“We Have a Federal Deficit Because We Have a Trade Deficit.”

[Alan Grayson]

Team Grayson here. Recently, our Congressman with Guts was on national TV, explaining in simple terms the awful ramifications of the “Fast Track” trade legislation that had just passed the Senate, and is heading to the House. Proponents of “Fast Track” are proffering smoke and mirrors, as they try to jam it through Congress. Congressman Grayson is just about the only one in Washington, DC, who can blow away that smoke, and shatter those mirrors. Listen:

Thom Hartmann: In the best of the rest of the news, it’s illegal to disclose the details of “ObamaTrade.” And the President is using that secrecy to confuse the American people. Earlier this month, President Barack Obama downplayed Senator Elizabeth Warren’s opposition to the TPP because, he said, “she’s a politician like everyone else.” This week, Warren’s office released a report titled “Broken Promises: Decades of Failure to Enforce Labor Standards in Free Trade Agreements.” Rather than criticizing the TPP outright, the report shows what happened over 20 years of so-called “free trade deals” promising to help American workers and consumers. Yesterday, Presidential consultant Michael Wessel published a story in Politico showing how the Obama Administration has made it impossible for elected officials, or advisors like himself, to criticize details of the deal. And unlike past trade deals, even the Administration’s cleared advisors, like Michael Wessel himself, can’t make specific public criticisms. They also aren’t being kept up-to-date on what revisions and proposals are being made by partner countries, which make consultations much more restrictive than past administration’s trade deals, according to Wessel.

Taking the Senate floor last week, Barbara Boxer shared her story about trying to read the TPP’s text. Take a look:

[Video] Sen. Barbara Boxer: And as soon as I get there, the guard says to me ‘hand over your electronics.’ OK. I gave over my electronics. Then the guard says ‘You can’t take notes.’ I said ‘I can’t take notes?!’ ‘Well, you can take notes, but you have to give them back to me and I’ll put them in a file.’ So I said ‘Wait a minute, I’m going to take notes, and then you’re going to take my notes away from me? And then you’re going to have them in a file and you can read my notes?’”

TH: So our elected officials can’t make notes, can’t make real public criticisms, and the President’s advisors are not even up to date on changes to the deal? And we’re supposed to believe that this deal is being negotiated in the best interests of the American people? Here now to discuss what’s going on with the TPP, and the TPA [“Fast Track”], US Representative for Florida’s 9th District, Congressman Alan Grayson. Congressman Grayson, welcome back!

Congressman Alan Grayson: Thank you.

TH: And thanks so much for being with us and for sharing with us that extraordinary video that you did that’s over at TradeTreachery.com. Do I have that right?

REP. GRAYSON: That’s right, and more than a million people have watched it on Facebook alone.

TH: Oh, that’s fabulous. Let’s start at the beginning here. Can you explain the difference between the TPP and the TPA, this new acronym that the Administration has rolled out? Go for it.

REP. GRAYSON: Yes, sure. The TPA is procedural, the TPP is substantive. The TPA is what people have been referring to when they speak of “fast track legislation,” when they refer to that. The TPP is the deal itself, which the fast track legislation would create a fast track for. Then there’s the TTIP, which is the Atlantic version of the TPP. That’s also a substantive arrangement – a treaty, if you will – that the fast track [legislation] would enable.

TH: So, what is the argument against Fast Track, the TPA? Let’s start with that, because that’s what’s being debated right now.

REP. GRAYSON: Well, it’s a delegation of our legislative responsibilities to the executive branch and to unelected officials. What Fast Track does, very simply, is that it takes away our responsibility for hearings, for oversight, for subcommittee and committee and floor amendments, and in the Senate, even the filibuster. It sweeps all of that away to make a “fast track” for this so-called trade legislation that would increase the deficit, send jobs offshore, and eliminate our sovereignty. That’s what it does. In fact, one provision in the fast track legislation limits the debate for House members on this bill to 83 seconds each. That’s 83 seconds each!

