Why Is GOP Front Group "Club For Growth" Defending China’s Interests Against Those Of Domestic U.S. Manufacturers?

America’s manufacturing advocates have repeatedly criticized Beijing for deliberately undervaluing its currency, in violation of world trade law. This currency undervaluation helps to artificially lower the cost of China’s exports, while also taxing U.S. products entering the Chinese market.

Anger over the currency issue has occasionally flared into heated action on Capitol Hill. In 2005, the U.S. Senate approved a procedural vote to hold China accountable for its currency peg. And in 2011, the Senate actually passed a bill to make currency undervaluation actionable under U.S. trade law. At the same time, a majority of the House co-sponsored a similar bill, including 64 Republicans. The House bill ultimately languished when Boehner, who owes his Speakership to dark money from China funneled to shady Republican PACs through the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, refused to allow a floor vote.

The call for action on China continues to grow, however, due to the overwhelming support of the American people. In the current Congress, bipartisan currency legislation has been reintroduced in both houses.

Unfortunately, the Club for Growth, a “pro-growth” lobbying group led by former Indiana wingnut congressman Chris Chocola, actively seeks to block legislative action on China. Ironically, Chocola has come under fire for his contradictory stance on China’s currency peg. In 2005, Chocola introduced a bill in the House, the China Act, that would have imposed tariffs on China if it tried to manipulate its currency. It was an effort that undoubtedly proved popular among manufacturers and factory workers in Chocola’s home district. But as the current president of the free-market-leaning Club for Growth, Chocola has made a dramatic-- and blatantly unprincipled-- reversal.

In a recent alert to the House of Representatives, Chocola’s Club cautioned right-wing House members to “not co-sponsor the protectionist Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act (HR 1276).” Additionally, the alert warned that “Members who co-sponsor this bill will receive negative points on the Club's 2013 Congressional Scorecard.”

All of this is a far cry from Chocola’s prior Congressional effort of “making sure China plays by the rules.”

The question is why the Club for Growth is so wrong on China, and so oblivious to the irony of their stated position? Simply put, they are out-of-step with the American public in three contradictory ways:

First, while the Club is a pro-business and anti-tax group, their objection to action on China’s currency manipulation means that they are in fact supporting a hidden tax on U.S. producers. This is because China’s currency manipulation artificially inflates the cost of U.S. exports to the Chinese market, while also artificially lowering the cost of China’s exports to the U.S. market. Thus, the Club is pro-tax on U.S. manufacturers but anti-tax on Chinese manufacturers.

Second, national polling finds that an overwhelming majority of U.S. voters (including 68% of Republican voters) support action to combat China’s predatory trade practices, which they see as hurting U.S. job growth. A 2012 study by the Economic Policy Institute found that China’s currency manipulation and other predatory practices have led to growing U.S. trade deficits that resulted in the loss of 2.7 million U.S. jobs between 2001-2011. Thus, the Club for Growth is forestalling job creation by serving as a de facto pro-China lobby. Essentially, they are both out-of-touch with Republican voters and also holding Capitol Hill Republicans hostage on the jobs issue.

Third, Americans are also concerned about national security concerns related to China. Of note is a recent report by retired U.S. Army Brigadier General John Adams that found the U.S. now depends on China for such key military hardware as Hellfire missile propellant, the lanthanum metal used in night-vision goggles, and the high-tech magnets required to manufacture military-grade Humvees, Apache helicopters, and Virginia-class submarines. Thus, groups like the Club for Growth that advocate for open trade with China on “free market” principles are operating in a policy vacuum, one that does not take into account national security concerns.

It’s very telling that when the Club for Growth issued its alert to the House, and tried to warn Members not to support a currency bill, they never actually mentioned “China” in their text. That’s because no one wants to be seen as supporting or defending China. But that’s really what the Club for Growth is doing. The monthly trade figures came out yesterday, and our trade deficit with China climbed by $3.8 billion in May. The U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) talks start on Monday in Washington.

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At Baroness Thatcher's funeral, journalist Jonathan Mirsky wonders: What was I doing there?

"The Bishop of London, the Right Reverend and Right Honourable Richard Chartres, KCVO (Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order), gave a kind of eulogy in which he recalled sitting next to Prime Minister Thatcher at a banquet: 'She gripped my arm and said, "Don't touch the duck pâté, Bishop. It's terribly fattening." ' "

-- Jonathan Mirksy, on the funeral of Margaret Thatcher

by Ken

In "One Hour & Four Minutes With Mrs. Thatcher" in the May 23 New York Review of Books (only an abstract available free online), longtime China and East Asia correspondent Jonathan Mirsky explains how -- he supposes -- he came to be "on the list" for Margaret Thatcher's funeral, as the woman from the Cabinet Office assured him he was before sending him his invitation by courier.

