Congress | MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

The Columbian Free Trade Agreement vs. the Democrats’ Anti-American Partisan Politics

Colombia Tariff Ticker

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Colombia is the United States’ largest market in South America. This agreement will level the playing field for California’s industries and help them to compete better with other countries that export goods to Colombia. Because of high tariffs, California only exported $321 million in merchandise to Colombia last year, less than 1 percent of the $134 billion worth of exports our state shipped worldwide.

If the agreement takes effect, California stands to gain billions in new business opportunities by removing costly tariffs that put our goods at a disadvantage and keep many Colombian consumers from buying our products.

Unfortunately, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently refused to allow a vote in Congress on the Colombian trade agreement. Instead of representing California’s best economic interest, Pelosi is playing partisan politics.

This should be a no-brainer, but look at how Pelosi’s defenders present their position here (in the comments). It’s Bush Derangement Syndrome, and nothing more.

Remember New Orleans? Remember how they’re still trying to recover post-Katrina?

At this week’s Three Amigos summit in New Orleans, where Mexico, the U.S. and Canada met to discuss and defend free trade, President Bush was right to also bring forth New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.

The mayor of the hurricane-hit city made an impassioned plea to Congress to pass the Colombia free trade agreement for New Orleans’ sake. He knows how badly his city needs every break it can get, three years after the biggest disaster to ever hit a U.S. metropolitan area.

“New Orleans is becoming an even greater international city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina,” Nagin wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last November, “and we are making every effort to capitalize on trade liberalization that will flow from these FTAs (free trade agreements). Our port system is ideally situated to take advantage of the Latin American FTAs.”

That’s right–even Ray Nagin understands it.

Democrats have made New Orleans the cornerstone of their diatribe against President Bush. They’ve derided the city’s slow pace of recovery from the nation’s most devastating natural disaster, as well as wasteful aid spending.

But disregarding the pleas of Mayor Nagin, whose city will uniquely benefit from free trade with Colombia, makes them look like carpetbaggers. Nagin’s call ought to be a warning to Pelosi that Democrats’ sincerity about recovery in the Big Easy is on the line.

Frankly, they discredited their claim to sincerity about everything long ago.

The Case for Columbia (PDF, but sort of viewable below)

The U.S.-Colombia TPA has plenty to offer U.S. exporters, service providers and investors. Specifically, the U.S.-Colombia TPA:

* Levels the playing field for U.S. companies who will enjoy tariff free access into Colombia once the Agreement takes full effect.
* Provides new market access for U.S. consumer and industrial products such as textiles and agricultural products.
* Provides unprecedented access to government procurement.
* Liberalizes the services sectors.
* Opens the Colombian market to remanufactured goods.
* Protects U.S. investments in the region.
* Strengthens protections for U.S. patents, trademarks, and trade secrets.
* Improves customs facilitation.
* Provides benefits to small and medium sized exporters.
* Addresses government transparency and corruption, worker rights, protection of the environment, trade capacity building and dispute settlement.
* Requires important reforms of the domestic legal and business environment that are key to encouraging business development and investment.

This isn’t an “exciting” issue for most people, but it’s important, and it’s just another reason why the Democrats are WRONG. It’s just another reason why Barack Obama is horribly wrong about everything–this fits right in with his Marxist/statist ideology, and that ideology has an immediate, tangible, negative impact on America.

Contact Grandma Pelosi (and your Congressman) and tell her Americans deserve better.

Alabama’s Jo Bonner appointed to House Appropriations Committee

That would be MY representative, Jo Bonner. This is good news for conservatives, because Rep. Bonner has seen the light since the 2006 election.

The conventional view in Washington is that members seek a slot on the Appropriations Committee in the hope of steering more money to their districts. Congressman Bonner undoubtedly will look after the interests of his district — after all, that’s an important part of his job.

However, he can’t put parochial concerns before the national interest in prudent budgeting. If he does put pork first, he will compound the federal government’s budget woes and help consign his party to minority status for the foreseeable future.

