Free Trade 101 for Members of Congress | Daniel Griswold | Cato Institute: Commentary

Free Trade 101 for Members of Congress | Daniel Griswold | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'Free trade empowers the individual and limits the state. The government should not be telling us where we can and can't spend our money. We don't need big government rigging markets to favor one producer over another at the expense of competition and the little guy.

Free trade helps American families balance their budgets. Import competition means lower prices, more choice, and better quality — for shoes, clothing, cars, computers and smartphones. Lower prices for consumer goods mean higher real wages for workers.

Protectionism is really a tax on the poor. Our highest remaining trade barriers unfairly tax products made and grown by poor people abroad and consumed disproportionately by poor families at home. We still impose unconscionably high tariffs on imported food, clothing, and shoes — the basics of a poor family's budget. The $26 billion we collect each year from duties on imports represent the federal government's most regressive tax. Free trade is a tax cut for the poor.'