Betty Sutton: “I support the TAA reauthorization and appreciate the important improvements this legislation makes in the program. But…”

“I support the TAA reauthorization and appreciate the important improvements this legislation makes in the program. But, unfortunately, there's a larger problem at work, and TAA only addresses the symptoms, not the cause. So-called free trade has been anything but free. Our current trade policies have been devastating for communities in northeast Ohio and across this Nation. One only has to look at our record trade deficit and this growing TAA program to see this reality. Madam Speaker, people across this country know that our trading system is broken. The fact is TAA became necessary because this country kept entering into unfair and harmful trade agreements that cost American workers their jobs and hurt businesses and communities. While reauthorizing and improving the TAA program is important, what our working families really need are trade policies that do not jeopardize American jobs in the first place. In just the last 7 years, we've lost more than 3 million manufacturing jobs in this country, and more than 200,000 in Ohio alone. Some estimates attribute more than 50,000 of Ohio's job losses directly to NAFTA. And we've seen the consequence of this job loss in the record numbers of families in foreclosure, and in families falling off of the health care rolls, and families sustaining benefits going out the window. These are families full of proud, hardworking Americans who have had their futures and opportunities undercut by our trade policies.”