Cloture Motion

Floor Speech

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Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise to oppose the motion to invoke cloture on TPA, the so-called fast-track legislation. I am still incredulous, as I have watched this trade nondebate, if you will, at the speed at which, time after time, the majority leader has tried to shut down debate. It has happened again and again, and that is compounded by the secrecy of this whole process.

I can't count the number of times in my State of Ohio and in meetings in Washington, with people from all over the country, that people have said we have little or no access to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. TPA, in the past--fast-track--has actually been sort of a rule book for how we should negotiate trade agreements and, at the same time, has been a direction on how to negotiate these trade agreements and a rule book on how it is presented on the Senate floor. Yet none of the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations by Ambassador Froman have been informed at all by a TPA because we haven't had a TPA yet. We haven't even had an instruction booklet in the past. At the same time, we have gotten the worst of both worlds because we are voting on TPA, and we really haven't been able to see what is in TPP. I know supporters of TPP will say we are going to have 60 days now, but Members are casting their votes now--where 60 votes are required and they have maximum leverage--to put no final point on it, just giving up the leverage they have as we are still kept in the dark on what is happening.

Let me give one example before I get to where I think we are making a mistake by moving so quickly today, in essence, fast-tracking fast-track.

One example, my office and I personally have repeatedly spoken to the President of the United States and the U.S. Trade Representative, Ambassador Froman, repeatedly asking them to fix some of the language on tobacco. Because one of the things that apparently--we really don't know for sure--the Trans-Pacific Partnership does is it gives even more power to American tobacco companies--more power to American tobacco companies to have influence over laws in particularly small countries which don't have the wherewithal and can't afford the huge legal bills a large tobacco company can afford to write public health law.

If a small country wants to write a law to protect their children from marketing of tobacco products--which is what we have done in this country--the U.S. tobacco company or British tobacco company can--let's keep it here. The U.S. tobacco company can threaten a lawsuit against those countries, and those countries are probably going to back off because they probably can't afford to go to court with the big American tobacco company. Even something as clearly violative of the public interest and of public health as what damage Big Tobacco inflicts on children has not, to our knowledge, been addressed. Again, so much of this is secretive that we don't even know that.

That is why there is anger in this country and why there is--so many people in this country tell me, so many in my State: Why are you moving so fast? Why is this coming up right now? Why don't we know more about this whole process?

Yet again, the majority leader is shutting down debate. He will be joined, I assume, by a small number, a distinct, small number of minority Democrats, getting up over the 60-vote margin so they can shut down debate, so they can move the TPA--the fast-track--forward, so they can get the Trans-Pacific Partnership down the road.

No matter which side of the TPP debate, no matter which side of the trade promotion authority, TPA, fast-track--no matter which side you are on, it is clear that our trade policy creates winners and losers. It is clear. Even the most vigorous cheerleaders for free trade--the Wall Street Journal editorial board, for instance--even the strongest free-traders, even though people who reflectively support these free-trade agreements acknowledge there are winners and losers.

They will argue that these trade agreements create more jobs than they lose. I don't agree with that. They argue that. Put that aside. But they also acknowledge that people lose jobs because of decisions we make.

We are about to pass fast-track here. We are about to pass trade promotion authority, leading probably to the Trans-Pacific Partnership having a reasonable chance of passage. We are about to do that. We are making that decision here. Members of Congress, people who are well paid, with government-financed retirements and health care--we are about to make those decisions, and we know--we are knowingly making that decision, acknowledging that some people will lose their jobs because of a decision we make, but we are not going to take care of those workers. We are going to pass today the TPA, the trade promotion authority, fast-track. We are going to pass that and ignore those workers. How shameful is that that we know the decisions we are making in this body--we are making the decisions, the President of the United States makes this decision, the House of Representatives has made this decision, the Senate is about to make this decision, we are making this decision, knowing people will lose their jobs because of our actions. Yet we are unwilling to provide for those workers who lose their jobs.

Let me give a little history, a special message to Congress. In January of 1962, President Kennedy said:

When considerations of national policy make it desirable to avoid higher tariffs, those injured by that competition should not be required to bear the full brunt of the impact. Rather, the burden of economic adjustment should be borne in part by the Federal Government.

