Janice Schakowsky: “the gentleman was talking about how there are winners and losers, actually a very narrow band of winners with our trade…”

“the gentleman was talking about how there are winners and losers, actually a very narrow band of winners with our trade policy, mostly the investors and the multinational corporations, but I notice that because of an inquiry that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) had made, that it was found that public dollars from the Agency for International Development, the USAID office were used to promote the President's trade policy, as I understand it, in violation of Federal and USAID lobbying restrictions, that a $700,000 taxpayer funded grant was actually given to business groups to promote CAFTA in violation of the regulations. I think that when there is a policy debate for the administration to unfairly use these taxpayer dollars to propagandize, to fund outside organizations, business organizations who stand to gain from the outcome, is really improper, if not illegal activities, and I really want to congratulate the gentleman for looking into this, because the taxpayers deserve a right to know.”