Cruz: TPA Doesn’t Give Obama More Power, Jeff Sessions ‘Not Accurate’ On TPP

Breitbard ^ | 06/12/2015 | Ian Hanchett

[SoConPubbie]

Texas Senator and GOP presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) argued Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) “is not giving the president more authority” and that Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is “not accurate” in some of his claims regarding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on Friday’s broadcast of “The Kuhner Report” on Boston’s WRKO.

Cruz argued that he had been the staunchest opponent of President Barack Obama in Congress. He then separated TPA (Trade Promotion Authority) and the TPP (the Trans-Pacific Partnership). He touched on TPA first, stating that “history has demonstrated, the only way to get a trade agreement adopted is with fast-track. Since FDR, consistently, for 80 years, presidents in both parties have had fast-track. Anytime fast-track has lapsed, trade agreements don’t get negotiated.” He later added that it was a “misunderstanding” to say TPA gave away the Senate’s treaty power. Cruz stated that “Under the Constitution, there are two ways to make binding law. Number one, you can pass a treaty ratified by 2/3ds of the Senate. Or number two, you can pass legislation passed by a majority of both of houses of Congress and signed by the president. … TPA uses the second constitutional path.” And “it’s been long recognized that the Constitution’s Origination Clause applies to trade bills, which means the House of Representatives has to be involved. There’s a reason why trade bills have historically not been done as treaties, because the Constitution says that anything concerning the raising of revenues, and trade bills concern tariffs, which are the raising of revenues, has to originate in the House of Representatives. So, the process of approving a trade agreement through both houses of Congress has been the way it has been done for roughly a century. And it is not giving the president more authority.”

Regarding TPP, Cruz said

[SoConPubbie]

Why does Obama support this then? Are we supposed to believe that for the first time EVER, the Marxist has no anti-American ulterior motives? Sorry!

You've left out the reason that Obama could be for it for incorrect, drastically different or failed reasons, while Ted Cruz is for it because he believes that it passes constitutional muster and will benefit the economy and the jobs in the U.S.

[CatherineofAragon]

Bumping this...right on

[familyop]

"Sen. Jeff Sessions slams “trade” deals promoting immigration
http://obamatrade.com
"Sen. Jeff Sessions says trade deals, like the TransPacific Partnership aka Obamatrade, should not include provisions for immigration and foreign workers – which Obamatrade does. The Constitution gives Congress the authority to regulate immigration, and these trade agreements are stepping on the Constitution when they take away Congress’ power to limit the number of workers that can be brought into the U.S.A.

Read the resolution Senator Sessions wrote, adopted unanimously by the Senate.

BILLS-108sres211ats

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

0bama WILL sell out America to the maximum amount allowed by the bare majority of Senators necessary to pass his Treaty. Simply, TPA gives 0bama the power to craft the most harmful Treaty he can get away with. That's a tactical error, at least.

That's the way I see it.

[SoConPubbie]

Ted Cruz is a globalist, pro-secrecy, pro-Tyranny, PHONEY, whom I unfortunately previously supported.

You still spamming Ted Cruz threads with your lies Diogenesis?

[Diogenesis]

Cruz KNEW the American people and conservatives
were against it.

Cruz KNEW Obola the undocumented was for it.

Cruz KNEW he had not read every footnote.

Cruz KNEW it was secret, and the American people
are fed up with his kind, the EXEMPT who know
more than the voter.

[cripplecreek]

Why is it that all the time you usually spend “outing” others as Romney operatives, you have decided to look the other way as Walker has used Romney people to bulk up his team?

[SoConPubbie]

Read the resolution Senator Sessions wrote, adopted unanimously by the Senate.

What is your point?

The whole Senate supported that and Ted Cruz filed an Amendment to deal with this issue specifically!

[CatherineofAragon]

"Ted Cruz is a globalist, pro-secrecy, pro-Tyranny, PHONEY, whom I unfortunately previously supported.

Now Cruz is revealed as just another member of THE GiveObama(more)Power party, who threw his supporters away this week, in part to reportedly transfer money to his wife."

