Obama administration says trade deals, TAA will pass Congress

Wrapping up work on three long-delayed pending free trade agreements could be dependent on whether the White House and congressional Republicans can reach an accord passing an expanded version of a program to retrain workers who lost their jobs because of foreign trade. 

Republicans expressed strong opposition on Tuesday to the administration's proposal that includes renewal of the expanded version of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) as part of the Korean deal and Senate leaders have gone as far as asking the Senate Parliamentarian to look into whether the accord would still get privileged floor status. 

Regardless of the opposition, senior White House officials said they expect Congress to pass three pending trade agreements along with the TAA extension during a conference call on Tuesday night. 

Officials said they would wait to see what happens during the mock markup process and then "determine the most practical way forward."

"We're in a dialogue with congressional leaders in both parties and both Houses and we hope to move all three together with TAA as the administration has laid out from the start," they said. 

The officials emphasized it was a "hard fought" agreement that required compromise on all sides and "we think this is a strong package." 

They made it clear that the bipartisan agreement was "substance only" on TAA and didn't go as far as to include how Congress should proceed on moving forward with the trade accords with Korea, Panama and Colombia. 

House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) said "the decision on how to move these items through the House is a matter for Republican leadership to determine" even though Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said he would consider the Korean pact with TAA included at a mock markup on Thursday.

“In addition, while the underlying policy reflects discussions we have had, the drafts released today by Chairman Baucus include a number of last-minute changes, particularly the offsets for TAA and the implementing bills for the three trade agreements, that I need to review more fully," Camp said in a statement. 

“From day one, it has been clear that Republicans would not accept the White House’s demand for TAA at 2009 levels," Camp said.  

Last week, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he wouldn't agree to include the TAA renewal in the implementing bill for Korea unless Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) also agrees. 

On Tuesday, McConnell said the inclusion of TAA "risks losing Republican support for something we have long been calling for."

"I would strongly urge the administration to re-think this action, and urge them to send up all three pending trade agreements without delay and without extraneous poison pills included," he said.

McConnell said TAA should be considered separately along with an extension of Trade Promotion Authority. 

Senate Finance ranking member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said the "highly partisan decision "to include TAA "risks support for this critical job-creating trade pact in the name of a welfare program of questionable benefit at a time when our nation is broke."

Camp did say that TAA "has been cut not only from 2009 levels, but also below 2002 levels in several key areas." 

"The program will revert to 2002 levels and below in some cases at the end of 2013 and will completely expire at the end of 2014," he said.

"In that time, it is my hope that Congress examines the multitude of job assistance programs and comprehensively reforms them to ensure that they are efficiently and adequately meeting the needs of the unemployed and the taxpayers who fund such programs.”

White House officials didn't have a specific cost estimate on the streamlined TAA provision but said it will be paid for with spending cuts and is expected to be revenue neutral. 

One official did say that $575 million would be available for training programs, the same as the 2009 provision included in the economic stimulus, and savings have been achieved by consolidating programs and through a series of unemployment insurance program integrity changes, small administration savings on Medicare along with moving forward with an administration proposal to penalize preparers who have bad records on the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).