Thursday, September 29, 2011

Club for Growth prez opposes China bill he sponsored 6 years ago

Opportunist or hypocrite?
Remember the Club for Growth? It's the Koch-linked group that paid for a radio ad touting Koch whore Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's union-busting bill -- before lawmakers had even seen the bill.

Now, according to Politico, the Club for Growth opposes a bill that would slap tariffs on products from China because it's manipulating its currency. That bill would create 2 million American jobs, according to the American Association of Manufacturers.

The Club for Growth's president is Chris Chocola, a former congressman from Indiana. Today he attacked the bill because it "would result in higher costs to American consumers."

(Um, that's the point of tariffs -- to make Chinese products more expensive so people buy American products.)

But get this: Chocola introduced almost the exact same bill when he was a congressman in 2005. Politico dug up a press release from Chocola's office touting the CHINA Act:
If signed into law, the bill would require the U.S. treasury secretary to analyze and report to Congress whether China is manipulating its currency to achieve a trade advantage. If manipulation is discovered, within 30 days after sending the report to Congress, the secretary must levy tariffs on all Chinese goods coming into the U.S. equal to the advantage gained by the Chinese through currency manipulation.
Can you say "Man of principle?"