LOL, Lord have mercy

[SoConPubbie]

Cruz KNEW the American people and conservatives were against it.

Cruz KNEW Obola the undocumented was for it.

Cruz KNEW he had not read every footnote.

Cruz KNEW it was secret, and the American people are fed up with his kind, the EXEMPT who know more than the voter.

More lies Diogenesis. You don't know that Cruz knew any of those things.

[Moonman62]

Ted Cruz is probably right. However he needs to learn that there is a tremendous and well earned mistrust of the federal government, especially Obama.

[familyop]

OBAMATRADE
Congress Has To Pass It To Find Out What's In It

Obama says, "If you like your job, you can keep it" (caption and photo on the upper right)

ObamaTrade.com
Why No Obamatrade?

Obamatrade aka the TransPacific Parthership (TPP) is misleadingly called a “trade agreement.” But only two of its 26 chapters actually cover trade issues such as tariffs and quotas. Obamatrade is really an expansive system of enforceable global government that the Obama administration is negotiating with eleven Pacific Rim nations: Vietnam, Brunei, Singapore, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Canada, Mexico and Peru. Obamatrade would impose one-size-fits all international rules to which U.S. federal, state and local law would be forced to conform. It would also give preferential treatment to foreign banks and other firms operating here, exempting foreign companies in the US from financial, environmental and land use regulations that US businesses would still be required to obey. Obamatrade would subject the U.S. to the jurisdiction of two systems of foreign tribunals, including World Bank and United Nations tribunals. These foreign tribunals would be empowered to order payment of U.S. tax dollars to foreign firms if U.S. laws undermined the foreign firms’ new special privileges.

[setha]

Then open up the TPP/TTIP/TISA texts before the perfunctory public release period.

[Diogenesis]

Lies, grasshopper?

Cruz KNEW the American people and conservatives were against it.
Q.E.D.

Cruz KNEW Obola the undocumented was for it.
Q.E.D.

Cruz KNEW he had not read every footnote.
He admitted it this morning.
Q.E.D.

Cruz KNEW it was secret, and the American people are fed up with his kind, the EXEMPT who know more than the voter.
This is a fact. The GOP, after their promises, has
micturated on the voters, with the SOB Cruz
declaring it “rain”.

[Isara]

Ted Cruz continued (from another interview). "That is one specific trade deal that is currently being negotiated. It is separate from TPA. Congress has not voted on TPP, and there's a great deal of concern about TPP. Now, I have not voted on TPP, and I haven't decided if I will support it or not, because the negotiation isn't complete, and I'm going to wait and review and see what the agreement is first before assessing if it would be beneficial or harmful."

[SoConPubbie]

Then my advice to Cruz and others is to withhold their support until this bill is Available to all, so it can be scored based on what is in it.

Maybe you like secrecy, but many do not.

Myth 5: TPP is being negotiated via a dangerous and unprecedented level of secrecy!

Totally false. Probably the most-repeated myth right now isn’t even related to TPA but instead to the TPP, which is still being negotiated. According to the anti-TPA script, the TPP is so secret that nobody knows what’s in it, and—much like Obamacare legislation—nobody, not even Congress, will know what’s in it until the agreement is passed into law. Once again, however, nothing could be further from the truth:

• First, Obama’s USTR and Congress have been consulting on the TPP since December 14, 2009, when then-USTR Kirk notified Congress that President Obama intended to enter into TPP negotiations. USTR then held initial consultations with Congress in 2010 and, according to a January 2015 fact-sheet, has since held almost 1,700 congressional briefings on TPP alone. USTR also previewed various TPP proposals with key congressional committees before taking them to our trading partners. (Odd that the TPP talks have been going on for six years, but the vast majority of these “secrecy” complaints have only emerged in the last few months, huh?)
• Second, USTR has provided “access to the full negotiating texts for any Member of Congress, including for Members to view at their convenience in the Capitol, accompanied by staff members with appropriate security clearance.” This access began in 2012, and several House members and senators—both supportive of TPA (like Mike Lee) and opposed (like Sens. Jeff Sessions and Elizabeth Warren, as well as Rep. Rosa DeLauro)—have reviewed the draft negotiating texts. Moreover, the level of security surrounding these TPP texts isn’t part of some scary Obama administration plot; it’s set by Congress (which, as you’ll recall, is controlled by Republicans these days). A U.S. government official confirmed to me that “the Senate and House security offices determine the procedures for viewing classified material in the Capitol reading room where the TPP text is kept for Members—not the administration… some people claim that it’s more difficult to view military or intelligence information, but it’s all subject to the same rules that are set and enforced by Capitol security.”
• Third, USTR has engaged the public on the TPP via published reports and “stakeholder meetings” with groups like labor unions, consumer groups, and, of course, corporations and trade associations. Some of these stakeholders have even reviewed the negotiating texts and US proposals. Admittedly, the official texts aren’t available to the general public, but this is common practice for all FTAs (as a quick Google search reveals) and for good reason: just like other high-value negotiations among private parties or governments, revealing draft proposals before a deal is struck emboldens the opposition, undermines the parties’ negotiating positions, and exposes negotiators to public scrutiny over provisions that might not even be in a final deal. Publishing draft FTA texts would make completing a deal difficult, if not impossible, and it’s thus no coincidence the most vocal advocates for “full transparency” in free trade negotiations are actually those most opposed to free trade.It’s also important to understand just how unoriginal this “secrecy” canard is:
  

  Today's history lesson: Nutty ol' Perot on NAFTA's scary secrecy. Sound familiar? #TPP #TPA https://t.co/YLjlJfusUr pic.twitter.com/l1LGWPftzV
  
  — Scott Lincicome (@scottlincicome) June 5, 2015

Yes, protectionists have been using the same “secrecy” lines for over 20 years. In fact, if you replaced “NAFTA” with “TPP” in those old Ross Perot commercials, they’d be almost indistinguishable from the ones on our TVs today.

• Finally, unlike the oft-analogized Obamacare legislation, the actual text of any final TPP deal will be required by law to be publicly available (online) for months—yes, months—before Congress votes on it. As you can see from the table below (source), under TPA the president must make the entire text of any trade agreement, including TPP, available to the public for 60 days before he can even sign it.Once it’s signed, Congress will have weeks, maybe months, to scour the deal, hold “mock markups” in various committees, and suggest changes to the agreement before the president sends Congress legislation implementing the FTA for a final vote. Also, within 105 days of the FTA’s signing, the U.S. International Trade Commission must issue a report on the deal’s economic impact—again prior those bills being submitted to Congress. And once the bills finally are submitted, Congress will then have up to 90 legislative days (which is like five months in normal human days) to review the bills and hold final votes.

Bottom line: when or if TPA is passed, the general public will have months—and if the presidential elections interfere, maybe years—to review the TPP before Congress acts on it. Think that’s crazy? Well, it’s precisely what happened to U.S. FTAs with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, which were signed by President Bush but sat around (online) for years before they were submitted to, and passed by, Congress in 2011.

[onyx]

I have to laugh, because this is truly a public slap right across Obama’s face by members of his own party and of course by our House Patriots, but not by our pussy leadership in the House.

This House vote sure separated the GOP from the GOPe, otherwise known as the Obama water-carriers or Obama fans.

Word for next week: SUNSHINE.

Let's see ALL of the secret legislation, before the VOTE!

We can actually read.

[Uncle Miltie]

Usually, I would agree with everything you say.

But 0bama is President.

[justa-hairyape]

So basically Cruz wants to do away with the 2/3 requirement for the US Senate to pass a treaty with a foreign nation. He wants it replaced with a simple majority requirement in the US Senate and US House. He also wants to do away with the amendment process. What a stupid thing to risk your candidacy over considering who would be given that power for the next year and a half. Presidents are not kings and these trade agreements are not worth making them a king.

[cripplecreek]

At least your boy went and kissed the ring of the Mittfather.

Republican field looks to Romney for ’16 help