House Democrats Take the Moral High Ground on Trade

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-bottari/house-democrats-take-the_b_7587450.html

Mary Bottari



President Obama made a rare visit to Capitol Hill on Friday in a last-ditch effort to rescue his free-trade agenda. He gave a short speech and took no questions, urging the House Democratic caucus to "play it straight," swallow their doubts, and hand over to him their constitutional authority to negotiate the terms of trade.

This was no small ask. With "fast-track" trade authority, Obama would be able to jam controversial trade agreements, including the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), through Congress with little debate and no amendments.

Obama's attempt to guilt House Democrats, after ignoring their concerns and working almost exclusively with Republicans for months, went over like a lead balloon. Democrats voted down a critical part of his trade package, stalling the fast-track bill and three related trade agreements under negotiation.

Stopping Fast Track

While the House voted narrowly to pass the fast-track trade bill, they voted 126-302 to reject an accompanying bill on Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA). TAA is a program that pays for retraining some workers whose factories are shuttered and sent overseas. The revolt was supported by House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, who called it "the only way to slow down fast track."

FULL story at link.

[Madchen Marie]

1. TPP is ethically wrong.

The hidden agenda in the TPP is very dangerous for small countries like New Zealand. Under the leaked provisions, we loose our autonomy to giant US corporations. Our social health system will greatly suffer. We will be sued by those corporations for labeling dangerous goods, like cigarettes, food, petrochemicals among others. We will basically be ruled by US corporations. This trade agreement is not worth it! Our present prime minister is a Wall Street banker directly before he got elected. Obama has been generally a good guy about most things, but he's wrong about this. The Corporations have enough power. If anything, we should be trying to limit that power. Let's get the Truth out!

[gopiscrap]

2. Welcome to DU