. >> pat, do you have a question you go pat malloy. -- do you have a question? pat malloy. have to call on him. i'm scared of him. he is irish. >> pat malloy. i'm a trade lawyer in washington. an article in the new york times recently said we should focus on the trade deficit, that it is a real problem for this country. as you know, we've got about $9 trillion worth of trade deficits in the last 25 years. many people, and including warren buffett, have said that we should set a national goal to balance our trade. i have asked two previous speakers whether we should do so. i did not quite get clear answers. does the afl-cio support a national goal to balance trade, and then to evaluate trade agreements, whether they are helping us do that or not? >> absolutely. i could end there, but i won't. yes, we do support that. look, we have a deficit. there are four ways to fill the gap. one is, government spending. we are about maxed out there and you're not going to do much more government spending because of the political will. investment, we are not going to invest much more. we a

pat malloy. i have to call on him. i'm scared of him. he is irish. >> pat malloy.i'm a trade lawyer in washington. an article in the new york times recently said we should focus on the trade deficit, that it is a real problem for this country. $9you know, we've got about trillion worth of trade deficits in the last 25 years. many people, and including warren buffett, have said that we should set a national goal to balance our trade. i have asked to previous speakers whether we should do so . i did not quite get clear answers. does the afl-cio support a national goal to balance trade, and then to evaluate trade agreements, whether they are helping us do that or not? >> absolutely. i could end there, but i won't. yes, we do support that. look, we have a deficit. there are four ways to fill the gap. one is, government spending. we are about maxed out there and you're not going to do much more government spending because of the political will. investment, we are not going to invest much more. we are almost back to the recession levels of business and that's not going t

. >> do you have a question pat malloy? i have to call him pet. he is one of my godfathers in washington. i am scared of him. he's irish. >> i am pat malloy in on the trade lawyer in washington. jared bernstein who was on an earlier panel wrote an article in "the new york times" recently saying that we should focus on the trade deficit that that's a real problem for this country and as you know we have run about $9 trillion worth of. deficits in the last 25 years. now many people including warren buffett have said we should set a national goal to balance our trade. i have asked two previous speakers whether we should do so. i didn't quite get clear answers. does the afl-cio support in national goal to balance trade and then to evaluate trade agreements and whether they are helping us do that are not? >> absolutely. i could and there but i won't. we do support that. we have a deficit in the way you are going to fill it is you have for ways to fill the gap. one is government spending. we are about maxed out there and you are going to do much with go