Marcy Kaptur: “I thank the ranking member, Ms. Slaughter, for yielding. I wish to say that if the underlying Trans-Pacific Partnership…”

“I thank the ranking member, Ms. Slaughter, for yielding. I wish to say that if the underlying Trans-Pacific Partnership were such a good deal, then why is the Rules Committee limiting our ability to read it and vet it fully and amend it? By voting for the trade promotion authority, what we basically do is handcuff Members of Congress. So we should vote ``no.'' Why should we believe anything the executive branch sends up here? We have a right to read it fully and vet it fully. Let's look at the history of these trade agreements. Over the last 25 years, every time we have signed a so-called free trade agreement that benefits the 1 percent--not the 99 percent--America has lost more jobs. Post-NAFTA, look what happened. We used to have trade balances with these countries. They have all gone into trade deficit, which means they send us more goods than we are able to get into their markets. Here is what happened after the WTO. Then we got into the China PNTR deal. Then the Colombia deal. Then with Korea. There hasn't been a balanced trade account in this country for 30 years; 40 million lost jobs; $9.5 trillion of trade deficit, trading away one-fifth of our economic might to other places. And what did the American people get? Lost jobs, outsourced jobs, stagnant wages. The average income in regions like mine--$7,000 less a year than 25 years ago. Not a good deal. You can't create jobs in America and have free trade when you have closed markets abroad. Japan is closed.…”