The following article by Mimi Whitefield appeared here at The Miami Herald site.

The Obama administration hopes to send all three pending free trade agreements — Colombia, Panama, and Korea — to Congress before the August recess.

Initially, the plan had been to try for Congressional approval of the Korea trade pact first because it would have the greatest economic impact and then submit the Panama and Colombia accords later.

But Kevin Sullivan, the state department’s point man on economic policy in the Western Hemisphere, said in a recent interview that the plan is now to send all three agreements to Congress separately but over the next few months. Technical discussions on the trade pacts are now going on at the Congressional staff level.

“Now it seems like the stars are in alignment — it’s that important to us,’’ said Sullivan.

The administration, he said, wants to submit the agreements as part of a broader trade initiative that includes renewal of trade adjustment assistance as well as reinstatement of the Andean Trade Preferences Act, and the expired Generalized System of Preferences, which extends duty-free treatment to several thousand products imported into the United States from countries around the world.

The ATPA , which must be periodically renewed and expired Feb. 12, is especially important to South Florida because it allowed duty-free access of Andean products such as flowers from Colombia and Ecuador. Miami is the flower import capital of the nation, and local importers have had to pay duties since the eclipse of the ATPA..

S. FLORIDA SUPPORT

Sullivan was in South Florida earlier this month to drum up support for the Obama trade initiative, which aims to double U.S. exports by 2014 in an effort to create more jobs for U.S. workers.

He said he found a receptive audience. “People are very excited to hear things are moving forward,’’ Sullivan said.

The South Florida Republican Congressional delegation has advocated quicker action on the trade pacts with Colombia and Panama, which were both negotiated several years ago.

But there have been sticking points for both agreements.

Labor unionists and human rights groups have complained that the Colombia agreement didn’t do enough to protect union leaders and labor activists against violence and threats in a country that is one of the most dangerous in the world for organized labor.

In April, the U.S. and Colombia agreed on a plan to address such concerns with specific deadlines for meeting benchmarks.

Last week, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk announced that Colombia had met all the milestones it needed to complete by a June 15 deadline.

They include a law setting criminal penalties, including jail time, for employers who undermine the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively or who threaten workers’ labor rights, improvement of systems for citizens to file labor-related complaints, and progress toward hiring 100 new labor inspectors.

A series of other deadlines exist from now through 2014 when Colombia has committed to hiring an additional 380 labor inspectors.

But the AFL-CIO is still taking the position that the action plan falls “far short of achieving adherence to international labor standards.’’ Last year, the AFL-CIO pointed out, 51 trade unionists were assassinated in Colombia.

Last week Colombian unionists were in Washington and met with members of Congress and U.S. unionists and their leaders.

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD

But the Obama administration insists it has taken the necessary steps to make sure all the pending agreements offer a level playing field for U.S. workers, as well as labor rights protections.

In Panama, Sullivan said, progress also has been made toward adequate legal protection for labor unions, and a tax information exchange agreement, which had been an area of contention, was signed into law in Panama in April.

‘[The president] did that [leveled the playing field] with the U.S.-South Korea trade agreement by negotiating further steps to open South Korea’s auto market,’’ said Kirk. “He did that with the U.S.-Panama trade agreement by negotiating additional progress on labor rights and tax transparency. And he did that with the U.S. Colombia trade agreement through the negotiation of the action plan.’’

CPA member, Zach Mottl, will appear on CBS News tonight (January 14, 2011) with Katie Couric to discuss the 66% state income tax increase for Illinois. With three tax-cutting Governors in proximity, this could be a disaster for Illinois manufacturers.

The following is the second op-ed by Michael Sekora, former director of the U.S. government’s Socrates Project. It can be found in the Daily Caller here.

Discussions about deficits and debt reduction inevitably center on whether and how to reduce government spending or increase tax rates. Proponents of increasing taxes argue over what level tax rates should be increased to and for which segments of the population. Proponents of decreased spending debate which federal programs should be trimmed or eliminated altogether. But this choice is a classic false dichotomy. If we grow the economy enough, we won’t have to rely on massive tax hikes or spending cuts.

Of course today, with the national debt and budget deficits reaching new highs and the nation’s economic health anemic at best, the old dichotomy is less tenable than ever. Increasing tax rates or cutting federal spending cannot be done effectively without disturbing a majority of Americans. Obama’s deficit commission stated that making reductions for sustainable levels of debt and deficits would necessitate large tax increases or major spending cuts, and quite probably necessitate some of each.  Even if these were done, given the structural dislocations in the current economy, it isn’t likely the measures would do enough in time to turn the economy around. The fact is that both options share or possibly redistribute scarcity.

