Chuck Grassley: “I wish to speak against the Hollings amendment that is before the Senate. I will tell you two reasons I strongly oppose…”

“I wish to speak against the Hollings amendment that is before the Senate. I will tell you two reasons I strongly oppose the amendment. My comments are in regard to why trade adjustment assistance should not be expanded in the way Senator Hollings proposes it. Before I give those reasons, I remind my colleagues of the tremendous expansion of trade adjustment assistance that is already in the bipartisan bill before the Senate. A lot of programs that are part of trade adjustment assistance have never been part of the program in the 40-year history of trade adjustment assistance. We in a bipartisan way in this body are very concerned about workers who are dislocated for trade or economic reasons. The usual retraining and support programs are being continued, but as one of several examples of additional programs, we are going to provide health insurance benefits for dislocated workers because of trade under trade adjustment assistance. First, this is an extremely expensive, radical expansion of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program that cannot be justified in any fashion as a program that is related to trade. In fact, this amendment completely severs the traditional 40-year link between adjustment assistance and trade.”