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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.
are the last vestige of the place congresscritters respect the will of their voters
in every other realm plutocrats own them
this will be "corrected"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
How is that Utopia working out for all of you people that keep thinking more Government will solve all our problems?
That's sort of how the libertarian viewpoint evolves, I guess. Like Reagan started out as a democrat, presumably because he cared about people and favored social reforms. Then after living through the Communist purges in the McCarthy era, he realized that more government power means more chances for government abuse. Which is why he came to say, "Government is not the solution....government is the problem." As many people like to say, the NSA is a greater threat to US liberty than Al Qaeda.
Which doesn't mean you have to like Reagan. The debts he piled up were unconscionable. Realizing that government bureaucracy can be as bad as a Kafka nightmare is something you can do no matter what party you prefer.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
There were never any Obama Democrats. The first couple of years of this administration was all Nancy Pelosi. When she was kicked out, Harry Reid blocked pretty much anything significant until he was kicked out. Obama has never worked with Congress and doesn't know how to get anything done now that he should.
he nordic countries and canada have more government than us and far less corruption. the people are happier, more socially mobile, and pay far less for healthcare and education
The important difference there is that the people of the Nordic countries (at least Sweden and Finland, where I visited and lived) still have faith in their institutions. Americans haven't had faith in our institutions since Watergate. It's not just the Government either; in increasing numbers Americans don't trust business, academia, religion, or any other reasonably sized institution.
The reasons for this are varied -- you could write an entire thesis on the subject -- but at the end of the day it's the reality of the situation, and a Nordic style welfare state is a non-starter in the United States.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The Democrats voted against TAA (the fig-leaf program that pretends to help workers who lose their jobs to a new trade bill), which was contrary to their normal voting pattern, AS A TACTIC TO INDUCE A DELAY. "Fast Track" actually PASSED. Given that TAA and Fast Track passed together in the Senate, their failure to pass together in the House is a temporary shoe tossed into the gears of this monstrosity, BUT it can be overcome easily by the Senate simply mimicking what the House did.
This was political magic for a bunch of people; Democrats Senators will be able to tell their union supporters that they supported TAA (in the earlier Senate action), even as enough of them voted for Fast Track. Democrat House members will be able to say they stood against Fast Track, even though many supported it and the Senate may align their work with what the House did and thereby pass it. Many Republicans who opposed Fast Track were able to vote "yes" in order to placate their business backers even as the thing stalled. Many Republicans who oppose TAA but did not want to be the ones to kill it got to watch as the Dems did that, etc. Nearly every political group in DC got something they can use to deceive this or that voting block. Ultimately, the groups pushing this massive crap sandwich are going to demand it and get it, unless the public (from labor-concerned Dems, to sovereignty-concerned TEA Partiers) stand up and make it clear that votes out-weigh campaign cash.
After 200+ years, the congress critters have highly-optimized the political theater in Washington so their big money backers get what they want without the public getting too mad. They have gotten away with this garbage over and over again with things like NAFTA, the WTO, etc. People on the other side of the Atlantic have had the same thing done to them by their political elites.... The UK into the EU, followed by continual-but-never-filfilled promises of a public vote on that membership was such a trick that subsumed national rules into an international agreement. These things are all alike: they allow the wealthy and powerful to get what they want and the politicians to pretend to be powerless because: unaccountable international body and treaty. They never want the public to ask "WHO CREATED THAT BODY OR THAT TREATY?"
Being Canadian I can say you have only part of the story correct. First of all Canada is 1/10 the size of the US at best so 'size' is a matter of perspective with respect to 'more government' & since corruption & inefficiency follow 'size' of any organization if Canada has the population of the US I have no doubt there'd be signifcantly less 'happy & socially mobile' Canadians.
On the topic of healthcare, it may be cheaper but its a bit hard to argue it is 'better', depending on your definition of 'better'. Yes everyone has access to tax sponsor healthcare (not 'free healthcare' as some would make you believe) & it's reasonably good healthcare too BUT for some ailments that aren't considered life threatening there is a queue & no local options to get around that queue even if you have the money & are willing to pay it (happened to my brother for a knee injury who had to indure the pain for 18 months). And there are some prescriptions for even things like Cancer that you simply aren't allowed to pay for out of your own pocket if the government/doctor has decided you have received your 'alotment' (happened to a friend of mine who had cancer & handled a different more expensive drug better than the one 'alotted' to her. She was willing to pay for it but 'nope, we can't allow that'...). Last but not least, those Canadians with the 'real means' (eg. sufficient money) go to private care in the US...and I'm betting similar happens with nordic/Euro countries. Consider sports stars or government officials etc., you don't REALLY think they get treated like the rest of the peones do you?
O, and regarding education. Again Canada benefits from being next door to the US. Again, it's reasonably good education through University (I have an M.Sc in Physics from a generally considered 'world class' University...e.g. the Physics department is generally considered 'top notch'), but it can also be limiting. My niece went to school in the US to become an Optomistrist because there were no 'seats' for her in Canada, a friend of mine sent his son to University in the US (partly paid by scholarships in lacrosse...he was really good). In both cases they had sufficient money to pay for the US college education (and neither family could be considered 'wealthy' except in comparison to the poverty line). I even have another good friend that went to college in the US to get her Chirotpractic degree (again no 'seats' in Canada, and her husband's family WAS 'wealthy' & could subsidize them while he got a job) & SHE slags the US all the time (huh? you benefit from a system that allowed you to pay your way & get around the Canadian system but somehow that 'system' is bad?).
I suspect (obviously without proof) that if the US 'system' was like Canada's there would be ALOT more screaming on both sides of the border. As it is Canadian's can sit back & feel smug while pointing at the US as being 'broken' and not 'helping their citizens'. Don't get me wrong, I love my country of birth, it really is a beautiful place & generally a good place to live & yes Canadians probably are the 'nicest people you'll meet' (again in general, we have assholes too) but it benefits greatly from proximity to the US (given the US gets alot of our oil, water & many raw materials I hope they'd find the benefits 'equal').
I don't know if any US president has ever over-stepped his authority as constantly as Obama.
Arguably so, but he was far from the only one, or even the first one, to do so - and Obama dwarfs all of the others. Here is the amount of national debt, in billions of constant 2012-adjusted dollars, accumulated during the terms of various Presidents.
Wilson, 1912-1920 239
Harding, 1920-1922 15
Coolidge, 1922-1928 -78
Hoover, 1928-1932 91
Roosevelt, 1932-1945 3068
(same, prior to WW2 only), (1932-1941) (454)
Truman, 1945-1952 -1091
Eisenhower, 1952-1960 -22
Kennedy, 1960-1963 80
Johnson, 1963-1968 -7
Nixon, 1968-1974 -80
Ford, 1974-1976 301
Carter, 1976-1980 23
Reagan, 1980-1988 2597
Bush, 1988-1992 1661
Clinton, 1992-2000 939
Bush, 2000-2008 3223
Obama, 2008-2014 7125
Roosevelt kicked off the tradition of accumulating huge debt in peacetime, even if we leave out the WW2 years. And nobody came close to repeating it until Ford. However since 1912, only Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, and Nixon left the country's debt better than they found it.
A History of Debt in the United States