Bush Wants "Authority" to Negotiate Free-Trade Policies

President Bush is pushing Congress to extend his authority to negotiate free-trade deals, which expires on July 1 of this year. Stating that free-trade policies will make it easier for U.S. companies to sell their products which are important to the nation's economy, Bush claimed that this would help Americans "improve our competitiveness in the global economy."

Democrats have apparently reacted to the sense of the American citizens and are blaming Bush's free-trade policies for contributing to the trade deficit, costing U.S. factory jobs, and exposing U.S. workers to unfair competition from low-wage companies.

Long forgotten is the fact that the power to "regulate commerce with foreign nations," as spelled out clearly in the Constitution, Article I, Section 8, resides with Congress. Unfortunately, Congress unconstitutionally transferred that authority over to the Executive Branch with the passage of the 1934 Trade Agreements Act, and the Supreme Court let them get away with it. Trade Promotion Authority simply takes more authority away from the American people through the Congress and passes it over to the Executive Branch.

Regarding Trade Promotion Authority, Texas Representative Ron Paul once stated,

Our founders understood the folly of trade agreements between nations; that is why they expressly granted the authority to regulate trade to Congress alone, separating it from the treaty-making power given to the President and Senate. This legislation clearly represents an unconstitutional delegation of congressional authority to the President. Simply put, the Constitution does not permit international trade agreements.

Can anyone point to any of the current trade agreements that have been in the best interest of the United States or the citizens of participating countries? They've certainly been good to the few elite interchangeable players who move seamlessly back and forth between big business and big government. However, it is the American middle class who is ending up with the bad part of the deal.

Trade Promotion Authority is in serious violation of the Constitution, and is tantamount to Congress giving the president authority to send our troops to war without a declaration by Congress.

Oh, wait. They've already done that, too.

No wonder the results in both cases concerning our nation's economic well-being are similar.

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