Brent Budowsky: A grand bargain on trade

It is time for a grand bargain that brings together trade legislation similar to proposals now before Congress and a Trade Adjustment Assistance program, a package that includes a fast-track plan to create millions of new high-wage American jobs through the largest rebuild of the American infrastructure in modern history.

The dramatic and powerful new jobs program would be financed by allowing American multinational corporations to repatriate a trillion dollars of capital currently sitting idly abroad, at a reduced tax rate — but only so long as the repatriated capital is invested in Rebuild America bonds, to finance the renovation and rebuilding of roads, ports, bridges, schools and our poverty-ridden urban infrastructure.

{mosads}Repatriating firms would be able to convert the Rebuild America bonds to cash by selling them to private investors in public markets. The vast sums of capital returning to America would enable the Rebuild America bonds to finance large-scale job creation, combining an FDR-like program of public works and a dramatic injection of private investment to rebuild inner cities in the tradition of conservatives, such as the late Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.).

I propose a standing ovation for House Democrats who wisely slowed down the fast-track train for trade. I am a proud and unabashed supporter of organized labor. History teaches that strong unions mean more jobs and higher wages for all workers.

Let me simply state what is now obvious: President Obama’s criticism of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and other progressives about trade was profoundly unwise. No president should deny that trade agreements often destroy jobs — or claim he is such a brilliant negotiator he can simply wave a wand to prevent this.

No nation can succeed in isolation. The global economy is a fact of life that cannot be denied. Nor can it be denied that the globalization of business can become a jobs destruction machine in which profit-seeking and cost-cutting corporations export jobs to lower-wage nations and replace men and women with robots, computers and machines.

In a complicated and interrelated global economy, history proves that none of us — including the president — can promise with certainty a positive jobs effect from the trans-Pacific deal or any other major trade agreement.

On the other hand, one thing is certain: If the president and Congress accompany trade legislation with a landmark program to rebuild America, that program would create vast numbers of all-American jobs with above-average wages and benefit labor and business alike. This is why the rebuilding of America is supported by organized labor, by business leaders, and by many governors and members of Congress from both parties.

Rebuild America bonds would stimulate the national economy, increase jobs and wages for American workers, and boost profits for small and large businesses. They would almost certainly create far more jobs than any trade agreement would destroy.

For liberals, the creation of good jobs with high wages and the economic benefit to poverty-ridden inner cities would be certain, while future trade agreements would still be subject to approval by Congress. For conservatives, this plan employs significant private sector leadership to create jobs and stimulate the economy in ways that advance business and workers, financed by the creative use of private capital rather than government spending.

When I was working for senior Democratic senators such as Lloyd Bentsen (Texas) and for House Democratic leaders, beginning with Speaker Tip O’Neill (Mass.), Washington was a place that welcomed big ideas that sought to accomplish great goals. There were creative progressives, such as Bentsen, and creative conservatives, such as Kemp.

Washington has become a small-thinking town of small-minded partisans where problems fester, little gets done and the public is appalled.

A grand compromise for trade and jobs would support our workers and lift our nation in a global economy that requires new thinking and big ideas. 

Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen and Bill Alexander, then chief deputy majority whip of the House. He holds an LL.M. degree in international financial law from the London School of Economics. He can be read on The Hill’s Contributors blog and reached at brentbbi@webtv.net.