"Why me?" Mirsky asks.

I had never been a parliamentary journalist. My career was as a foreign correspondent in China and Hong Kong. Margaret Thatcher's visits to China were brief and unsatisfactory. But I did have a little history with Mrs. Thatcher, including four personal encounters.

And he proceeds to tell the story of those four meetings and the estimated hous & four minutes. By way of background he explains:

As leader of the opposition, Mrs. Thatcher had gone to China in 1977 and hadn't liked it. In 1982, now prime minister, she went again to Beijing to negotiate the handover to China of British-ruled Hong Kong, stipulated by a nineteenth-century colonial treaty to occur in 1997. For three days she argued with Premier Zhao Ziyang and Senior Leader Deng Xiaoping for some sort of special arrangement that would not include the colony under direct mainland rule, but was forced to agree to what actually occurred, namely that Hong Kong would return to China on July 1, 1997, although Deng agreed that Beijing would not interfere with Hong Kong's internal arrangements for fifty years.

"My own meetings with Mrs. Thatcher," Mirksy explains, "took place after that agreement." To facilitate score-keeping, I'm breaking down the account meeting by meeting, with time checks added.

MEETING 1: 1 minute

In early June 1989, I returned to London from Beijing, where I been a correspondent for The Observer. The Armed Police in Tiananmen Square had assaulted me on the night of June 3, knocked out five teeth, fractured my left arm, and beaten me black and blue. A few days later I found myself at a reception of some sort where, unknown to me, the prime minister was also present. I was led up to her and introduced. She told me she had been reading my dispatches and asked if "we," her preferred pronoun for herself, could do anything for me, did I have a good doctor, and to let her know if there was anything I needed. We shook hands. One minute.

MEETING 2: 1 minute

In 1997, not long before the handover to which she had reluctantly agreed, Lady Thatcher, as she now was, came to Hong Kong to deliver a highly paid speech to the Chinese and British Chambers of Commerce. I was now East Asia editor of The Times of London. The day before her speech she asked to walk about central Hong Kong, accompanied by local and foreign reporters. Suddenly she declared, "I must buy some socks for Denis," her husband, who was in London. A nearby Marks & Spencer was cleared and police stood in the doorway. I trotted to the unguarded back door and inside saw Lady Thatcher at the sock counter with a young saleswoman. She was just saying she had forgotten her money. I paid for the socks; she took the bag, didn't thank me, and went outside. I left by the back door. Another minute.

MEETING 3: 1 hour (approx.)

That night, Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, a Tory MP, and one of those who, during her third term, deposed Prime Minister Thatcher, gave a dinner party for her to which my wife and I were invited. After the meal, Lady Thatcher sat on a couch; guests were led up to it, chatted for a few minutes, and then made way for another guest. Near midnight I was on the couch, telling Lady Thatcher that when she gave her speech the next day she must mention that many international business deals with China were concluded across the border in Hong Kong, where there was (and is) a rule of law. I said it would be important to underline that difference with mainland China. She said she didn't know that international contracts on the mainland were routinely signed in Hong Kong, but no, no, no, the speech was already written.

After half an hour still on the couch she looked over at the heavy-eyed Patten and the few remaining guests and asked what he thought. He said, "It would be insane to get between Margaret Thatcher and Jonathan Mirsky." Finally, she agreed to include what I suggested in her speech: she would emphasize that contracts had legal force in Hong Kong that they did not have on the mainland. At least it would be clear that Hong Kong had a rule of law lacking in the China controlled by Beijing. As my wife and I left Government House, her speechwriter came up behind us and whispered, "Fuck you, I'll have to spend the rest of the night rewriting the speech." About an hour.

MEETING 4: 2 minutes

The next night I waited outside the banqueting hall where Lady Thatcher was to give her speech. I would be admitted to the hall after the meal. When it ended the doors flew open and guests rushed to the toilets. There was a long queue outside the ladies'. Mrs. Thatcher bustled over and exclaimed, "I must get back into the hall for my speech." I told her to wait right there, went into the gents', where there were ten or so men; I asked them to leave because Lady Thatcher needed to come in. Zipping up, they left. "Go ahead in," I said to Lady Thatcher. "I'll stand at the door." She went in, after a minute or two came out, didn't thank me, went back into the hall, and gave her speech with my suggestion included. Two minutes.

