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Trade Bill Fails In the House
schwit1 writes: President Obama suffered a major defeat to his Pacific Rim free trade initiative Friday as House Democrats helped derail a key presidential priority despite his last-minute, personal plea on Capitol Hill. "In a remarkable rejection of a president they have resolutely backed, House Democrats voted to kill assistance to workers displaced by global trade, a program their party created and has stood by for four decades. By doing so, they brought down legislation granting the president trade promotion authority — the power to negotiate trade deals that cannot be amended or filibustered by Congress — before it could even come to a final vote." This was after Silicon Valley heavyweights made a last minute push to pass the bill and the White House got personal with many Democratic lawmakers.
While the summary is trying to make this some kind of huge rebuff of the President by democrats in Congress, the only serious problem with this bill is it was for too long of a time period. Obama is only in office for another 18 months, and this fast track authority would have extended years after he is gone. This vote had almost nothing to do with democrats not trusting Obama; it was them not trusting the unknown President who will take his mantle a couple years from now.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
... there is a long way to go before declaring victory here.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Yes, there's this amazing technology called a "calendar" that lets you know when an eight-year period of time has elapsed.
I'm not certain that "everyone" is intelligent enough to work this new-fangled device, though.
You do realize that the Government has already made similar deals with Canada and Mexico, so what we see now is simple hoodwinking. Wikileaks has blown their cover too many times and people are largely fed up. If they could have kept it all secret it would have happened, so now we have to find all of the back door bullshit they are pushing through elsewhere.
The US has not been Capitalist since at least Reagan, but at least until NAFTA we could say "pseudo capitalist". More and more control, more and more wealth redistribution where the majority goes to the wealthy, Fascism at it's purest definition.
How is that Utopia working out for all of you people that keep thinking more Government will solve all our problems? (Not directed at GP, just a general audience question)
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Mr. Clinton and Mrs. Clinton, the former Walmart exec., gave China MFN status which started the huge growth of Chinese industry in the late 90's. The common "Walmart America" upper middle class Clintonista is all about shelves full of Chinese stuff to fill their mcmansions, and with the possible exception of Obama you can't find a bigger proponent of TPP than Clinton.
It was Obama Democrats that tripped up this trade deal. Blacks, labor and others have been made surplus people through competition with disposable foreign workers and they've finally — after half a century — figured it out.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
You might be right IF the TPP was actually abit trade and not about ceding control of our own country to corporations even more than it already has been.
Then again, you might just be a paid shill since there is no reason for anybody who isn't a one percenter to support this or any other of these so called 'free trade' treaties.
But let's pretend for a brief imaginary moment it is about trade. It's still an awful idea and those who negotiated it are traitors to our people. Tariffs work. When we had proper tariffs and proper protectionism we had a good economy. People worked good paying jobs and we produced what we could, exported what we could, and imported that which we couldn't make our what we wanted to because we could afford it. We effectively got rid of tariffs with these foolish trade deals, and we haven't had an economy that really benefits our citizens in decades.
If "economic leadership" requires sacrificing our highest held values, (the right to self-rule, the public's input on how it is governed, etc.), then I'm all for letting another country take the lead.
The problem with these so called "agreements" is that they have become a host for the agendas of special interests, who seek to actively harm society in-general for their own self-benefit. Given that, regardless of which country takes over as "economic leader", it will only be a matter of time before the demands of the special interest groups become too much for their societies to bear, and their societies will revolt as a result.
Countries that promote this kind of behavior against their people, are only hastening their own demise, and I for one am happy and grateful that in this one case the leadership in the US made the correct decision.
So long as the power stays split up (mostly) evenly in 1/3s, we have gridlock to expect, which is preferable to what you get when the power is less evenly spread.
An internal system operation returned the error "The operation completed successfully.".
Its easier to buy one President than 535 members of Congress.
And for some truly ill-advised and unpopular ideas its more practical to wait for a President of a suitable ideological bent than wait for a Congressional majority.
Hence the founding fathers wisely distributing powers amongst branches. Ie the executive negotiating a treaty, the legislature making it law, and the supreme court deciding if the law is constitutional.
Without America, TPP is dead, but there will likely be a new free trade agreement to replace it, anchored on China, rather than America.
That's because China sees a trade agreement as being about trade and making money, not a means of furthering the global agendas of whichever megacorporations pay the people writing it the most money. I'm from a country that has a free trade agreement with China, negotiated openly and available for anyone to check (heck, there's even a web site set up to tell you all you need to know), that basically says "you sell us your stuff, we sell you ours, the rest is up to you". That's a free trade agreement, not the stuff US corporations are trying to force on the world.