That is President Kennedy at the advent, at the beginning, at the creation of the trade adjustment assistance, the support for workers who lose their jobs because of--again, I repeat--decisions we make in this body, in the House of Representatives, in the White House. We make decisions on trade. We know people will lose their jobs. We should help them. It should be our moral responsibility to help them.

Senator Vance Hartke of Indiana said: ``No small group of firms and workers should be made to bear the full burden of the costs of a program whose great benefits enrich the Nation as a whole.''

This is as true today as it was 53 years ago. It is not a Democratic idea. It is not a Republican idea. Everyone from the Cato Institute--a libertarian-oriented think tank in Washington, a bunch of well-paid scholars who make pronouncements from on high about various kinds of public policy issues--to the Wall Street Journal--a similar body but one with greater ability to disseminate information--even those two venerable institutions admit the trade agreements do not create winners everywhere.

A Cato Institute trade briefing says, ``All of those job losses are a painful but necessary part of the larger process of innovation and productivity increases.''

I am always a bit amused when people who--again, well-educated, good pay, dress like this, good benefits, good retirement, good health care--make pronunciations saying: Well, job losses are painful--not to us, of course. The same as editorial writers who make these decisions, these pronouncements on trade, they are not losing their jobs. People in my State are losing jobs on these fair trade agreements. We are going to inflict this pain. As the Cato Institute and the Wall Street Journal say, by the decisions we make, we are going to inflict pain on these workers. People are going to lose jobs in my town of Mansfield, OH. People are going to lose jobs where I grew up. People are going to lose jobs in Cleveland where I live now. People are going to lose jobs in Zanesville and Newark because of decisions we make today on fast-track, because of decisions we will make next year on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. People are going to lose their jobs, but we are going to vote today to cut off debate, and we are going to forget, at least temporarily, about helping those workers who lose jobs because of decisions we make. How immoral is that? How shameful is that? What a betrayal we are inflicting on those workers if we make this decision today.

Former Wall Street Journal economics editor David Wessel writes, ``Even [free trade's] most fervent admirers concede trade creates winners and losers.''

I will debate until the cows come home the net benefits of these trade agreements. I think they are net job loss. But even if you believe these trade agreements are net job-gainers--I don't think there is a lot of evidence of that--but even if you believe that, we know people lose their jobs because of decisions we make. That is why Republicans in the past have supported trade adjustment assistance in principle and in policy going back decades.

Fifteen years ago, President George W. Bush said, ``I recognize that some American workers may face adjustment challenges''--that means they get thrown out of work. It is a nice way a President might talk about people he has left behind. Put that aside. ``I recognize that some American workers may face adjustment challenges as a result of trade.''

At least to President Bush's credit--I wish his words would be followed today on this floor by the majority leader, by Republican Leader McConnell as he cuts off debate and leaves behind trade adjustment assistance. President Bush said, ``I support helping these workers by reauthorizing and improving trade adjustment assistance programs that will give workers impacted by trade new skills, help them find new jobs quickly, and provide them with financial assistance.''

I can give lots of stories about people I know in Youngstown, Lima, Dayton, Hamilton, and people in Portsmouth who lost their jobs because of trade, but at least they have gotten a helping hand from a government that used to have their backs and believe in them--at least until today--from a government that actually will extend that hand and help them retrain. Maybe they can become a nurse, maybe they can work in information technology, maybe they can become a radiology technologist at the local hospital.

Earlier this year, my colleague John Cornyn--Republican from Texas, the senior Senator and assistant Republican leader--told reporters that ``there is no doubt that the benefits of more trade do not fall uniformly. There are some segments of the economy that don't prosper as well.''

We know that. We have seen that acknowledgement across the board. Yet today Leader McConnell is going to cut off debate, even though decisions we have made have cost people their jobs. That is why we have a moral obligation. It is not a new idea. It is not a partisan idea. It is universally accepted. Trade deals don't benefit everybody. That is why this moral obligation to include trade adjustment assistance in any package with TPA is so important.

We can't send a framework for a new trade deal to the President's desk without assistance for the workers who will be left behind, but that is not what we are doing today. Today, it is full-speed ahead, cut off debate, move ahead on fast-track, move ahead on trade promotion authority.

