Toast Cruz, Obama supporter and enabler on ObamaTRADE,
is no Ronald Reagan.
Ronald Reagan would NOT have given Obama more power,
would NOT have spit in his voters' and supporters' faces,
and would NOT have voted for something SECRET.
Posted on 06/23/2015 5:43:39 PM PDT by SoConPubbie
Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) has penned a column for Breitbart explaining his shift from support to opposition on Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), the “fast track” legislation that would enable the current president and his successor to negotiate trade deals that Congress would then be able to vote up or down, but not amend.
Senator Cruz, a contender for the GOP presidential nomination, still supports free trade and, in principle, sees fast-track as helpful to that end. Nevertheless, he says GOP leadership’s sleight-of-hand has convinced him that, if not amended, the current TPA bill will become a scheme for passing bad legislation having little to do with trade — namely, immigration “reform” and reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank.
In his initial vote in favor of TPA, the senator intimates that he was misled by Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), who, when pressed on the matter, testily represented to him that there were no side-deals on Ex-Im. Cruz opposes reauthorization of the bank, which is scheduled to expire at the end of this month. He describes Ex-Im as “a classic example of corporate welfare” and cronyism at its worst” — a position Veronique de Rugy has repeatedly and (in my view) compellingly argued here on the Corner. (See archive, here.)
Because a bipartisan group of senators who support Ex-Im — led by Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.) and presidential hopeful Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) — blocked TPA when it first came up for a vote in the Senate, Cruz suspects a deal was being pushed to obtain their support for TPA in exchange for a vote to reauthorize the bank.
Though McConnell promised him there was no such understanding, Cruz suggests that this flies in the face of what happened in the House. There, several Republicans proposed to Speaker John Boehner that they would support TPA if he agreed not to cut a deal with Democrats to reauthorize Ex-Im. Cruz writes, “Boehner declined. Instead, it appears he made the deal with Democrats, presumably tossing in the Ex-Im Bank and also increasing tax penalties on businesses.” Moreover, Cruz observes, Boehner is punishing conservatives who opposed him, “wrongly stripping Rep. Mark Meadows (R., N.C.) of his subcommittee chairmanship, and reportedly threatening to strip other conservatives of their chairmanships as well.”
Add to this the specter of TPA as the fast track to immigration amnesty that President Obama and bipartisan “reform” advocates have been unable to pass through the normal legislative process. Senator Cruz notes that he and Senator Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) were blocked by Republican leadership from votes on amendments they proposed to bar fast-track treatment for any trade deals that attempt to impact U.S. immigration law.
Cruz recalls that he and Senator Sessions were told their fears about the abuse of trade legislation to remake immigration law were “unfounded.” At this point, however, he says he is done with such oral assurances — he wants commitments that are written expressly into the laws:
Enough is enough. I cannot vote for TPA unless McConnell and Boehner both commit publicly to allow the Ex-Im Bank to expire—and stay expired. And, Congress must also pass the Cruz-Sessions amendments to TPA to ensure that no trade agreement can try to back-door changes to our immigration laws. Otherwise, I will have no choice but to vote no.
Cruz further castigates GOP leadership for consistently caving in to Democrats and “disregard[ing] promises made to the conservative grassroots.” The full column is worth reading.
I have argued here against the meritless contention that TPA is unconstitutional. Furthermore, if you think trade agreements are good for the country, the chance of getting good trade agreements without fast-track authority is unlikely. From a strategic standpoint, I continue to believe we are more likely to get bad legislation if Congress can amend these agreements to make them marginally more palatable (but not materially better); a bad deal is more likely to lose in a straight up-or-down vote.
That said, while trade agreements are (or can be) very beneficial, they do not come in a vacuum. Like everything else, the authority for making them in a fast-track mode has to be weighed against other considerations — and trust is a big part of that equation.
If I were convinced, as Senator Cruz appears to be, that TPA — regardless of its legal and policy soundness — had become a smokescreen for slamming through non-trade legislation that would be worse for the country than trade is good for the country, I would not support it either.
He has a deadline to meet at the end of the month. There was a campaign push to fundraise the past couple of days. I received a letter. I’m guessing that what really happened was that the money wasn’t rolling in as fast. I’m sure he was getting a lot of negative feedback from supporters.
