The point of TPP is to boost US exports. That's why PBO is behind it.

[JDPriestly]

131. Several reasons.

First, we know what the results are from the past agreements. The rich make out like bandits and ordinary Americans lose their jobs. The educated as well as the poor.

Second, our trade balance is in the red, dangerously so. Some laugh at that, but the debts have to be paid. And the red ink tells us that we are buying too much from other countries and not selling enough to them. That means that our past trade agreements and probably the concept of just opening the ports and gates of our economy to goods made with labor cheaper than we can afford to have is not a good idea. Sooner or later we will be called to pay up. Right now, our real estate and other assets are being purchased by wealthy foreigners who are making us into a country of employees and renters. The core of American values is property -- meaning private ownership of property. My grandparents could own property, but I wonder whether my grandchildren will be able to -- whether my children will be able to. We owe too much to foreign countries. The US dollar is backed up by the US taxpayer. Yes it is. It's in the Constitution. Thus we should not run up huge trade deficits, and we already have.

Americans are not learning how to make things, the skills that we should be learning, the skills with which we can learn to invent and create with real materials and not just with computers. There is very little demand for the skills of an iron-worker or a seamstress or a carpenter in the US. Some, but very little. This is the road to poverty. This is not the self-determination, the skilled craftsmanship that made us a great country in the first place. My generation (I'm 71) in the Midwest learned to sew. Who learns that today? Some students enter fashion schools not knowing how to sew. We are becoming a nation of people who can't work with our hands. That is horrible.

"Free" trade has caused much of our problem with income disparity. I could see the result of it today. I was across the street from a museum that had free admission today. There were no parking places. There were lines outside the museum. Children, teenagers, all happy to go to the museum. Many people cannot afford to go the museums very often. So many really healthy , culturally important activities are too expensive for a large percentage of our population. That is the result of free trade. This huge gap in the incomes of people. One working parent used to be able to at least support a small family. Today, many families cannot make it without two incomes. Free trade is partly to blame, greatly to blame.

I oppose free trade because we are maintaining certain economic structures and relationships that do not work when those who make products abroad and import them make huge profits. Those who buy the imports borrow to buy them and impoverish themselves and then cannot get jobs in the industries that would pay them well to make the products. That system cannot last for long. Sooner or later the debt will become too heavy to bear. And then we will find the sweat shops are being built in our country and the cycle will start over with ordinary people becoming poorer and poorer with each round of trade agreements.

Free trade is unsustainable in my opinion.