Posted on 05/22/2015 6:53:25 PM PDT by Beave Meister
President Obama won a big victory for his trade agenda Friday with the Senate’s approval of fast-track legislation that could make it easier for him to complete a wide-ranging trade deal that would include 11 Pacific Rim nations.
A coalition of nearly 50 Senate Republicans and more than 10 Democrats voted for Trade Promotion Authority late Friday, sending the legislation to the House for a difficult fight as Obama faces more entrenched opposition from Democrats.
The Senate coalition fought off several attempts by opponents to undermine the legislation, defeating amendments that were politically popular but potentially poisonous to Obama’s bid to secure the trade deal.
“This is an important bill, likely the most important bill we will pass this year. It’s important to President Obama,” Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and primary author of the bill, said at the close of debate.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Of course, all you Cruz supporters have been willfully ignorant - or else dismissed the relevancy of the fact that his wife heads the Houston Branch of Goldman Sachs - the revolving door between the K Street puppeteers, the Wall Street globalists, and the “bought n’ paid for” Political elite. “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain ....” It’s just crony capitalism - move on, nothing to see here!
Conservatives injure their brains, doing intellectual somersaults, whenever Ted, et al, do that which does not jive with who they pretend to be. Stupid is as stupid does; but many continue playing the same game, expecting a different outcome - the definition of insanity.
I think a majority of Freepers are used to Republicans supporting Free Trade and so this is just not news to them so they don't post. The posters posting on this thread are the old Perotistas that said NAFTA would create a big sucking sound to Mexico, which never happened, but they still like to think free trade is always bad.
Free trade is always the best policy. Tariffs are taxes.
hOW HOW HOW in hell does Cruz vote for another stinking Nafta? How?
What is the use. If its not the hundreds of thousands of work visas for Hi Tech jobs, its the illegals taking the low tech jobs and whats left the ship out to Naaftaland.
oh well just keep printing money.
5 Republicans voted NO: Collins, Lee, Paul, Sessions, Shelby.
WORTH REPEATING.
5 OUT OF 55? Whats that, ten percent. And they ask US why we don’t turn out to vote?
Well at least Paul voted RIGHT.
Cruz just fell behind.
I am disappointed, but Cruz still has my vote.
The Ford I drive is made with 40% Canadian and Mexican parts (including a German transmission). Nice car. Cheap. God bless NAFTA.
The Perotistas had to wait until the next recession after NAFTA was passed so they could start whining that they were “right.” What did it take, ten years?
Free trade is A Good Thing.
Sure, some people get screwed, but that's how the free market works. But on balance, the country is much better off than it would have been if it had chosen to cripple itself to protect those who made wrong choices.
Despite this obvious fact, five Republicans voted no: Susan Collins, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Jeff Sessions, and Richard Shelby. One Republican didn't vote: Mike Enzi.
Admittedly, voting to trust Zero to do something right is a risk. But it's justifiable in this case. The senators who voted yea voted correctly.
The rules are, after the agreement is reached, it must be published in full for 60 days, after which Congress, presumably having had an ear full, votes it up or down.
The bill imposes a list of requirements on Obama regarding the agreement. Hopefully, he'll adhere to them and thereby add a Free Trade Bill to his legacy. If not, then Congress should simply can the final agreement.
The fake affirmative-action Injun from Taxachusetts is Barry's main opponent on this matter. Put that in your peace pipe and smoke it.
Here's Tom McClintock (R-CA04) on the subject:
That actually was pretty good. Who is this McClintock guy? If you cut out the fluff, he nails it.
Obummer didn’t WIN anything. Hatch surrendered, bent over and grabbed his ankles. We won’t know the final outcome until Boner and the House do THEIR thing; but based on past performance, I wouldn’t count on THEM being any stronger than the Senate.
I first heard of him during the California recall election of 2003, which Ahrnold the Governator won. McClintock was the conservative in that race, coming in third with 13.4%.
I support free trade.
It should not be one way where we open our borders and the other nation can still levy tariffs on our goods. It should be balanced.
However, this piece of legislation is seriously flawed:
1) It is super secret. Senators were only allowed to go into a locked room to read it with supervision.
2) It grants powers to the POTUS that should remain with Congress.
3) Given the current POTUS, and our potential for another (HRC) why would Congress relinquish its role in trade deals?
So, I would oppose this based on the secrecy and extremely unwise centralizing of powers.
Ted Cruz should have opposed this on those grounds as well, just like Jeff Sessions did.
What the editorial fails to point out is that while the Chinese government knows what is in the deal, the average American is considered unworthy of this knowledge. Think about that for a moment.
Also, given the proclivity of this Congress to sell our birthrights for a mess of pottage, this simply makes that sort of bad deal all the more easy to achieve. The filibuster has protected the American people from numerous bad political deals, but the Senate has decided its not needed in this case. Not only is it not needed in their view, they want to make sure and tie the hands of future senators as yet unelected. So if by some miracle we were to get better representation than we have at some time in the next 6 years (unlikely as that may be), this legislation makes it that much more difficult for that representation to put the brakes on a rotten deal.
Why start now?
Since nobody seems to know what's in it, perhaps there are factors not yet clear that will clear their names....
Not any kookier than most of the other comments.
Yep, I thought about it for just a moment. China is not included in the TPP.
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