Sure, spending should not be profligate, and taxes should be fairly levied. The far more effective answer to reducing debt and alleviating a budget deficit, however, is to grow the economy and increase business revenue. Significant and sustainable increases in the revenues of business, however, are unlikely using the standard economic shell games of the day, such as off-shoring jobs, lay-offs, and selling subsidiaries. To achieve significant sustainable increases, businesses must increase and maintain their competitive advantages in domestic and foreign markets. Moreover, a true competitive advantage is a matter of producing goods and providing services that customers want to purchase because the products and services satisfy customers’ needs better than the competition. If a business is not excelling at satisfying customers’ needs, then any other perceived “competitive advantage” equates to nothing more than rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

Under President Reagan I directed a program called the Socrates Project within the US intelligence community. Socrates enabled us years ago to foresee America’s present economic crisis, but it also identified the means to rebuild this country’s competitiveness and to turn things around. George Herbert Walker Bush scrapped the program, but it is time now to complete Ronald Reagan’s great legacy and to return America to economic preeminence.

The Socrates Project utilized all-source intelligence and, by examining competition worldwide, determined that the US and its organizations had begun losing competitive advantage in the marketplace after World War II as a result of switching from technology-based planning to economic-based planning as the foundation of most decision-making. Socrates also foresaw that if the US continued to rely upon economic-based planning with its inherent degradation of competitive advantage, the economic health of the US would go into catastrophic freefall and no amount of economic maneuvering would be able to stop it.

From the vantage point of Socrates, we also saw that China via an aggressive use of technology-based planning was, in effect, rapidly building itself into the next world superpower atop the wreckage of US manufacturing industries and a systemic failure to apply technology strategically to marketplace coordination and the output of real goods and services. China was outmaneuvering the US and its organizations in the acquisition and utilization of worldwide technology purposefully to decimate America’s ability to generate competitive advantage long-term, as well as to ensure its own maximum competitive advantage across the full range of markets and industries into the future.

To rebuild America’s competitiveness, the Socrates Project developed a highly advanced form of technology-based planning called automated innovation. In automated innovation, the process for acquiring and utilizing technology for a competitive advantage, including research and development, is automated so that it can be executed with unprecedented speed, efficiency and agility. Automated innovation would enable the US and its major public and private organizations to consistently outmaneuver China in the exploitation of technology, in order to acquire and maintain maximum competitive advantage and thereby greatly increase corporate revenues.

Debates today on how to best reduce the US national debt and federal budget deficit must include a third leg and not only the tired rhetorical tug-of-war between the need and desire to increase taxes or cut spending. What needs to happen is that businesses must increase their revenue from their private businesses and do so in a significant and sustained way, in order to grow the economic pie and thus exponentially bring in more tax revenues towards retiring the debt and living in our means year to year. The political debate must include more than the usual arguments. Corporations and businesses have to refrain from mere economic shell games claiming profit while they hollow out their insides and lay off American workers.

Businesses will naturally do this if and when tax and trade policies are less regressive, and when public-private partnerships produce the tools they need to have a real technology-based competitive edge. The US Government and various state governments should look into tech-based planning models, in order to fully appreciate and address their sagging economies and debt burdens, which are unique to this timeframe and not cyclic but systemic in their nature. To fully address the economic health of the US, the US Government should move resolutely towards a reexamination of President Reagan’s Socrates Project and so usher in the automated innovation revolution in this country and a return to sustained economic prosperity and a revitalized American Dream.

The following article by Pat Choate appeared in the Huffington Post on September 7, 2010.  Mr. Choate is an economist and author, and is on CPA’s Advisory Board.  Click here to see the article on the Huffington Post site.

More than 25 million American workers want a job, but the economy is not providing them one. The President’s proposed solution is to provide more than $50 billion of additional infrastructure investment and more than $100 billion in tax breaks for businesses in the hope that the benefits will trickle down to the jobless.

In both policy choices, the federal government would have to borrow the money and increase the national debt. If Congress is to approve additional stimulus spending, the key question is which will produce the most stimuli per federal dollar - more tax cuts or more spending?