TH: Wow. To your best understanding of what’s in the deal, and I realize if you’ve read any part of it you can’t tell us because you would go to jail … What will, in your opinion, what will the TPP do to the American worker and the American economy?

REP. GRAYSON: Drive us deeper and deeper into debt, and further destroy our jobs base. What the TPP does is that it continues a long line of trade giveaways that started with NAFTA. Since NAFTA went into effect, we’ve lost 5 million manufacturing jobs, and 15 million other jobs. Fast-Track greases the skids for deals like that to go even further. Right now we have free trade agreements, about a dozen of them, with 18 relatively small countries. Fast-Track, the TPP, the TTIP, all of those would extend that to 50 other countries, almost overnight. And the problem we have is very simple: We are buying the goods and services from other countries, we’re putting them to work, and in return they’re not buying an equal amount of our goods and services. Instead, they’re lending us the money to buy their goods and services, buying our assets, not creating any jobs in the United States by buying our assets, making inequality in this country higher and higher, and driving us deeper and deeper into debt. That’s how we end up with an $11 trillion cumulative trade debt. $11 trillion! Every man, woman, and child in this country already owes $35,000 apiece to foreigners, and these deals would make that worse.

TH: For decades, conservatives have been hysterical about the budget deficit. This is not the budget deficit you’re referring to, it’s the trade deficit. It’s the difference between what we bring in from selling things versus what we put out buying things. Can you talk a little bit about exactly why we should be concerned about the trade deficit, and why is it that most Americans don’t even know that there is a trade deficit, much less one that last month, for example, was $50 billion?

REP. GRAYSON: Well, the government deficit is money that we owe to ourselves. For the most part, the holders of government debt are Americans. So, if we needed to pay off the debt, we could do that. If we were willing to raise taxes, we could pay off the debt very quickly. We were heading in that direction under the Clinton Administration. We were only 8 years away under the Clinton Administration from paying off all the federal debt. The trade debt, the trade deficit, is entirely different. That’s not money we owe to ourselves. That is 100% money that we owe to people and businesses in other countries, even governments in other countries. And the result of that is that we can’t tax ourselves to pay that off. All we can do is hope that they don’t ask for their money back. And we’re talking about half a trillion dollars every year. In fact, the 14 largest trade deficits in the history of the human race are our 14 last trade deficits, going back during the last 14 years. It’s a half a trillion dollars a year, over a billion dollars a day, and cumulatively now over $11 trillion. And it all started with NAFTA. Before NAFTA went into effect, in 200 years of our history, we never had a trade deficit of $135 billion in any year. Every single year since NAFTA has gone into effect, for over 20 years, we’ve had a trade deficit of over $135 billion. And one [deficit] causes the other. Because when you take that money out of our economy, when you take that money out of buying our goods and services, the government has to step in and make up the difference; otherwise, our economy collapses. The reason why we have a federal deficit is because we have a trade deficit.

TH: Wow. And it’s astonishing to me that this conversation never happens on the Sunday [news] shows, it never happens in the mainstream media, and the vast majority of Americans don’t know what you’re talking about when you talk about the trade deficit, as opposed to the federal deficit. It’s astonishing. Mitch McConnell recently said that the reason why he’s pushing so hard for TPA, for Fast-Track, was not specifically for the TPP, for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or what I call “SHAFTA,” the Southern Hemisphere Asian Free Trade Agreement, but that it’s because it’s a six-year authorization, and he fully expects that the next President will be a Republican. And that Republican President, for the first four years of his presidency, assuming he or she is elected to more than one term, would be able to push through all kinds of “trade deals,” all over the place. Shouldn’t that really be front-and-center? Again, that seems like something that most Americans don’t know, that Mitch McConnell even said it, much less that that’s how the Republicans are thinking.

