Trade Adjustment Assistance. During consideration of the Trade Promotion Authority bill (H.R. 1314), Senator Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) introduced an amendment to strike the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) provisions in the bill. Those provisions would extend the TAA program through June 30, 2021.
The TPA (see the next vote) is needed, its proponents acknowledge, to facilitate enactment of trade agreements negotiated by the Obama administration and supported by the GOP congressional leadership. Those agreements – the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) – collectively dubbed ObamaTrade, would, proponents boast, create jobs and prosperity for Americans. But the TAA, which ObamaTrade proponents also support, provides assistance to help American workers who lose their jobs because of the trade agreements.
The Senate rejected Flake’s amendment on May 22, 2015 by a vote of 35 to 63 (Roll Call 190). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because federal jobs programs are unconstitutional. Moreover, it makes no sense to claim that the federal government must cough up federal funds to help workers who will lose their jobs to supposedly jobs-creating trade agreements.
