Will the Byrd Fly the Coop?
March 18, 2004
At a time when Congress
is struggling with huge budget deficits and competing national goals to reduce
taxes and support our troops overseas hundreds of millions of tax dollars
are being funneled out of the general treasury and into the bank accounts
of a few wealthy corporations. Early last week, however, two Congressmen introduced
a bill that might reverse this corporate welfare. Read more…
Congressmen Jim Ramstad and Phil Crane recently introduced a bill that would
repeal the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000, also known as
the Byrd Amendment. The Byrd Amendment is a law that channels antidumping
and countervailing duty revenue from the general treasury into the pockets
of U.S. companies that bring and win unfair trade cases. The Treasury Department
recently reported that it disbursed $330 million in Byrd funds during fiscal
2002, and $230 million in 2001. The 2003 payout is $293 million. For those
of you counting, that adds up to almost a billion dollars over three years.
Just imagine how these revenues might have been used for important national
priorities. Instead they were handed out to industry with virtually no strings
attached.
One would think that, given the budget crunch and the need to support the
nation building effort in Iraq and the hunt for Bin Laden, handing out general
treasury funds to corporate America might raise a few eyebrows on Capitol
Hill. Apparently not.
In a letter to the President last year, seventy senators-that's more than
two-thirds and easily enough to break any filibuster--told the Bush Administration
that they had no intention of repealing the Byrd Amendment, even though the
World Trade Organization (WTO) has ruled that the Amendment violates U.S.
international trade obligations.
Quite frankly, Consumers for World Trade is flabbergasted by this viewpoint.
We believe it represents a clear misunderstanding of the Byrd provision on
the part of many lawmakers and suggests that people have confused the issue
of supporting trade laws with supporting the Byrd provision. We believe the
two issues are entirely separate.
U.S. dumping duty laws are designed to make products more expensive by applying
a border tax to imported products to give U.S. industry the ability to compete.
Any U.S. industry that gets dumping duties imposed gets a huge benefit paid
for by consumers. Those dumping duties have always gone back into the general
treasury to be used for the general good. And well they should have, too,
because consumers pay these duties and consumers ought to get some benefit
out of them. Byrd changed that, by taking these duties and giving them directly
to the industries who asked for the taxes to be imposed in the first place.
That has two very negative consequences: first, it encourages the filing of
these cases and second it hits average Americans twice - once as consumers
and a second time as taxpayers. There is nothing in the Byrd Amendment that
stipulates that the revenues must be used for improving productivity. Indeed,
companies could use Byrd revenues to provide bonuses for their top management.
The Administration has called twice now for the repeal of the Byrd Amendment.
CWT thanks Congressmen Ramstad and Crane for the introduction of their bill,
H.R. 3933. We hope the House of Representatives will behave more responsibly
towards the American taxpayer than has the Senate on this issue.
Click here to read a copy of H.R.
3933.