Economist Mark Zandi of Moody’s Economy.com has analyzed the fiscal stimulus returns per federal dollar spent on permanent tax cuts versus spending increases. He reports that,

•    Making the Bush income tax cuts permanent would provide only 31 cents of benefits per federal dollar of reduced taxes;
•    Making the dividend and capital gains tax cuts permanent would return 38 cents per dollar cut; and
•    Making a cut in the corporate tax rate would create 30 cents of stimulus per every dollar of cuts.

To get back only 30-40 cents of stimulus per federal dollar is fiscal folly. Washington could get triple the benefit by placing federal workers on street corners and have them pass out hundred dollar bills.

Zandi also reports on how much stimuli would be created by more spending. Specifically,

•    Extending and increasing unemployment insurance benefits provides $1.63 of benefits for every $1 spent.
•    Temporary increases in food stamp spending produces $1.73 of stimulus per $1 spent.
•    General aid to help deficit-racked state governments pay for teachers, firemen, police and other public sector workers gives back $1.38 per federal dollar, and
•    Increased infrastructure spending induces $1.59 of stimulus per $1 invested.

To emphasize my earlier point, either more tax cuts or more spending would have to be paid for by increased federal borrowing.

To make the point really simple: tax cuts of $100 billion would reduce federal tax revenues by $100 billion and the funding gap would have to be paid for by the federal government borrowing $100 billion. Likewise, a spending increase of $50 billion would require the federal government to pay for it by borrowing $50 billion.

With $100 billion of tax cuts, the U.S. would get about $33 billion of stimulus back. With $50 billion of additional spending, the nation would get about $82 billion of stimulus. The best choice seems obvious once the arithmetic is calculated.

Ultimately, however, the choice is not about economics, but politics and ideology. The beneficiaries of corporate tax cuts have deep pockets from which they finance the political campaigns of those elected officials who do their bidding, lobbyists and think tanks that echo their “lower tax” propaganda.

The beneficiaries of more spending have far less political influence and are handicapped by a popular notion that spending is irresponsible and tax cuts are not. The spending advocates must rely on the President and Congress to calculate the arithmetic and then do what is best for the nation.

If we are to get the biggest bang for the buck, our leaders should strongly favor more spending over more tax cuts. Moreover, they should act in a timely manner because until we get this economy moving again 25 million Americans will remain jobless.

The following was written by Peter Morici, a professor at the Smith School of Business, University of Maryland.

Thursday, economists expect the Commerce Department to report the deficit on international trade in goods and services was $47.2 billion in July. That is lower than the $49.9 billion registered in June, because many analysts expect stagnating wages are slowing import demand.

Still too large, the trade deficit subtracted 3.4 percentage points from second quarter GDP growth, and threatens to derail an already weak U.S. recovery, throw the economy into a double dip recession, and dramatically increase unemployment.

Without the second quarter jump in imports-led by consumer goods from China and boosted by an undervalued yuan and export subsidies President Obama neglects-GDP growth would be close to 5 percent, hundreds of thousands of Americans would be finding jobs, and Democrats would be poised to retain their majorities in the House and Senate.

President Obama and Speaker Pelosi chose to ignore the undervalued yuan and other Chinese subsidies that result in an outsized trade deficit and millions of lost jobs across the industrial Midwest and South.

Instead, the President and Speaker of the House obsess about taxing the rich and social issues, and appease China on trade and the environment, as the United States sinks into an economic quagmire similar to Great Britain in the 1950s and 1960s.

Notably, Britain in 1950 was on par with Germany and France. Twenty years later, it enjoyed living standards half its continental rivals.

Each month, more and more Americans lose decent jobs, can’t find comparable employment, and then settle for lower wages, as Americans enjoy the British post-war folly of an overvalued currency and distracted leaders.

Simply, dollars that go abroad to purchase U.S. imports cannot be spent on U.S. goods and services. When those dollars do not return to purchase U.S. exports, jobs are lost and not replaced. A rising trade deficit slows growth and increases unemployment.

Free trade based on a balance between exports and imports helps nations specialize in what they do best, grow and prosper. Rising trade deficits, financed on borrowed money to cover profligate government spending, erode prosperity and compromise sovereignty.

But for the increase in the trade gap, GDP would have grown 5.2 percent, and unemployment would fall to 7.5 by early 2011, and less than 5 percent by 2013.

Oil and consumer goods from China account for nearly the entire trade deficit, and sustained economic recovery is not possible without dramatic changes in energy and trade.

President Obama’s efforts to halt offshore drilling and otherwise curtail conventional energy supplies-premised on false assumptions about the immediate potential of electric cars and alternative energy sources-threaten to make the United States even more dependent on imported oil.

