Stop Trade Deficits=Selling of America=Job & Tax Losses - It's Unconstitutional!

We the undersigned, call for a policy of equal trade to stop U.S. large trade deficits (i.e., where imports greatly exceed exports). The total trade deficit is now over $9 Trillion. This is how much more foreigners own of us than we own of them. This equates to the selling of America as they use these profits to buy our businesses and land. CitizensForEqualTrade dot org estimates that America will be over 50% foreign owned in less than 20 years, mostly by communist China. Article IV, Sec. IV of the constitution requires congress stop any foreign invasion but our do nothing congress has no courage to stop this. The country we fought and died for is being sold out. Our huge trade deficit cause highly organized crimes by China and other countries such as currency manipulation, cyber crimes stealing US technology, counterfeit goods, dumping goods to drive U.S. business like Solar bankrupt, huge job outsourcing. Most U.S. products now come from foreign countries which have cost over 3.6 million U.S. jobs losses. These lost jobs mean the U.S. government cannot collect taxes on lost wages, during unemployment, causing tax problems and more government debt. This escalates the national debt and is unconstitutional (explained in the appendix). We also estimate that roughly $1 trillion in lost U.S. taxes since 1971 due to excessive trade deficits. On our website it is demonstrated that tax losses would be stopped if equal trade were U.S. policy. This provides further evidence that only equal trade is ethical, constitutional, and fair.

      Additionally foreigners reinvest much of their yearly huge profits from the trade deficit by buying up U.S. businesses. Foreigners now own 25% of U.S. businesses, but actually only employ about 3.7% of the U.S. workforce. This poor job creation means higher unemployment, more lost wages and less tax revenue, and even more national debt. In also means we are beholden to foreigners (mainly China) as they increase U.S. ownership yearly.   
   We call for the following:

1)      Government economists provide estimates of the actual percentage of business in the U.S. that are now foreign owned and project the trend of when our country will be over 50% foreign owned. Project how we will be able to stop foreigners from controlling our congress with foreign lobby money which will start to drive American decision making.

2) Government economists provide estimates of the actual tax losses that occur due to the trade deficit.

3)  The Supreme Court & Congress explain in what way our huge trade policy is not in violation Article IV, Sec IV of the constitution which prohibits a foreign invasion. Why is the Selling of America business, homes and land to foreigners does not equate to a full foreign invasion? How is America supposed to stay in control of our country if we sell our assets off to foreigners? How is America supposed to prevent foreign lobbyist from paying off congress for their special interest as they gain control of our country?   

4) The U.S. Supreme court rule on the constitutionality of the trade deficit with its related tax losses which violates Article 1, Section 9, Clause 5 (see appendix). U.S. citizens refuse to keep subsidizing deficit foreign imports through U.S. tax losses with massive lost jobs.

5)      Congress transition from a policy of free trade to equal trade by seriously considering the Balance Trade Restoration Act of 2006 (that was never voted on) or a similar equal trade act. 

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Petition Appendix 
(Please see CitizensForEqualTrade Dot Org for more full explanations)

 

The following details are optional to this petition and are provided for the interested reader. 
Constitutional Violations:

 

Violation 1: How do tax losses from the trade deficit violate constitutional law? The free trade policy that allows for these large trade deficits tax losses is unconstitutional in an indirect way. We have confirmed this with a constitutional lawyer (Private communications A. Feinberg  with Wesley Oliver, Professor of Constitutional law, Widener University, March 2010) that it violates Article 1, Section 9, Clause 5,

 

, "No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles Exported from any State." Since the trade deficits essentially creates lost tax revenue, citizens end up paying subsidies on imported trade deficit goods from state to state through these trade deficit tax losses violating this law.  Said another way - citizens are paying an interstate tax violating this law since import trade deficit goods cause tax problems that escalate the national debt.

 

 Violation 2: Another violation related to Article IV, Section IV of the U.S. Constitution, where the federal government has a required duty and obligation to remove foreign invaders from U.S. soil. We interpret that the trade deficit allows for a foreign financial invasion. Foreigners must reinvest trade deficit profits in the U.S. due to the WTO currency agreement. Such reinvestments have led to excessive foreign ownership of U.S. business. In the last study on this subject we are aware of, a 2005 Grant Thornton report [Ref. 6] found "total assets at foreign-owned companies increased 15 percent to $9.2 trillion in 2005 from $8 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." This ownership has also only led to a deplorable 3.5 percent U.S. job creation [Ref. 8]. Right now foreigners own $7.85 trillion more of us than we do of them made possible mostly by the trade deficit.

