketing trade deficit. The Balanced Trade Restoration Act of 2006
is based on a proposal advocated by famed investor Warren Buffett. The
Dorgan-Feingold bill would help bring about trade balance by limiting
what we import to the value of what we export.
The Dorgan-Feingold bill is the second in a series of proposals addressing
some of the domestic issues that have been raised with Senator Feingold
in Wisconsin or at Wisconsin listening sessions over the years. Earlier
this summer, Feingold introduced the State-Based Health Care Reform
Act, which would help move America toward universal health care.
“In my fourteen years of holding listening sessions in Wisconsin,
I have heard almost universal frustration and anger with the trade policies
we have pursued,” Feingold said. “Unfair trade agreements
like NAFTA, CAFTA and GATT have failed to include meaningful standards
in areas such as worker protections, the environment, and public health
and safety, and this has created an uneven playing field for American
businesses, making it hard for them to compete. While our bill is not
a cure-all for the damage done by these unfair agreements, it will help
address some of the problems created by these trade policies, which
have led to the loss of millions of jobs and thousands of businesses.”
The Dorgan-Feingold bill offers a phased program that will ultimately
bring our trade into balance. The program would involve issuing “Balanced
Trade Certificates” (BTCs) to all U.S. exporters in an amount
equal to the dollar value of their exports. Each exporter would then
sell the BTCs to parties, such as foreign exporters or domestic importers,
who want to bring goods into the U.S. To import $1 million of goods,
an importer would need BTCs that were the result of $1 million of exports.
The result would be a balance of trade.
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