Detroit can build many more attractive and efficient gasoline-powered vehicles now, and a national policy to accelerate the replacement of the existing fleet would reduce imports, spur growth and create jobs.

To keep Chinese products artificially inexpensive on U.S. store shelves and discourage U.S. exports into China, Beijing undervalues the yuan by 40 percent. It accomplishes this by printing yuan and selling those for dollars to augment the private supply of yuan and private demand for dollars. In 2009, those purchases were about $450 billion or 10 percent of China’s GDP, and about 35 percent of its exports of goods and services.

In 2010, the trade deficit with China reduces U.S. GDP by more than $400 billion or nearly three percent. Unemployment would be falling and the U.S. economy recovering more rapidly, but for the trade imbalance with China and Beijing’s protectionist policies.

In June, China indicated it will adopt a more flexible exchange rate policy, but that has not resulted in the needed realignment in exchange rates.

China recognizes President Obama is not likely to counter Chinese mercantilism with strong, effective actions; hence, it offers token gestures and cultivates political support among U.S. businesses like General Motors and Caterpillar who profit from investments in China.

President Obama should impose a tax on dollar-yuan conversions in an amount equal to China’s currency market intervention divided by its exports-in 2009 that was about 35 percent. For imports, at least, that would offset Chinese subsidies that harm U.S. businesses and workers.

Until the President tackles the root causes of the trade deficit, unemployment will remain near 10 percent and could surge much higher, and Americans face economic decline.

An article about CPA’s Task Force Hearing, published by Malia Spencer in the Pittsburgh Business Times blog.  Malia Spencer covers technology and manufacturing at the Pittsburgh Business Times. Click here to see the article as published in the Business Times blog.

Discussions between business groups, labor, manufacturers and government continued today with a trade and tax policy hearing hosted by Western PA Economic Summit Task Force and the Coalition for a Prosperous America where participants were able to talk about the challenges facing the country in terms of balancing trade and establishing tax policies to encourage domestic investment.

The roughly 50 participants may not have agreed on the details of how to solve these challenges, but everyone in the room agreed that these are problems that must be addressed in order for the domestic economy to truly recover.

“The point is we all agree we need reform,” said Dave Frengel, one of the organizers and director of government affairs at Penn United Technologies Inc. Discussions such as the ones being organized in Western PA are a step to developing the solutions.

The group decided the top priorities are: Supporting The Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act, H.R. 2378, which is currently in committee in the House, and developing a strategy to fix the tax system, including looking at a Value Added Tax in order to neutralize what is seen as a major trade disadvantage.

Frengel expects the two groups to hold more gatherings as a way to get the local leaders on all sides of the issue talking and sending the same message to Congress. He called it a grasstops movement since it targets group leaders for education on items that will eventually effect everyone as opposed to a grassroots movement that depends on education of the masses.

The expert panel was composed of: Charles Blum, president of International Advisory Services Group, and former diplomat and negotiator for the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Trade Representative; Robert Baugh, executive director of AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council; and Robert E. Scott, senior international economist and director of International Programs for the Economic Policy Institute.

Scott offered the group some sobering statistics about the economy. Between 2007 and 2009, the country lost 6.6 million jobs and 54 percent of those were in the manufacturing and construction industries.
Further more he noted the country has a “jobs hole” of 10.7 million, which is the difference in the number of jobs needed to keep up with population growth and the number of jobs between January 2008 and July 2010.
According to his estimates, if the country wants to get out of the jobs gap in four years, the economy would have to create 330,000 jobs per month.

In order to do that, the panel offered a three-part plan — address the trade deficit, which means address foreign currency manipulation and enforce trade laws; invest in clean energy to make the U.S. a leader in that industry; and increase infrastructure spending on items such as roads, bridges, waterways and airports.

Anyone looking to get involved in the task force can contact Frengel at [email protected] or Hal Martin at [email protected].

The following was an article by Malia Spencer published in the Pittsburgh Business Times on Friday, 8/20/10 about CPA’s Western PA Task Force Policy Hearing on 8/25/10. Click here to get to the article online.

Building off the economic gathering held here in April, members of two groups are convening a hearing on trade and tax policy to craft a platform to take to the region’s legislators.

The platform is intended to help design federal policy that can create manufacturing jobs and long-term economic recovery.

The working group, made up of members of the Western PA Economic Summit Task Force Working Group and the Coalition for a Prosperous America, is part of the three-year-old national coalition’s effort to bring together manufacturing, labor and agricultural interests, as well as citizens and the local government, to influence trade policy and boost the domestic economy.

