Key Vote YES on the Flake Amendment to Remove Trade Adjustment Assistance from Fast-Track

As one of our over 6.9 million FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to contact your senators and ask them to vote YES on the Flake amendment to remove Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) from H.R. 1314, the vehicle for Trade Promotion Authority (TPA).

FreedomWorks supports free trade, and the Trade Promotion Authority deal as a potential means to increase free trade, but TAA is a wasteful and duplicative program that should not be reauthorized at all – and certainly not as part of the TPA.

TAA gives subsidies—in the form of job training for workers and direct financial assistance for firms—to those purported to be harmed by increased international trade. From a public policy standpoint, trying to “correct” for job losses in particular sectors as a result of increased competition is simply wrongheaded. In order for an economy to grow and thrive, industries need to be flexible and able to change with changing market conditions. Trying to prop up industries that cannot compete on their own merely delays the inevitable and inhibits growth.

TAA has also been proven by multiple studies to be ineffective, and it is duplicative of several other federal jobs programs. Finally, the eligibility standards for TAA are notoriously loose, meaning that some companies are able to cash in despite not actually having been impacted by foreign trade.

Thus, I hope that you’ll tell your senators to vote YES on the Flake amendment to strip the Trade Adjustment Assistance language from H.R. 1314. We will count votes for this amendment towards their score in FreedomWorks’ Economic Freedom Scorecard for 2015. The Scorecard is used to determine eligibility for the FreedomFighter Award, which recognizes members of Congress with voting records that support economic freedom.

Sincerely,

Matt Kibbe
President and Founder,
FreedomWorks