Assisting Workers Affected by Broken Trade Policies

Madam Speaker, I support the TAA reauthorization and appreciate the important improvements that the legislation makes in the program.

But unfortunately there's a larger problem at work, and TAA only addresses the symptoms, not the cause.

So-called Free Trade Agreements have been anything but free. Our current trade policies have been devastating for communities in Northeast Ohio and all across this nation.

One only has to look at our record trade deficit and this growing TAA program to see this reality.

Madam Speaker, people across this country know that our trading system is broken.

The fact is TAA became necessary because this country kept entering into unfair and harmful trade agreements that are costing American workers their jobs and hurt our businesses and communities. While reauthorizing and improving the TAA program is important, what our working families really need are trade policies that do not jeopardize American jobs in the first place.

In just the last 7 years, we have lost more than 3 million manufacturing jobs in this country, and more than 200,000 in Ohio alone. Some estimates attribute more than 50,000 of Ohio's job losses directly to NAFTA.

And we've seen the consequences of this job loss in the record numbers of families in foreclosure, and in families falling off the health care rolls, and families' sustaining benefits going out the window. These are families full of proud, hardworking Americans who have had their futures and opportunities undercut by our trade policies. It doesn't have to be that way.

This country owes these workers the kind of assistance TAA aims to offer, because we must remember that very often it was our nation's broken policies that set in motion the loss of their jobs.

And because of this, it's the government's moral responsibility to try and help them land on their feet.

But wouldn't it be better if those jobs had never been lost? And wouldn't it be better, Madam Speaker, to fix our broken policies so that they no longer allow other countries to engage in unfair trade tactics that leave U.S. businesses at a disadvantage and U.S. workers out of jobs?

This reauthorization bill recognizes the disastrous consequences that poorly-conceived trade agreements such as NAFTA, CAFTA, and the proposed Peru, Colombia, Panama and South Korean Free Trade Agreements have had and will continue to have for our manufacturing and service industries.

Make no mistake. Our policies must not just sound good on paper. They must work for our businesses, our workers, our farmers, and our communities. Indeed, they must work and be fair to this country. If this Congress does not act on this reality, which is being felt in places like Lorain and Akron and in districts across this country, we'll need more and more TAA programs every year, as more and more American workers are let down by a broken and mismanaged system.

Madam Speaker, all the good intentions and helpful programs in TAA cannot disguise the fact that we're going about things backwards. We should start with American workers and communities, and end with multinational corporations, not the other way around.

We must make sure that our trade policies do not leave our businesses and workers at an unfair disadvantage, or provide incentives to move jobs offshore.

Many displaced workers have been turned away from TAA in Ohio in the past, due to chronic underfunding and complex eligibility rules and requirements.

And for others, it has been very difficult finding new, good-paying jobs to support their families.

In Ohio, only 65% of workers laid off between 2003 and 2005 had found new jobs by 2006, and only two-thirds of those jobs were remotely of similar pay.

And while the improved funding and expansions provided by this bill are welcome and certainly overdue, the most important message we should take away from this TAA reauthorization is the fact that it recognizes how much damage has been caused by our broken trade policies.

We should reauthorize this program and I certainly appreciate the improvements made in the bill.

But as I said earlier, TAA only addresses the symptoms, not the cause.

We know what the problems are and American workers and businesses are facing them every day.

It is time for this Congress to step up and recognize the reality that millions of Americans are facing these issues due to our broken trade policies, and finally take real and effective action.