Disappointing on a key issue for Massachusetts workers
With one of the most unpopular Congresses in U.S. history having disbanded, our representative, Richard Neal, has been exceptionally disappointing on a key issue for Massachusetts workers. Rep. Neal was one of just a handful of Democrats in the House of Representatives to not stand up against an undemocratic 1970s-era procedure known as Fast Track that has been used to railroad the most controversial and damaging of U.S. "trade" deals through Congress.
Since the Fast Tracking of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Massachusetts has lost more than 172,000 manufacturing jobs. Nationwide, 5 million manufacturing jobs have been lost since NAFTA, with large numbers of service sector jobs now being offshored also.
How did we get into this mess? Fast Track delegated away Congress' constitutional authority over trade, empowering the executive branch to unilaterally pick our trade agreement partners and negotiate and sign sweeping pacts, all before Congress got a vote. Fast Track allowed these pre-cooked deals to be steamrolled through Congress quickly with no amendments allowed and debate strictly limited.
Massachusetts voters sent Rep. Neal to Congress to represent their interests, not to delegate away his authority to do so.
President Obama promised during his 2008 election campaign that he would replace Fast Track with a democratic process for negotiating and implementing trade agreements, and replace the NAFTA trade pact model with one that fosters U.S. jobs, public health, safe food and a clean environment.