Bayh, Baucus, and the $1000bn trade debate

Mark Warner's decision to take his hat out of the Presidential ring last week moved the spotlight onto a number of other politicians, none more so than Indiana Senator Evan Bayh. Not good news for Mr Bayh, then, to be the subject of a blistering op-ed this morning by Sebastian Mallaby in the Post. Mallaby accuses Bayh of weak support for free trade, picking on his decision to supoort maintenance of a recent steel tarrif. Mallaby's criticism - of commerce department regulations, even more than the Senator - is withering. Nonetheless, we shouldn't forget that Bayh has a solid record in support of free trade, and one with which NDN has differed only rarely.

Elsewhere, the FT this morning has a piece by Alan Beattie profiling another Senator - this time Max Baucus of Montana, discussing expansion of Trade Adjustment Assistance. Showing signs of sanity so frequently lacking from debates on trade this election year, Baucus argues:

"We are trying to figure out a way for more Americans to buy into trade, that trade is good for America and good for Joe Six-pack," he says. American workers "need to think that their government and their country is thinking of them too; that it is not just companies that benefit from trade".

To this end, Mr Baucus suggests expanding Trade Adjustment Assistance.....Such programmes would not come cheap: an analysis published by the Institute for International Economics, a Washington think-tank, last year suggested that it would cost $12bn to extend the benefits of TAA to all "displaced" workers who lost their jobs..... Still, given that the cumulative effect of all trade liberalisation since 1945 is estimated at $1,000bn, $12bn a year might be a relatively small price to inoculate the American workforce against infectious protectionism.

TAA, as the piece makes clear, comes with significant short-comings. Nonetheless its reassuring to see ideas being discussed sensibly that can help re-build support for trade, as even the waspish Mallaby would agree.