In April, the groups had more than 100 people gather in Cranberry to determine the top two economic development priorities that would have the most impact on jobs and economic recovery.

From that meeting, the group found that rebalancing trade and establishing a smart tax policy should be the overriding strategies, said Dave Frengel, director of government affairs at Penn United Technologies and chairman of the Pennsylvania state chapter of the CPA.

“That was the first step,” he said of the April summit. “(Now) what do we really think will really bring back the economy, and what does that mean? How do you rebalance trade? What is a smart tax system?”

To answer those questions, the group is bringing in three experts to the meeting Wednesday to help formulate solutions that can be presented to legislators ahead of policy debates. They are: Charles Blum, president of International Advisory Services Group, and former diplomat and negotiator for the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Trade Representative; Robert Baugh, executive director of AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council; and Robert E. Scott, senior international economist and director of International Programs for the Economic Policy Institute.

Though rebalancing the trade deficit is the No. 1 priority, Frengel noted the group is not against the U.S. forging trade agreements.

“We want robust trade law enforcement,” he said. “We want the rules of free trade to be enforced.”

In addition to addressing trade agreement scofflaws, the government must address the high amount of imports coming in, which could be a place for smarter taxes that can encourage domestic investment and discourage offshoring, he said.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Commerce released June trade figures that showed the trade deficit grew to $49.9 billion, up from $42 billion in May. That means the country imported more than was exported.

The trade deficit for goods and services increased $22.8 billion from June 2009 to June 2010, according to government figures. Exports were up in that time frame 17 percent, but imports were up even higher.

The increasing imports must be addressed as part of the country’s overall strategy if the president’s export initiative is to succeed, Frengel said.

The Center for Prosperous America has been working closely with the group of stakeholders assembled by Frengel, said the group’s CEO, Michael Stummo. The grass-roots organization developing in western Pennsylvania is seen as a model for the larger organization, he said.

“We want the chambers of commerce, the manufacturers, the farmers and the labor associations to hear further evidence on how to balance trade and how to make the tax system smarter so as to promote a sustainable economic recovery for the purpose of providing leadership and guidance to elected officials,” Stummo said.

The following is an article by Dr. Alec Feinberg that appeared in Economyincrisis.org. The article originally appeared on OpEdNews.com. Click here to see the article.  Dr. Feinberg is the author of the “Truth of the Modern Recession” and founder of CitizensForEqualTrade.org, as well as a CPA member and supporter. You may contact him at [email protected].

Warren Buffett has been quoted as saying, “The U.S trade deficit is a bigger threat to the domestic economy than either the federal budget deficit or consumer debt and could lead to political turmoil…”. No economic issue today is more pressing than the U.S. Trade Deficit. This predicament should be America’s top priority. It is also a key reason why we have high unemployment. Yet most people in America do not understand this Silent Killer or what they can do about it. Even most economists are very defensive of our free trade policy, yet none of them can defend free trade’s 1000 pound Gorilla in the room” the U.S. yearly trade deficit. This article will outline the frightening facts and provide the reader with a number ways to make their voice heard to congress in an effort to create change on this U.S. economic crisis in favor of Fair and Equal Trade.

Here are important key facts on why the Trade Deficit now threatens our future:

1) First and foremost, there is absolutely no history that shows that any country including the U.S. can long sustain large yearly trade deficits without putting its future at risk. However, there are instances where empires have fallen due to trade deficit failures including the 17th Century Spanish Economy and a trade deficit was partially responsible for the fall of the great Roman Empire .

2) In the last 10 years the trade deficit has averaged $0.55 trillion. The U.S. Trade Deficit since 1971 is over $7.5 trillion and $6.5 trillion in just the last 20 years. By comparison, the national debt is now about $13 trillion.

3) This year the current trade deficit through May is $0.170 trillion on track for about $0.4 trillion. It’s only lower than average due to the lingering modern recession. The NAFTA (from 1993 through 2003) free trade agreement displaced a reported 879,280 jobs. Since the entrance of China, the U.S. has lost another 2.4 million jobs. The two combine for about 3.5 million total jobs lost due to the free trade policy allowing for these large deficits. This number is growing as more and more outsourcing is occurring. Last year 60% of the U.S. trade deficit was with China.