There is no other way to look at it SoConPubbie.
Cruz is saying he NOW does not support TPA 1. He was misled. It was a bad deal. There’s no way around that.
He is saying he does not support TPA 2
He was misled on TPA 1.
He discovered the perfidy on TPA 2.
Where has he been for the last 20 years!
Perhaps. But maybe it’s possible that his suck ups, enablers and excuse makers will just look the other way and pretend it did not happen the way it happened.
Then take your rose colored glasses off and look at it objectively.
> “He would not admit to being misled by McConnell on the first, if there wasn’t something wrong with it.”
Are you speaking for Senator Cruz now?
How can the first TPA be bad if expiration of the EX-IM Bank was assured and was in the Bill that was sent to the House?
Now that the TPA has come back to the Senate from the House where the democrats in the House amended the bill to renew the EX-IM Bank, Senator Cruz voted NO.
What is wrong with your comprehension here? Don’t you know from all these threads on this subject that Boehner allowed the democrats to amend the Bill to allow such things as renewal of EX-IM? And many other things as well.
What kind of narrative are you trying to build?
I see clearly that TPA went out from the Senate to the House as a good bill which did no harm and it came back as a different bill with harmful provisions.
What do you see differently?
Are you saying Cruz or anyone should have looked into a crystal ball to see that the House Bill would be amended by liberals and that conservative amendments would be blocked?
I’ll put it into a simple example.
Say I’m in Houston, TX. I go to a Walmart that I am told is a normal Walmart by a colleague. I enter the parking lot and see the Walmart building with normal logos. I enter the store and everything looks normal.
I give a Walmart cashier a 10 dollar bill for payment of an item I want to purchase. The cashier gives me change in Brazilian Real.
Was I supposed to be able and predict the cashier would do that?
Where do you get off trying to hang everything you can around Ted Cruz’ neck?
I’ve asked repeatedly of a handful of anti-Cruz trolls who are constantly all over these threads with the same attacks why they don’t hang Senator Sessions for his vote on the SECRET Iran deal. And not one of them can answer except to divert to another subject or to launch a personal attack.
But if Senator Cruz so much as mentions a kind word about Free Trade as in making an agreement for American producers to sell their goods overseas, you try and bring the house down on him!
Senator Cruz voted YES for a good bill and then voted NO when the Bill was returned as a bad bill. What is so sinister about that?
And if Senator Cruz is such a fraud for voting on the original TPA (which was quite good), then why is Senator Sessions not a fraud for voting for the SECRET Iran deal?
You see where this leads? It leads to insanity. Your whole ‘schtick’ is to hang Ted Cruz in any way you can while ignoring the votes of other fine conservatives.
Mike Lee did not vote NO on the latest incarnation of TPA. Does that make him a fraud as well?
Yes, you are engaged in insanity trying to bring a good man down through false misleading threads and comments.
It won’t work. Ted Cruz has been talking to the grassroots everywhere he goes where he asked about these troubling trade issues and he succeeds in gathering wide fervent support in spite of a handful of trolls that are trying to stir up a sinister narrative.
No, that is what he said.
That is what you guys refuse to admit.
I'm not speaking for anyone. This portion of the article above has Cruz being the one suggesting he was misled.
> “Cruz is saying he NOW does not support TPA 1.”
Bullsh*t noted.
No mystery. Levin sponsor obamatrade.com is American Jobs Alliance. Their website leaves no doubt where they stand which is 180 degrees from free trade.
Andrew is clearly supportive of Ted’s position on this.
Ted changed his position once he determined that Congressional leaders were being dishonest.
Ted is very presidential, a once in a generation Reagan conservative.
Do you consider NAFTA to have been “free market” trading?
That is according to what your boy Cruz just told a few million people. He said that the TPA DOES NOT have any prohibitive immigration language in it. Can I repeat what he said: He and Senator Sessions failed to get a clause inserted that would prohibit any changes in U.S. immigration law forever in TPA. Gowdy said that it did. Get snotty with them.
Toast Cruz, Obama supporter and enabler on ObamaTRADE,
is no Ronald Reagan.
Ronald Reagan would NOT have given Obama more power,
would NOT have spit in his voters' and supporters' faces,
and would NOT have voted for something SECRET.
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