 

Common Law Violation

 

We also believe there is a common law violation by illegally allowing a free trade policy that requires subsidizing U.S. trade deficits with public tax money. Under common law this amounts to stealing money from U.S. citizens who are forced to pay the Reverse Tariff Debt. Why for example, should I have to partly pay for someone else%u2019s purchase? Imbalance trade also promotes foreign cheating in the form of currency manipulation, product counterfeiting, excessive offshoring and outsourcing etc. This difficult to control cheating is financially rewarded due to an American policy allowing for illegal use of public funds enabling large yearly trade deficits. As such, ordinary citizens end up being cheated financially without retribution while this criminal behavior is rewarded.
 

 

2. Legal people might ask - Does the Political Question Doctrine apply so it is prudent for the supreme court not to interfere?. No, because it can be demonstrated mathematically

 

that there is a solution, that of equal trade which does not have tax consequence. The constitution is here to protect us. The court should not ignore the fact that no country, including the U.S., can sustain large trade deficits and not put its economy at risk. History has shown that balanced trade works. There is no history to show that continual free trade deficits will work. The Supreme Court should not allow this continual destructive high risk and unconstitutional activity.

 

3.       Are these tax losses also a violation of the U.S. Trade Agreement? These trade deficit tax losses also means U.S. citizens are essentially paying a tax-like tariff/subsidy on deficit imports! So free trade is not free. This also violates our world trade agreement that requires elimination of tariffs, quotas & subsidies on most traded goods and services.

 

4.      More detailed information about the tax losses: A trade deficit and excessive job outsourcing are interrelated. Excessive job outsourcing means foreigners now make many U.S. products. The U.S. cannot collect tax from foreign workers compared to if the products were made in the U.S. Then as U.S. made goods are replaced with foreign imports, so too are U.S. jobs and lost taxed wages. In addition we recognize there are unemployment benefits including health care and educational job government sponsored programs associated with these job losses. Outsourcing has occurred frequently over time, so theses U.S. tax deficit losses accumulate yearly which essentially adds to the National Debt. How much excessive outsourcing? Since the North American Free Trade Agreement and the entrance of China into the U.S. market, spanning 1993 to present, the total job outsourcing loss is estimated to be over 3.6 million displaced U.S. workers and still growing. There is also a cascade effect, which is hard to quantify, such job losses relate to housing foreclosures, loss in consumer spending, additional job losses due to associated economic down-turns and related need for government bail-outs. 

                  An additional source for tax loss is that U.S. trade deficit enables foreigners to buy numerous American businesses and own more and more of the U.S. IRS data show that foreign-owned corporations doing business here typically pay far less in U.S. income taxes than do purely American firms with comparable sales and assets. This is because it%u2019s hard to determine how much of a corporation's worldwide earnings relate to its U.S. activities and therefore are subject to U.S. tax. There are many other tax issues that create serious tax problems. (See for example,  Tax breaks for multinational corporations).

 

              Another source for tax losses is Foreigner now own 14% of U.S. businesses aided by trade deficit profits, but actually only employ about 3.5% of the U.S. workforce. For example, this means at this rate, if foreigners owned 100% of U.S. businesses they would only employ 25% of the U.S. workforce. Foreigners trade deficit profits are in dollars, so that the U.S. is increasingly foreign owned every year.

 

5.      How do we know a trade deficit escalates the U.S. national debt?  On our website: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/edit/www.citizensforequaltrade.org, we find an 84% statistically significant correlation between the national debt and the trade deficit. The statistical significance of the correlation study indicates a probability of 1 in a 1000 that this correlation is by chance. On this website we provide a crude estimate that the trade deficit tax losses are between 6.5% to 16.3% of the National Debt.  We believe government economist should be actively estimating and reporting this amount and not ignoring it. Congress and U.S. citizens have a right to know what the trade deficit costs tax payers. Since 1971 the U.S. trade deficit has accumulated to over $7.5 trillion. Therefore we believe these crude estimates are not unreasonable. (see our santity check estimate as well)

 

6.      Why is the trade deficit unethical? This problem of tax related consequences means that U.S. citizens are in part funding the free trade deficit and greed issues related to known trading problems of: 1) Foreign currency manipulation, 2) Excessive Job outsourcing, 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.