I assume a number of my Democratic colleagues are going along with it. I hope the wrath of people in this country--if the House and Senate refuse to do what some of their leaders say they will, that they will pass trade adjustment assistance, that they will take care of those workers--if they don't live up to that promise--and many times in the past they haven't lived up to similar promises--a lot of my colleagues are going to go home and face people who say: Wait. You made a decision. I got thrown out of a job because of a decision you made, because of a decision you made as a House Member, because of a decision you made as a Senator, because of a decision you made, Mr. President. I was thrown out of work, and you passed on June 23--or whatever today is--fast-track without taking care of me, even though it was your decision that I lose my job.

What kind of government--what kind of principles do we live under here?

In March, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote in National Review Online:

To be sure, any trade deal, while a net plus overall, produces winners and losers. But the TPP will be accompanied by so-called Trade Adjustment Assistance, training and subsidies to help those negatively affected.

Again, Krauthammer, as he is about 95 percent of the time, is wrong. He is wrong that it is going be accompanied by the trade adjustment assistance. The assumption all along, even among TPP proponents, has been that TPA would be passed in tandem with aid for workers. But you know, even though that is what we did first here, Republicans in the House of Representatives are unwilling to vote for them together. They are just not going to vote. Speaker Boehner, for some reason, acquiesced to the President of the United States, pulled them apart, and had separate votes. Think about the message we will send. If we put another huge trade deal--parenthetically, once-majority leader, Republican leader Trent Lott said: You can't pass a trade agreement in an even-numbered year. Do you know why he said that? He said that because people don't like trade deals in this country. People know NAFTA sold them out. They know CAFTA sold them out. They know PNTR with China sold them out. They know Korea sold them out. We heard these promises over and over.

With NAFTA, we were promised 200,000 jobs in 2 years. Thank you, President Bush 1, and thank you, President Clinton, for that. We lost 680,000 net jobs. Central America Free Trade Agreement--thank you, President Bush 2, for that. Promises were made, big promises about job increases, big promises about wages going up. It didn't happen. Wages stayed flat. Jobs were lost. Thank you, President Bush 2, for that.

Korea, South Korea Free Trade Agreement, negotiated in part by President Bush, pushed through the Senate by President Obama--thank you, Mr. Presidents of both parties, for that. They told us 70,000 jobs would be created out of the South Korea Free Trade Agreement. No, we have lost 75,000 jobs.

Using the same formula that we have--we have seen this over and over. We know what happens. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that between 2009 and 2012, two-thirds of displaced manufacturing workers who did find new jobs ended up taking lower paying jobs. Most of those workers saw wage losses of more than 20 percent.

You can debate whether the gains others experienced make these losses worth it. I don't think they do. I think if you have traveled darned near anywhere--if Members of Congress spent a little more time with people who can't contribute to them, with people who don't belong to a local rotary club, with people who might just work hard, play by the rules, not make a lot of money, barely make it, sometimes have their house foreclosed on, sometimes lose their job--if we would spend a little more time with people like that, I think we would see how these trade agreements are working.

There is a debate to be had. I will cede it is debatable, whether these trade agreements--whether the evidence is that they create jobs or lose jobs. I think it is pretty clear they lose jobs. But there is no debate. There is no debate on what actually happens here. Because of decisions--I will repeat--before this vote coming up in about 60 seconds, because of decisions we make in this body--the President makes, Senators make, Congress men and women make--because of decisions we make in this body, people in our States, whether it is Arkansas or Arizona, Oregon, Utah or my State of Ohio, people lose jobs because of decisions we make. There is no question people lose jobs because of decisions we make. Anything short of providing for those workers who lose their jobs today, not doing this on a promise--we are basically trusting the majority leader who doesn't really like, I understand, the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program. We are relying on the word of Speaker Boehner, who doesn't particularly like trade adjustment assistance. We know most of the Members of his party in the House of Representatives do not particularly like trade adjustment assistance. We are going to rely on their promise.

We are voting today on the fly. We are saying to workers in this country: Yes, we have made decisions that may have cost you your job. We are going to try to help you when you lose that job, but we are still going to go ahead today and do that. That is why I asked my colleagues to vote no on this motion today to invoke cloture on trade promotion authority.

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