Pulse On Policy: Texas 21 Congressional Forum With Video

On Wednesday, May 2, the San Marcos Area Chamber of Commerce partnered with the Austin Chamber Commerce to host and sponsor a forum for the Texas 21 Congressional runoff candidates…

On Wednesday, May 2, the San Marcos Area Chamber of Commerce partnered with the Austin Chamber Commerce to host and sponsor a forum for the Texas 21 Congressional runoff candidates.

The four candidates hope to replace Congressman Lamar Smith. Smith was first elected to Congress in 1986. He announced his retirement from Congress in November 2017.

He currently serves as Chairman of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee and continues to serve on both the Judiciary Committee and the Homeland Security Committee. He is the former Chairman of the Judiciary Committee and the Ethics committee.

Democratic candidates Mary Wilson and Joseph Krosper, as well as Republican Candidates Matt McCall and Chip Roy, attended the event to discuss issues from the recent Tax Reform bill to immigration and education.

The date for the primary runoff election is May 22; Early voting begins Monday, May 14, and ends Friday, May 18.

• QUESTION 3:  NAFTA is a critical part of the Texas economy. Do you agree with the president then that it needs to be renegotiated and if so what kind of factors should that renegotiation entail?
  
  Also if just briefly as possible could you give us your opinion of other free trade deals including the Trans-Pacific Partnership which President Trump pulled the country out of when he took office last year.

MARY WILSON (D): Probably.

So, NAFTA came into existence in the mid-nineties. So we’re looking at a deal that’s over 20 years old. Has anything changed in the past 20-25 years?

Yes. So why would we expect a deal that was made over 20 years ago to be completely current. So I’m in favor of updating, upgrading and addressing the pitfalls that have taken place, in a way it has worn itself out.

Once again, where has that happened? Well it is with the small farmers. Quite frankly on both sides of the border, they are the ones that are being left out. They are the ones that are being squeezed out by corporations coming in and…yes, the free trades among those it’s going really well.

But it’s the small guy, the small farmer, that is suffering right now. So what I would want to do is re-adapt, re-adjust and rewrite the pieces that protect the smaller farmers, family farmers. And again it’s on both sides of the border, so that those family farms can still be of existence and profitable, sustainable for those families.

And we can’t do that with the way NAFTA is at the moment. So the reasons I would want to make changes to NAFTA are far different than the reasons that the president would make changes.

In reference to the TPP, look this is a global economy. The isolationist tactics that we’re taking are not going to serve our country for the long term. We cannot have an economy based on ourselves and ourselves alone.

We can’t do what’s happening right now and dangling these tariffs and alienating all of our European allies. We are part of a global economy, and we need to act like it, and we need to participate in it, and part of that is emanating that to trade deals that should be fair trade deals. But we can’t just pretend like we can be isolated by ourselves and sustain that and have that be good for our country.

CHIP ROY (R): We start with the principal that free trade is a strong benefit to our economy in Texas and the United States of America as a whole. And that is the starting place for any discussions that we should have on this topic. I think we’ve seen that bled out.

I think we’ve seen the significant economic benefits that have existed in Texas along the border, throughout the state. And those things extend to the ways of life you don’t even think about in terms of businesses, in terms of our abilities to access goods and services.

And be able to afford the daily things that you get, on Amazon or Walmart or Target or anywhere else that make it possible for us to live everyday with very affordable goods in a highly competitive marketplace throughout the world.

That’s the starting place. Should the president have continued engagement to renegotiate NAFTA, of course. Same things with any of the other agreements that practically [inaudible]. I mean it goes without saying that any agreement should be continually looked at and continually adjusted based on changing times and circumstances.

I have no problem with that, and I think the president will have a great deal of latitude to do that. Same thing with any of the other agreements that practically [inaudible]…Any other discussions that we’re having with our partners in Latin America and Central America and across the Pacific and Asia, we should be constantly looking at ways to increase the free flow of goods and services in both direction.

And we have to constantly look at those and monitor that they’re in the best interest of the people of the United States and that there aren’t unfair trade practices being put in place.

That happens and we need to look at it as a country to make sure that that’s not happening. But at the end of the day, all things come back to the baseline that we want the free flow of goods and services across borders so that we benefit from the enormous value that is created by competition globally.

So that people have access to the goods and services for their families and for small businesses, farmers and throughout the United States.

JOSEPH KOPSER (D): Yes, so it is very clear that on the whole Texas has completely benefited from NAFTA and what it’s done over the last 25 years. Going forward, trade should be discussed as not just free but fair as well. Especially for American workers who in some cases, have been undercut by our trading partners in various agreements not holding their employees or their management to the same standard.

Specifically in two areas. Workers rights and protections, and the environment and how they are disposing of fair waste in their own countries. I am all about continuing to improve trade deals, whether they be NAFTA or other agreements, but making sure that always as a part of the conversation is how they treat their workers should be something that is important to us.

And how they treat their environment should be something important to us as well. With respect to TPP, it’s another great example where, the current administration is in and its out. It’s in and its out. Individual deals, no deals. Tariffs, no tariffs.

That kind of chaos, that kind of rhetoric does nothing to help the worldwide United States and the Texas economic and business community.

It does not have the predictability to know the cost of commodities, to know the cost of steel and to know the cost of labor does not help our business community.

And I will make sure that we respond with calm and with a tone that allows us to see how we actually are making deals and as were said before, we are a global economy and anyone that believes we can just pull out and that the Chinese won’t fill that gap is selling you a line that you should not believe.

We are a global economy. We’re a world leader; we are the economic leader in the world, and we have to act like it and quit pretending for political reasons that we can get in and out of these deals that simply.

‘Cause it impacts people in small businesses every time policy is made.

MATT MCCALL (R): My degree is in economics. And I’m completely for free trade. But you know it was kinda sold to us that free trade means fair trade. And Texas has benefited wildly from NAFTA in these agreements.

But it’s partly because we’re on the border. And in the rest of the country, it hadn’t been so good. And we really can renegotiate, and we must. Our job, the president’s job, is to be for America.

Macron’s job is to be for France. Putin’s job is to be for Russia. That’s the way the system works. With Mr. Obama, he was for the world.

And that got us into some trouble in some of these years. A lot of people in the grass roots are concerned that these trade deals don’t have some aspects to them that really do sacrifice sovereignty. That’s a problem to them, and it’s a problem to me.

And we need to get that right. If the courts are good enough for you and me, they should be good enough for a foreign company that wants to sue the United States about the trade bill.

They shouldn’t have their own private little court system.

So in most countries of the world we have, and they have value added taxes, sales taxes. So in these trade deals, I think Mexico’s is 14 percent if I’m not mistaken, their products come in to the United States tax-free, and there’s no sales tax on them at the federal level.

And our products go into Mexico, and then there is a sales tax. That’s not fair. And we need to fix that.

When you are renegotiating a contract, you have to be able to walk away. I don’t want to walk away, and the president is a great negotiator. Look at what’s going on in North Korea. He has thrown out diplomacy that got us into this mess, and he’s gone to negotiating; and we’re getting results.

And so what may look like chaos in the short-term is what often a negotiation looks like in the short-term. And we need to get back to negotiating for us and our workers.

There may be some short-term disruptions, but that’s a price you have to pay to get a better deal; and we need a better deal. Thank you.