To save you the bother of looking through my posting history and to give the fair-minded reader the opportunity to judge for himself whether they contain "lame excuses" or "make me look foolish" I attached two below. A fair reading will convince a fair reader the Ted Cruz has behaved honorably and fully in accordance with conservative trade principles. The Trump supporters really have nowhere else to go against Ted Cruz who has never put a foot down wrong as far as I know. Alas, the same cannot be said concerning the biography or flip-flops of Donald Trump. Can one imagine, we are debating the relative merits of APA against all of the sins against conservatism committed by Donald Trump.
Here are the replies:
-----------------------
Is this all you got?
Folks, this is the extent of the Trump supporters' attack on Ted Cruz that they have made in all the months of this campaign so far. Oh, they're also upset because Cruz's wife worked for Goldman Sachs.
There is an entire argument on the other side, to wit: trade is ultimately good for the country, it is supported by traditional conservatives like the Heritage Foundation, it has always been supported by conservative Nobel prize winning economists like Milton Friedman. The idea that trade deals are bad for the American economy comes from Donald Trump which, like all Trump utterances, are unsupported with data specifically proving the point. Trump is nonspecific in his objections (except to complain of currency manipulation) and he is characteristically unspecific in relating whatever is wrong with these treaties to actual losses of jobs in identifiable industries.
Note this article makes many broad assumptions about the motivations by Cruz which are not otherwise substantiated.
All TPA does is call for an up or down vote in the House and Senate without the opportunity for amendments. This is a procedure that has been used time and again since the founding of the Republic, it has been blessed by the Supreme Court, it is clearly constitutional and is indispensable if trade deals are to be negotiated at all. No trade deals, no growth in the economy. If there is a demonstrably bad trade deal negotiated, your elected representatives in the House and the Senate can vote it down with a simple majority.
Time and again Trump supporters raise this issue (and H1B visas, a collateral matter) as though it were somehow a trespass on conservatism to support international trade deals. That is absolute rubbish.
I ask again, is this all you got?
............................
The president of the United States and the Secretary of State of the United States are vested by the Constitution with the power to negotiate trade deals.
All this legislation did which was voted on by a majority of Republican senators was to tell foreign negotiators that they could safely negotiate with the United States because whatever was agreed upon in the negotiations would not be killed by amendments in the House or the Senate. History shows that without those assurances, foreign governments simply will not negotiate trade deals.
Economics tells us that without trade deals our economy suffers terribly. To the degree that we presume (we must presume because Trump does not offer any data to support his charges, instead he says outlandish things like, "we don't win anything anymore" ) that some portions of some trade deals disadvantage some sectors of the American economy, that is simply inevitable in trade deals. For example, if Hollywood has more power than Detroit a trade deal will favor copyright of artistic work and permit the importation of foreign automobiles. That's the way of the world. The question is whether the economy over all grows and whether the trade deal is the product of crony capitalism or is the damage related to weak industries. A Darwinian approach is inevitable if you're going to have international trade because the efficient producers will be able to compete with some domestic inefficient producers. While that Darwinian process takes place, some jobs are lost inevitably, others, probably more than are lost, are created and the consumer certainly benefits.
Therefore any intelligent objection is not directed against the idea of trade deals but against the specifics of a given trait deal-you know about specifics those of the things Donald Trump has never met-which Congress has the power to vote down. Either house of Congress can kill the trade deal with a majority vote.
As to Ted Cruz's vote, his explanation is perfectly satisfactory to me and I believe to any fair-minded conservative.Watch the video, he makes a full explanation. Read his open letter, was misled by the establishment leadership of the Senate and of the House and when he found out the truth he switched his vote and went public.
There is no evidence whatsoever that Cruz was attempting, as alleged in this polemic posing as an article, to conceal his original vote in favor of TPA.
Apparently this is all you got and it ain't much.