SO WHAT ABOUT THE GREAT EVENT?

The funeral at St. Paul's Cathedral was one of those events that, as they say here, "The British do damn well." The cathedral was stuffed, as they also say here, with "the great and the good." I recognized one or two of both, including ex-Governor Patten. The coffin was carried to the cathedral door on a hundred-year-old gun carriage drawn by matched, perfectly behaved black horses and escorted by Brigade of Guards officers wearing their bearskin headpieces, on similarly matched chargers. Eight representatives of the services carried the coffin in perfect step into St. Paul's. The Queen, very small, and Prince Philip, with a drop on the end of his nose, were escorted in, preceded by the Lord Mayor carrying the black Mourning Sword. The Bishop of London, the Right Reverend and Right Honourable Richard Chartres, KCVO (Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order), gave a kind of eulogy in which he recalled sitting next to Prime Minister Thatcher at a banquet: "She gripped my arm and said, ‘Don't touch the duck pâté, Bishop. It's terribly fattening.'"

I sat next to a general who long ago, during the Troubles, commanded the army in Northern Ireland and slept every night with a pistol under his pillow. Behind me was a Guards colonel in a scarlet tunic hung with medals and carrying a funeral "short sword." He said to his neighbor, "By God, as I was walking over here a pretty girl said to me, ‘Wow, you'd make a great accessory to me in Chanel.'" As I said, what was I doing there?

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Boehner Comes Through For China Again-- Defeats Made In America Proposal

China made a really good investment by donating to the Chamber of Commerce when they ran a big international effort to illegally scoop up vast sums of foreign cash to help replace Nancy Pelosi with John Boehner as Speaker. Boehner is the worst patsy for China's economic agenda in Congress (not counting Miss McConnell). And Boehner came through for his Beijing financiers again yesterday.

During a little remarked on debate over a bipartisan bill, H.R. 678, to amend the Reclamation Project Act of 1939 by authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to contract for the development of small conduit hydropower at Bureau facilities, John Garamendi (D-CA) tried to get the Republicans to include language that would require, when practicable, all materials used for conduit hydropower generation be manufactured in the United States. Sounds simple, right? Not when John Boehner is in charge.

All Republicans were instructed to vote NO and Garamendi's commonsense proposal lost 194-226. Only two Republicans cared enough about American manufacturing jobs to stand up to Boehner and vote with the Democrats-- Walter Jones (R-NC) and Jimmy Duncan (R-TN). The Democrat running for the seat Boehner is occupying, Andy Hounshell, is an Ohio steel worker at a plant in Middletown, in the heart of Boehner's district. "I admire Congressman Garamendi for always putting working people first," Hounshell told us this afternoon. "If he proposal passed there probably would have been good-paying jobs created for American workers right here in western Ohio. I would have voted for the proposal and one of the reasons I'm running is because John Boehner never does. Whose side is he on? There's one way to turn this economy around and spread around the benefits across all levels of society-- creating good-paying jobs. Boehner should have done what those two other Republicans, Jones and Duncan did-- pushed to pass Garamendi's proposal and pushed for more jobs right here in the U.S.A."



“Our first priority as Representatives of the American people must be creating more American jobs,” said Congressman Garamendi. “Over the past two decades, the manufacturing sector has lost nine million jobs-- in large part due to unwise public policy. However, manufacturing is roaring back with approximately half a million new jobs created in the last three years.”

Garamendi added, “We can do so much more by improving education, research, infrastructure, and adapting to changing conditions. The very first step though is simple: when the government invests in public works projects, including hydropower, that money should go toward employing American workers. The businesses are ready, the workers are ready, it’s time for Congress to step up to the plate, so we can Make It In America once again.”

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Politicians On Both Sides Of The Aisle Sell Out To Pollution Lobbyists

Yesterday we were wondering how it is possible that our political elites can evade their environmental responsibilities so blatantly even in the face of a public that is uneasy that politicians aren't doing enough to protect society from greedy, selfish polluters. I suppose politicians take the gamble that voters may grumble and tell pollsters they're unhappy but that they won't use environmental concerns to determine how they vote. For example, even if short-sighted, corrupt and irresponsible politicians don't care about sea levels rising, most Americans do... a lot. A survey released last week by Stanford University showed definitively that "an overwhelming majority of Americans is convinced that sea level rise resulting from climate change poses a significant threat to the United States and that coastal communities should invest in preparing for the risks."

