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So-called Free Traders have sold their lobbyist written trade agreements to Congress by including "Trade Adjustment Assistance" to help those who lose their jobs. TAA is really Burial Insurance. Your employment life is dead, and then you try to collect some insurance from the government.
Friday's Wall Street Journal, on the front page, demolished this smoke and mirrors program. (I can't link the article because you need a subscription to view). Deborah Solomon's article, entitled "Federal Aid does little for Free Trade's Losers," details why this Burial Insurance is hard to collect, and if you do collect, you get little.
More than 250,000 people were potentially eligible in each of the last 3 years for health care assistance because they lost their jobs to outsourcing. Nine out of ten did not collect the benefit. The bureaucracy simply makes it too difficult.
"Wage insurance" is another TAA program. You must be over 50, lose your job to free trade, and prove you do not have "easily transferrable skills." This covers a few more people than a program targeting left handed, one-eyed dentists, but not a lot more.
The various strains of Burial Insurance are used by the Administration to buy off opponents to trade agreements. If an objecting legislator's vote is needed, they come up with some special deal for that legislator's concerns. These "carrots" were used to pass NAFTA, CAFTA and other trade deals. The "sticks" were threats to cut off highway funding for a representative's district, or another severe punishment.
We now have more than enough facts to scoff at Congress men and women who claim they protected their constituents by holding out for a special deal before voting for free trade. When they come back home to attend the local firehouse pancake breakfast, scoff away.
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