{"id":11398,"date":"2011-09-23T14:07:56","date_gmt":"2011-09-23T18:07:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=11398"},"modified":"2011-09-23T14:07:56","modified_gmt":"2011-09-23T18:07:56","slug":"free-trade-worker-aid-bills-show-policy-differences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/11398\/free-trade-worker-aid-bills-show-policy-differences\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Trade, Worker Aid Bills Show Policy Differences"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bloomberg News<\/em><\/a> reports the latest ultimatum from House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to President Barack Obama:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe await the president\u2019s submission of the three trade agreements sitting on his desk so the House can consider them in tandem\u201d with the aid and preference programs, Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said in a statement yesterday. \u201cIf the president submits these agreements promptly, I\u2019m confident that all four bills can be signed into law by mid-October.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Apart from Rep. Paul Ryan\u2019s budget resolution and the president\u2019s deficit reduction proposal, there may be no better example of how different is each party\u2019s idea of sound economic policy.<\/p>\n

Boehner wants Obama to release three trade treaties negotiated by the Bush Administration<\/em> so that Americans and their counterparts in Columbia, South Korea and Panama can start enjoying the benefits of free trade.<\/p>\n

For his part, Obama wants to force Republicans into funding another round of unemployment benefits, this time for workers displaced by the yet-to-be-ratified agreements.\u00a0 That\u2019s right: the president wants to spend money on people who may never be fired.<\/p>\n

First of all, it’s fallacious to assume that businesses operating at historically low worker levels will fire employees; especially since increased trade opportunities are more likely to lead to hiring increases.\u00a0 Moreover, Obama fails to recognize the cost of not enacting the three free trade agreements.\u00a0 For instance, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates that failure to ratify the agreements will cost 380,000 jobs due to missed business opportunities.<\/p>\n

At the heart of this dispute is the focus of each party.\u00a0 Boehner and the Republicans want to spur economic growth.\u00a0 Obama and the Democrats want to lock-in the growth of the entitlement state.<\/p>\n

Boehner is right to demand action on both free trade and worker aid at the same time.\u00a0 If Obama cries foul, it\u2019s only because his childish attempt to spend more and get less was called out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bloomberg News reports the latest ultimatum from House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to President Barack Obama: \u201cWe await the president\u2019s submission of the three trade agreements sitting on his desk so the House can consider them in tandem\u201d with the aid and preference programs, Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said in a statement yesterday. \u201cIf the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[143,70,19,2136,154,1541,1057,802,1286],"class_list":["post-11398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-barack-obama","tag-budget","tag-economy","tag-entitlement","tag-free-trade","tag-growth","tag-john-boehner","tag-paul-ryan","tag-welfare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11398"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11404,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11398\/revisions\/11404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}