According to ProgressivePunch there are over three dozen Members of Congress who have voted badly on every single environmental bill that's been proposed single they were elected-- both the really important bills and the routine bills, everything. And the 38 Members voted for every single attack on the environment that's come up. All but one of them, Gloria Negrete McLeod (D-CA), are Republicans and most of them are backbenchers, although you should recall a few names that we've come across before, like Matt Salmon (R-AZ), Steve Stockman (R-TX), Thomas Massie (R-KY), Kerry Bentovolio (R-MI), Robert Pittenger (R-NC), Rodney Davis (R-IL), Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), Trey Radel (R-FL), Jim Bridenstine (R-OK), Ted Yoho (R-FL), Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Ron DeSantis (R-FL). Aside from McLeod's zero rating, the 3 other most anti-environmental Democrats in the House are a trio of exceedingly corrupt Blue Dogs who take cash from polluters to vote with Republicans: Jim Costa (CA), Collin Peterson (MN) and Henry Cuellar (TX).

Congress' most anti-environmental Dem

You would think an informed electorate would defeat these bandits at the first opportunity. But what about an uninformed electorate-- the one we have in most of these backward, rural and suburban districts? Yesterday's NY Times had a story Hong Kong-based Edward Wong that could wake them up a little-- if any of them read newspapers (other than the ones available at checkout counters about Princess Diana mating with visitors from a previously unknown moon of Jupiter. Wong warns that in 2010 alone, 1.2 million premature deaths in China were related to air pollution. Gloria Negrete McLeod represents a heavily Democratic part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area that includes Pomona, Ontario, Montclair, Chino and Fontana. Obama beat Romney in this district 67.4-30.6%. I can't imagine voters there know they elected the most anti-environment Democrat in the whole Congress. Do they have to wait for numbers like China's before they ditch this sociopath?

What the researchers called “ambient particulate matter pollution” was the fourth-leading risk factor for deaths in China in 2010, behind dietary risks, high blood pressure and smoking. Air pollution ranked seventh on the worldwide list of risk factors, contributing to 3.2 million deaths in 2010.

By comparison with China, India, which also has densely populated cities grappling with similar levels of pollution, had 620,000 premature deaths in 2010 because of outdoor air pollution, the study found. That was deemed to be the sixth most common killer in South Asia.

...Calculations of premature deaths because of outdoor air pollution are politically threatening in the eyes of some Chinese officials. According to news reports, Chinese officials cut out sections of a 2007 report called “Cost of Pollution in China” that discussed premature deaths. The report’s authors had concluded that 350,000 to 400,000 people die prematurely in China each year because of outdoor air pollution. The study was done by the World Bank in cooperation with the Chinese State Environmental Protection Administration, the precursor to the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

There have been other estimates of premature deaths because of air pollution. In 2011, the World Health Organization estimated that there were 1.3 million premature deaths in cities worldwide because of outdoor air pollution.

Last month, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, based in Paris, warned that “urban air pollution is set to become the top environmental cause of mortality worldwide by 2050, ahead of dirty water and lack of sanitation.” It estimated that up to 3.6 million people could end up dying prematurely from air pollution each year, mostly in China and India.

There has been growing outrage in Chinese cities over what many say are untenable levels of air pollution. Cities across the north hit record levels in January, and official Chinese newspapers ran front-page articles on the surge-- what some foreigners call the “airpocalypse”-- despite earlier limits on such discussion by propaganda officials.

In February, the State Council, China’s cabinet, announced a timeline for introducing new fuel standards, but state-owned oil and power companies are known to block or ignore environmental policies to save on costs.

...Last week, an official Chinese news report said the cost of environmental degradation in China was about $230 billion in 2010, or 3.5 percent of the gross domestic product. The estimate, said to be partial, came from a research institute under the Ministry of Environmental Protection, and was three times the amount in 2004, in local currency terms. It was unclear to what extent those numbers took into account the costs of health care and premature deaths because of pollution.

No one's going to rid us of corrupt politicians who do the bidding of polluters-- whether we're talking about Gloria Negrete McLeod and Blue Dog Jim Costa in California or corrupt right-wing ideologues like Florida freshmen Ron DeSantis, Ted Yoho and Trey Radel; we have to do it ourselves, while their respective party Establishments do all they can to protect their seats.

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