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The Republican Study Committee just sent out an email revealing a disturbing fact about Trade Adjustment Assistance, a welfare program that labor unions go ga-ga over.  The RSC email stated:


Given this, it's no surprise that the Club urged House members to vote against TAA renewal earlier this year and was successful in helping to block its consideration.  President Obama and the Democrats are now trying to force pro-free trade Republicans to accept TAA renewal by packaging it with the Korea free trade agreement.  So far, Republicans are resisting.  Let's make sure it stays that way.

CORRECTION: The House Ways & Means Committee said this information is incorrect.  They wrote, "Your data is incorrect, and we are asking that you please issue a correction.   To that end, I am also providing the section in the statute that explicitly details this provision.    In short, the benefits run concurrently, so you have to exhaust your UI benefits before TAA benefits kick in.  For example, if you do receive 130 weeks of TAA benefits currently, 99 of those weeks are paid for through UI.  So, you do not receive 229 weeks."
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The Wall Street Journal reports:

Colombian lawmakers passed legislation they hope will open the floodgates of trade with China, where the government plans two high-level trade missions over the next three months, as a long-delayed U.S. trade deal with the South American nation stalls in Congress.

... Trade officials in Bogotá expressed frustration with the slow pace of progress in Washington, which they say contrasts with Chinese eagerness to invest in Colombia, Washington's closest ally in South America.

In an interview, [Colombia Trade Minister Sergio] Díaz-Granados said he remained hopeful a free-trade pact with the U.S. would be passed before year's end, but that Colombia can no longer "sit with its arms crossed, waiting."

"We've been talking about a U.S.-Colombia free trade deal for 20 years, and it's certainly the trade deal we want more than any other," Mr. Díaz-Granados said. "But in the meantime, we have to continue working in other directions. Our business leaders need to pursue other markets and diversify." Permalink: http://www.clubforgrowth.org/perm/?postID=15219

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The Club for Growth is opposed to the Obama Administration's plan to not submit the three pending free trade agreements with Korea, Colombia, and Panama for approval until Congress renews the expanded Trade Adjustment Assistance program (TAA).

The Republican Study Committee currently has a letter to House leadership announcing their opposition to this as well, and we strongly urge all members to support the letter.

Earlier today, we sent an email to House offices to that effect.  Below is a copy of the RSC letter.

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The Honorable John Boehner
Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Eric Cantor
Majority Leader, U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Mr. Speaker and Mr. Leader,

Recent reports indicate that the White House will not submit to Congress pending trade agreements with Colombia, South Korea, or Panama for approval until a deal with Congress to renew expanded "trade adjustment assistance" benefits (TAA) is set in place. We strongly urge you not to participate in-or accept-any such deal that exchanges passage of the free trade agreements (FTAs) or a renewal of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) for TAA.

TAA is a federal program that sends cash and provides other benefits to workers whose jobs are purportedly affected negatively by trade. Expanded TAA benefits were enacted as part of the 2009 "stimulus" law and were rightly allowed to lapse in February of this year. TAA continues to operate at its pre-"stimulus" levels.

In 1995, the House voted to eliminate TAA as part of the budget resolution. Since then, many House Members have supported budget proposals that have terminated TAA. President Obama has also proposed to terminate some TAA benefits in his fiscal year 2012 budget proposal.

TAA is undoubtedly-and deliberately designed as-a federal wealth redistribution program that has no business existing in a free society. The underlying assumption inherent to TAA is that increased trade is bad and needs to be offset by yet another pseudo-compassionate federal program paid for by taxpayers at-large. It is time that we fully rebuff such thinking and forge ahead with a robust trade agenda that removes barriers wherever possible, on the notion that more and freer trade benefits all parties involved-consumers, workers, business-owners, inventors, and so on.

Just as we do not agree with the reasoning that the federal government must spend more money to keep from going bankrupt, we reject any call to embrace socialism in order to promote capitalism.

We look forward to working with you to promote free enterprise and enact the Colombia, South Korea, and Panama Free Trade Agreements this Congress.

Sincerely,

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Club for Growth President Chris Chocola has a blog posting on National Review's "The Corner" Blog today discussing the special congressional election in New York's 26th Congressional District last night. The seat was won by Democrat Kathy Hochul, despite a heavy Republican voter registration advantage.

Political pundits will say that the Republican candidate for Congress in NY-26 lost because of Medicare. They’re wrong. This election was more of a referendum on a candidate’s ability to defend freedom than anything else.

In NY-26, the Republican party nominated a fairly conservative establishment Republican in Jane Corwin, but an ex-Democrat named Jack Davis, running as a “Tea-Party” candidate, siphoned votes from the Republican. The reason was not that Davis is obviously more conservative or because Corwin is not sufficiently conservative: It’s because Corwin did a terrible job articulating the free-market message, and Davis consistently demagogued the important issue of trade.

Click here to read the rest.
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A favorite, and false, chestnut of the Obama 2008 campaign and many Democrats is that Republicans favor policies that "ship jobs overseas."

So there is more than a little irony that some of Obama's policies are literally "shipping jobs overseas."

By that I mean the oil rigs that are literally being shipped to places like Brazil instead of staying off the coast of the good ol' USA.  And with the rig that gets shipped elsewhere are the jobs that go with it.

Joseph Mason noted this in The Wall Street Journal earlier this week, writing that "This month, one year since the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, the Noble Clyde Boudreaux—an ultra-deepwater semi-submersible drilling rig—will start operations off the coast of Brazil. Until a few weeks ago it was stationed in the Gulf."

Today, FMC Technologies released its earnings and the conference call transcript confirms that, yes jobs are shipping out.  John Gremp, FMC Technologies’ President and CEO said, "In line with the favorable long-term view of the market, we inbounded $940 million in subsea orders during the quarter from a number of customers related to work in Brazil, Indonesia, Canada and Norway. It's important to note that the strong subsea inbound did not include any major projects that exceeded $150 million and that we were confronted with largely dormant Gulf of Mexico market."



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The Club for Growth issued a key vote alert earlier this week, urging House members to opposed the extension of the Trade Adjustment Assistance program (and the Andean Trade Preference Act).  From Reuters:

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From the tenacious Don Boudreaux:

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