From all indications, Congressman Bonner understands his new responsibilities. He issued a statement supporting the Republican leadership’s call for a moratorium on earmarks — local projects inserted in the budget without debate or a full vote in the House and the Senate. He also promised to “serve as a vigilant guardian of the taxpayers’ money, helping to expose and eliminate wasteful or questionable spending.”

Critics of congressional pork note that the congressman has contributed his share to wasteful, pork barrel spending. But, unlike some of his Republican colleagues, he seems to have learned a lesson from the party’s stinging defeat in the 2006 election.

Last year, for instance, Congressman Bonner voted to uphold President Bush’s veto of a pork-stuffed appropriations bill. With that vote, which he said he cast in “a greater effort to help restrain federal spending,” Mr. Bonner helped shoot down two projects for his own district.

He correctly observed that Republicans lost control of Congress because they didn’t control spending. Too many GOP leaders succumbed to the temptations associated with the power to distribute federal dollars. Some of them fell into outright corruption, directing earmarks to special interests in exchange for bribes.

Jo Bonner is a man of his word, and this portends a dim future for porkers in Congress. (Thanks to Quin Hillyer for the link to the al.com piece.)

From Bonner’s statement following the appointment:

“This appointment to the House Appropriations Committee means even more to me when you take into account the many outstanding colleagues the Steering Committee had from which to choose. Just being considered along with friends like Tom Cole, Henry Brown, Dave Reichert, Marilyn Musgrave, Jeff Flake, and Mike Turner has been an honor in itself.

“The current earmark process has become a symbol of a broken Washington. I sought this seat on the Appropriations Committee because I believe the time for change and reform – especially of the appropriations process and the much scrutinized subject of earmarks – is now. My first priority as a member of the committee will be to serve as a vigilant guardian of the taxpayers’ money, helping to expose and eliminate wasteful or questionable spending. Towards that end, I have strongly supported the efforts of House Republican leadership to reform the current earmark process and eliminate wasteful spending.

“I support my leaders’ call for a moratorium on all earmarks while a bipartisan select committee identifies ways to eliminate pork barrel spending. Speaker Pelosi has the power to bring the earmark process to an immediate halt. Until she does, I will use my seat on this committee to ensure there is full accountability and transparency on the Appropriations Committee in the spending decisions it makes.

“By entrusting me with this position, the Steering Committee has charged me with helping to reform the earmark process and restoring fiscal credibility to Washington. I won’t let them down.”

With a “vigilant guardian of the taxpayers’ money” on Appropriations and if we elect John McCain as President, we can get some real change in the budgetary process. Not just rhetorical change, REAL change for the better.

In fairness, there are other conservatives who aren’t happy about this; they were pushing for Jeff Flake for the committee appointment (not that I opposed him) and say Rep. Bonner is a porker. I think it’s only fair to give Jo Bonner a chance to show he’s serious about earmark reform, and support him as long as he supports the taxpayers’ best interests. I don’t think hammering him for past transgressions* is productive. As the Mobile Register’s editorial said, he has recently “shot down two projects in his own district” (my district!), so that says quite a bit in itself. Bonner is known as a man of his word, and as his constituent, I’ll be paying attention, as will his critics. I don’t expect to be disappointed.

* One man’s cancer research center is another man’s “pork,” I guess. Same goes for hurricane relief. You know what they say, all politics is local.

President, not “King”

Vinnie pours a cold bucket of reality into this election hype:

Are we electing a President? Or a king?

The President proposes but Congress disposes.

As we all tussle over who we like the least to elect to the highest office in the land, let’s not forget that our government is set up with three equal branches of government.
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Handing control of the White House over to McRomHillObaBee would be a lot more palatable with control of Congress back in our hands. And by our hands, I mean 1994 hands, not the drunken sailor spending hands we’ve had recently.

These are some crucial races in play in the drive to TAKE BACK THE MAJORITY.

Please take a few minutes and look through that list, and see if you can help one (or more!) of their campaigns. If you go to the slatecard’s page, you can find out more about each of the candidates.