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societynews[dot] org
WASHINGTON-trade of the House and Senate leaders said Thursday they were looking for a compromise solution to extend employee assistance program that has become the main obstacle to approval of the Congress of free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama.
The White House, the business community and most legislators argue the long pending commercial offers, but the White House and Democrats say extending the trade adjustment assistance must be part of any vote-swapping. Republicans insist that TAA, a half-century-old program that offers financial help and retrain workers dislocated by global competition, has no place in commercial invoices.
But as the two trade — finance committees in the Senate and House — met Thursday, to examine and approve the draft versions of commercial invoices, the Presidents of both panels held out hope for a compromise.
Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said he hasn't ruled out other options, except for associate assistance program for commercial invoices workers ", as long as they provide the certainty that the bipartisan agreement on the programme of assistance will be enacted in tandem" with free trade agreements.
Minutes later, Media Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., said that if the White House Sends his final version of the invoices without the assistance program, he would hold a vote on those bills and a separate Bill on the programme of assistance on the same day.
John Boehner speaker "knows and I know that we are dealing with TAA," Camp said.
Still, the potential for TAA destroy chances for passage of commercial invoices was obvious. The draft law of South Korea was approved in both committees, but only after every Republican Senate Finance voted against it after the defeat of an amendment by Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, to disable the link of the assistance programme. Every means Democrats have voted against the Bill in South Korea because of the assistance programme was not on the agenda.
The two committees also approved draft bills of Panama and Colombia, although House Democrats protested the omission from the Colombian draft law a reference to a plan by which Bogota is committed to ending violence against labor leaders. The Bills now go to the Administration, that will process the final versions should be presented to Congress.
The trade adjustment assistance has been created in the Kennedy administration to help workers laid off due to foreign competition. It was expanded in 2009 as part of economic stimulus package to include the service industry workers and extends the subsidy to help laid-off workers buy health insurance. These expansions expired in February and the White House, many Democrats, insisted that the renewal of assistance must be part of commercial invoices.
Camp, Baucus and the White House has recently agreed on a reduced plan to extend the assistance program. Among the cuts, reduce payments to recipients of financial assistance from 117 to 156 weeks weeks 13 weeks for those who need additional training. The tax credit of health coverage is reduced by 80% within the meaning of the Act of 2009 to 72.5% and would be deleted at the end of 2013. Prior to the 2009 was 65 percent.
Public sector workers, would not be eligible for TAA under the compromise. Last year more than 200,000 workers made use of the program at a cost of nearly $ 1 billion.
The top Democrat on the trade Subcommittee, means Jim McDermott of Washington, was skeptical of the proposals to move separate legislation as TAA. If the program "do not go along with these agreements that will die in the Senate," he said. The ranking Democrat on the Committee, Sander Levin of Michigan, urged his colleagues to vote against all three trade deals, if the program was not built.
An amendment McDermott to attach the program of assistance for the Panama agreement was defeated 22-15 on a party line vote.
Similarly to the Senate of the Democratic majority rejected an amendment by Senator Pat Roberts, R-Kan., that would have required three trade agreements to go into effect before the expanded benefits under the assistance programme could be interested.
All three trade agreements were signed during the Bush administration, but never advanced in Democratic-controlled Congress then.
The Obama administration moved to renegotiate key elements of all three specials, gaining commitments from South Korea to improve access to the U.S., from Panama to change laws that favored tax havens and from Colombia to improve its record of labor rights.
Still, ways and means Democrats were unhappy with the Administration for its decision not to include in the Bill Colombia a reference for the "action plan" by which the Government of Bogotá is increase the penalties for violence against labor leaders and preventing the Suppression of rights. An amendment by ranking Democrat Sander Levin of Michigan to add a provision that the President should determine that Colombia is carrying out the plan was defeated 22-13.
The business community has pushed for a quick approval of all three, noting that South Korea has finalized an agreement with the European Union on 1 July, and that an agreement on Exchange of Colombia-Canada will go into effect next month.
"U.S. farmers and ranchers, for example, have already lost more than $ 1 billion in sales in Colombia due to delays in the approval of the agreement with this country," more than 30 business groups, including the National Association of manufacturers, the u.s. Chamber of Commerce and the American Farm Bureau Federation, said in a letter Wednesday to the leaders of Congress.
Senator John Thune, R-s. m., said that U.S. wheat exports to Colombia "are going to evaporate completely" with the advent of the country's agreement with Canada.
Economists say the trade pacts, which would lower or eliminate tariffs on nearly all U.S. exports to those countries, would increase U.S. exports by 13 billion dollars a year and create tens of thousands of jobs. The agreement with South Korea is the largest free-trade agreement by the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. U.S. exports to Korea could grow by one third, increasing more than 10 billion dollars a year.
According to the rules only to consider the invoices, finance and ways and means lawmakers offer recommendations on how to change the draft versions of the legislation to implement the agreements. The White House, after further negotiations, then presents final versions of bills in Congress votes, with no amendments allowed.
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