President Barack Obama is holding up on submitting three free-trade agreements to Congress until it deals with the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program. Club for Growth President Chris Chocola says Congress should do away with TAA, which gives supplementary benefits to workers whose jobs have been lost to trade.
“Some Republicans in Congress may go along with re-authorizing the expansion of TAA next week, even though it amounts to another wasteful spending program that will further plunge our country into debt,” Chocola writes in
The Hill.
TAA benefits exploded in the 2009 fiscal stimulus program, he says. “TAA covered workers whose employers shift production to any foreign country, not just those whose jobs were supposedly shifted to countries where the U.S. has an existing free trade agreement.”
Congress should just allow TAA to expire, Chocola argues. “Congress should resist having free trade agreements held hostage by President Obama’s desire to continue giveaways to his buddies in big labor.”
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