Bill Pascrell: “the Congress must defeat unfair trade agreements until we start forming trade policy rationally and in our best…”

“the Congress must defeat unfair trade agreements until we start forming trade policy rationally and in our best interest. I am not afraid to say that I opposed both the trade policies of the former President, a member of my own party, President Clinton; and I oppose this President's trade policies, President Bush, and I do so not through perceptions but through facts. What has happened to these trade policies as was promised when they were passed and signed? The folks in my district did not send me to Washington to surrender my rights under the Constitution. article I, section 8 is very clear. It is the Congress that will declare war; it is the Congress that will deal with matters of commerce. We have surrendered that. This legislative body has surrendered that right to both Clinton and Bush. We say, we voted that way, I did not, the majority voted, that the President of the United States is solely responsible for the so-called free trade deals and that the Congress can either vote them up or down. Now this is what we have done. In diminishing the power of the legislative body, we have inflated the power under the Constitution, and this is not what our forefathers intended. If Members read what went into article I, section 8, it is very, very clear, very succinct. In New Jersey, we have lost in the last 14 years 241,000 manufacturing jobs.…”