REP. GRAYSON: Well, that may be true, but look, there’s been a bi-partisan “shafting” of the American public. The initial trade deal, NAFTA, was something that was passed under a Democratic President. And we’ve had more of these passed under Democratic Presidents and Republican Presidents alike. In fact, there’s a unity among our elites in this country. They’ll do whatever they need to do to help multinational corporations increase their profits, even if it means giving away our sovereignty. That seems to be the one thing that Democrats and Republicans seem to agree on these days. “Let’s placate, let’s appease, let’s give more power to the multinational corporations through these trade deals, and to hell with America.”

TH: Yeah. Last week we had 13 Democrats go along with the Republicans for Fast-Track in the Senate.

REP. GRAYSON: And they switched [sides] to do that!

TH: Right.

REP. GRAYSON: They switched!

TH: Right – right!

REP. GRAYSON: It’s the classic case of “I was against it before I was for it.” And it will dog them for the rest of their days.

TH: Right. And I think they switched [their votes] the day after the big train crash, and so most people don’t even know about it. Again, it didn’t get covered by cable news. So, anyhow, that’s where it’s at in the Senate right now. Where’s Fast-Track in the House?

REP. GRAYSON: Fast-Track in the House is waiting for Fast-Track in the Senate. Everybody agreed the Senate would go first. In fact, when Fast-Track was originally introduced, which was in the last Congress, the 113th Congress, it [was introduced in] the Senate, and was dormant for two years. Now it’s being pushed forward, because the TPP, the TTIP, these other deals behind it are almost ready. So now they need to push Fast-Track through. The original plan was to wait for the “lame duck” session [last year], but they weren’t ready for that, so now they’re going to jam it through right now, as best as they can. And this means coming down hard, hard, on anybody who wants to maintain our labor base, our labor standards; protect our environmental laws, our safety laws; [so that they can] make sure, instead, that multinational corporations get every single thing they want.

TH: Right. And you can learn all about it at TradeTreachery.com. And there’s also an interesting website for conservatives, it’s called ObamaTrade.com, and it’s the Conservative argument against it. The hard-right argument, let’s say. Yesterday, the World Trade Organization ruled that our United States country of origin labels on meat violate global “free trade” standards. First, I’m curious if you’re familiar with the ruling.

REP. GRAYSON: Yes.

TH: And if you could comment on it. And secondly, is this the sort of thing that we can expect more of under TPP?

REP. GRAYSON: It’ll be that, and worse. Basically, what we’re doing is that we’re setting up – and this is according to published reports; I’m not giving out any secret or confidential information, this is on WikiLeaks – we’re setting up a secret tribunal before the World Bank, and another secret tribunal before the United Nations. Both of these tribunals will be able to issue enforceable awards, arbitration awards or judgements, against not just our federal government, but also our state governments, our county governments, and our municipal governments. And they can do so whenever a corporation believes that its right, it’s God-given right, to profit, has been impaired – by a safety regulation, a health regulation, an environmental regulation, or simply a labeling regulation, like the one that you described.

TH: Yeah, it’s absolutely astonishing. TradeTreachery.com, you’ve got to check it out. And watch the video that Congressman Grayson put together. It is brilliant. Congressman Alan Grayson, you are such a light in Congress. Thank you for being with us tonight.

REP. GRAYSON: Thank you, Thom.

Yes, if you haven’t seen our Trade Treachery video, then check it out, by clicking here. And whether or not you’ve seen it, help us get out the word on it, and fight back against trade treachery, by contributing to our “Truth in Trade” Fund today. Over 1,000,000 people have watched the Trade Treachery video on Facebook already; with a little bit of help from you, we can double that. Help us spread the word.

[angrychair]

1. Grayson has no high ground anymore

On anything now. His actions and comments about his wife (unseemly, crude and spiteful) him hiding millions of dollars in tax havens to avoid paying taxes (hundreds of millions) is disturbing. It makes it very hard to take him serious. To steal from a very famous quote: I know Bernie Sanders sir and you are no Bernie Sanders.

[tarheelsunc]

3. If only he had the "Guts" to do right by his wife and kids... eom

[Algernon Moncrieff]

2. K & R