The 6th congressional district in Indiana has been plagued by a distant, distracted, disconnected Representative in Washington: Mike Pence. As the economy gets worse and worse, Congressman Pence has seemed to be unaware of the problem. Even as Americans are having to pay for huge increases in the cost of essentials like gasoline and food, Congressman Pence voted against legislation to give the first boost in pay for hard-working Americans in two decades.

Of course, our economic problems aren’t just domestic. They’re also due to the flight of manufacturing overseas, thanks to unbalanced trade agreements that encourage American corporations to take advantage of abusive labor practices and pervasive local corruption to set up manufacturing plants in foreign countries instead of here in the USA.

Last week I spoke to Representative Pence’s challenger in the 2008 congressional election, Barry Welsh. When I asked him about the focus of Congress in 2009 and the laws he’d like to see done away with, Welsh focused squarely on reforming our trade agreements in order to re-establish production here in the United States, so that American workers can get a fair shake in these tough times.

That’s My Congress: What do you think the proper role for Congress will be then, after this election is over and Inauguration Day comes in 2009? What should Congress do with this subject matter?

Barry Welsh: Normally, Congress isn’t known for repealing a lot of things. Congress kind of takes the stance that once something is done, then it can’t be undone, and that’s just not true. Personally, my position as far as the Congress in 2009 is there’s going to have to be some repealing done, as well as some new legislation.

The focus of the new Congress is going to be change, of course, and going to be trying to move our nation forward. In order to move our nation forward, we’re going to have to take a step back and look at some legislation, and then we’re going to have to be able to propose some progressive legislation that also goes hand in hand with putting our country on the right track and moving in the right direction.

That’s My Congress: Let me ask you about the repealing part, then. Aside from the FISA Amendments Act, assuming that does pass the Senate, what other pieces of legislation would you focus on repealing?

Barry Welsh: I think we have to look at our trade agreements. It’s my opinion that, most of the time, trade agreements in America are drawn up with the purpose of controlling wages, as opposed to being beneficial to consumer pricing, which is the guise that they’re done under. Trade agreements are generally done under, you know, that we’re going to have the lowest prices through competition, when in fact, most of the time, they seem to have the impact of attempted wage control, as opposed to price controls.

So, one of the things I’d want to look at would be revising the NAFTA and CAFTA agreements and looking our membership in the World Trade Organization. There are a lot of things that we need to look at that this Administration has put us in defense of and sometimes in tenuous positions with what they’ve passed over the past eight years.