4) The free trade deficit profits have allowed foreigners to buy up America. According to the Grant Thornton report, “total assets at foreign-owned companies increased 15% to $9.2 trillion in 2005 from $8.0 trillion a year earlier and was more than three times the 1996 total of $3 trillion. Foreign-owned assets totaled just $37 billion in 1971″.

5) Foreign-owned companies in the United States have a work force of about 5.3 million, or some 3.5% of all workers. According to the last note (2005), they owned 15% of all U.S. businesses but only employ 3.5% of the workforce. Extrapolating this to 100% ownership (that we are on a crash course for) this would only equate to 25% employment in the U.S. This is our future.

6) Most of the U.S. trade deficit is with China and their ownership is the largest share of U.S. businesses and debt. Thus the U.S. is slowly being sold mostly to China from trade deficit profits dollars obtained from U.S. consumers.

7) The U.S. has a national debt crisis of about $13 Trillion. However with the massive trade deficit job losses, this author estimates lost tax revenues of about $1 trillion dollars. Thus the trade deficit contributes significantly to our national debt. Free trade is really not free!

8 ) We have a vicious cycle, we outsource jobs, increase unemployment, this creates tax losses, the U.S. goes further into debt from these lost tax revenues, the U.S. must then sell more treasury bonds to China and foreigners, consumers are forced to purchase more and more foreign imports with few U.S. made alternative products, this enables foreign to make huge trade deficit profits, which allows them to purchase more U.S. businesses and debt, foreign owned business pay far less taxes then U.S. equivalent businesses and hire fewer American employers, this creates higher unemployment and more tax losses, and the cycle continues.

9) Economic global greed is excessive; the U.S. free trade policy encourages foreigners to cheat as every country wants a piece of America. Well known is unethical trade deficit problems related to: Currency manipulation by U.S. trading partners, 2) Excessive Job outsourcing by U.S. businesses, 3) Product subsidies by foreign governments, 4) Unfair non tariff trade barriers by our trading partners, 5) Lack of intellectual property rights protection, and 6) Product counterfeiting.

10) Because of these massive trade deficit tax losses, this is like a reverse tariff that U.S. citizens must pay on trade deficit goods. These lost revenues cause increase tax programs. Every citizen must pay more taxes which means in part we are actually supporting all the unethical foreign greed issues cited above.

Finally the U.S. trade deficit is not just unethical, it is unconstitutional. The subtle reason why it violates U.S. constitutional law is fully explained at the website, CitizensForEqualTrade.org

Dear Friends:

At the Western PA Summit in April, stakeholders from business to labor to economic development and elected officials determined that 1) REBALANCING TRADE and 2) SMART TAX to promote the global competitiveness of domestic producers are the top two long-term strategies to revitalize manufacturing, create good jobs, and the restore the U.S. economy.

On August 25, the Summit Task Force is convening a Public Hearing with a panel of experts to develop the policy details of these top two economic development strategies.

YOU ARE INVITED. SAVE THE DATE!

When: Wednesday, August 25, 2010, 8:30 am - Noon, Followed by a Networking Lunch

Where: The Carpenters Training Center, 652 Ridge Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15205, (Near I-79, Parkway West (I-376) Interchange)

Cost: $25 (fee includes light breakfast and full lunch.

Expert Panelists will field questions on trade and tax strategies from knowledgeable Task Force Leaders. Hearing results will help define the desired positions of candidates participating in the upcoming November 2010 General Election.

Register online or contact Hal Martin at 724.777.0847 for sponsorship questions or more information.

Thank you for your consideration.

Dear Friends:

At the Western PA Summit in April, stakeholders from business to labor to economic development and elected officials determined that 1) REBALANCING TRADE and 2) SMART TAX to promote the global competitiveness of domestic producers are the top two long-term strategies to revitalize manufacturing, create good jobs, and the restore the U.S. economy.

On August 25, the Summit Task Force is convening a Public Hearing with a panel of experts to develop the policy details of these top two economic development strategies.

YOU ARE INVITED. SAVE THE DATE!

When: Wednesday, August 25, 2010, 8:30 am - Noon, Followed by a Networking Lunch

Where: The Carpenters Training Center, 652 Ridge Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15205, (Near I-79, Parkway West (I-376) Interchange)

Cost: $25 (fee includes light breakfast and full lunch.

Expert Panelists will field questions on trade and tax strategies from knowledgeable Task Force Leaders. Hearing results will help define the desired positions of candidates participating in the upcoming November 2010 General Election.

Register online or contact Hal Martin at 724.777.0847 for sponsorship questions or more information.

Thank you for your consideration.