Articles
Meeks Message from Capitol Hill
The Wave
My colleagues and I in the House and Senate have recessed for the month of August. Ordinarily, most of us spend part of the recess working in our respective districts or states, and part of it taking long-deserved vacations or getaways with our families who see far too little of us.
Meeks Message from Capitol Hill
The Wave
Last month in a self-dubbed A New Way Forward speech to the nation, then in his State of the Union address, President Bush announced his new plan for Iraq. What many were hoping would be a long-awaited reality check is neither a way forward or a way out of the occupation, insurgency, and sectarian civil war into which he has entrapped himself and the rest of us.
Can Democrats agree on trade? Our party has been divided on the topic for forty years, and often bitterly. But the policy vision and negotiating skills of Representative Charles Rangel of New York and Trade Subcommittee Chairman Sander Levin, shows that consensus on trade may not be out of reach. Their revision of a free trade agreement with Peru, up for a vote next month, meets the long-held demands of many trade skeptics on labor issues and other matters, as well as the traditional goals of growth through open markets and better relations with foreign partners.
Underneath the wave of the international debatesurrounding the war on terrorism, there is an undercurrent of what mayturn out to be the 107th Congress' most significant action on internationalcommerce: The granting of Trade Promotion Authority to the President. From the outset, I supported my Colleague and the Dean of the New YorkCongressional delegation, Congressman Charles Rangel's effort to promoteauthority based on environmentally sound policy; universally defensiblelabor practices and a healthy respect for the role of Congress.