Word: gattes
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Business bridles as Gingrich pushes back the GATT agreement...
...timing reasons only, then, the delay on GATT was perhaps the most wounding of Clinton's legislative defeats. Nonetheless, it did expose a weakness in Clinton's trade crusade. Effective as he is at negotiating tougher agreements, the President has had trouble holding together the legislative coalitions he needs to get them approved. Republicans have generally supported his effort because free trade has long been a G.O.P. first principle. But as the 103rd Congress ended last week with what White House chief of staff Leon Panetta called a "cry of anguish," most Republicans were willing to abandon years of doctrine...
...jobs at home by 2004. But instead, members of Congress did what they have been doing a lot lately: they obstructed for the sake of obstructing. For months, House Republican whip Newt Gingrich had assured White House officials in private that he would vote for GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which, according to the White House, could mean the equivalent of a $750 billion worldwide tax cut over the next 10 years through the reduction in the prices of imported goods. Sure, Gingrich had helped kill Clinton's health- care plan and nearly prevented an ambitious crime...
...Speaker Tom Foley agreed to return to Washington in November to vote on the legislation, and insisted that they can pass it easily. But if voters ever needed a reason to seethe at a do-little Congress, they need look no further than its refusal to take action on GATT. If carried out, the treaty would place the equivalent of $1,700 into the bank account of the average American working family during a 10-year period, according to a White House estimate. While most Americans might not yet appreciate the benefits of the agreement, the latest delay dismayed industry...
Gingrich's full immersion in the details of GATT made it a little hard for the White House to swallow his sudden complaint last week that the legislation required further study. So did his sudden objection to a provision that would reduce licensing fees for three cellular-telephone companies. White House officials maintained last week that Gingrich knew about the provision all along. Yet he balked because, he said, it favored the Washington Post Co., which owns a controlling interest in one of the cellular operations and was therefore an example of the special breaks contained in the thousand-page...