From the right: Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): Bigger and More Dangerous Than ObamaCare

[pampango]

The Democrats in Congress passed ObamaCare in 2010, formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Three years later, in October of 2013, tens of millions of Americans began finding out what was really in the bill, as they began receiving health insurance cancellations and/or massive premium hikes. They also began to learn that under ObamaCare the IRS has been given new powers to go after them, their businesses, and their bank accounts. And that is only the beginning. As with all legislation, the devil is in the details, and lots of devils keep popping out of the constantly evolving details, as dozens of federal agencies continue churning out thousands of pages of regulations to implement the misbegotten, misnamed Affordable Care Act.

There are many important lessons from ObamaCare that we should apply to another huge project that could have a similarly devastating impact on our nation. In November 2009, President Obama announced his intention to have the United States participate in a so-called trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. I say so-called trade agreement because 80 percent of the proposed agreement deals with a great many issues besides trade.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, as it is called, is an all-out assault on our national sovereignty. It would unconstitutionally transfer legislative powers from the U.S. Congress, our state legislatures, and our city and county governments to multi-national corporations and unaccountable international bureaucrats at the World Trade Organization, or WTO. Incredibly, it also would transfer judicial powers from our federal and state courts — which are bad enough — to globalist TPP judges at regional tribunals and the WTO. It would also confer huge advantages on foreign businesses and large multinationals, while at the same time putting companies that operate here in America — especially small and medium-sized enterprises — at a competitive disadvantage. American businesses would remain shackled by the regulations of EPA, FDA, OSHA, etc. while their foreign competitors could operate here unimpeded by those same strictures.

Like the infamous NAFTA trade agreement passed in the '90s, the TPP would usher in another wave of outsourcing, as the remaining manufacturing and technology bases would be given incentives to move to Pacific Rim countries, resulting in millions more American job losses. With TPP negotiations on track to be completed by the end of 2013, President Obama will likely ask Congress to approve this trade agreement in early 2014. Contact your senators and representative and urge them to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and see the many additional articles listed below that we’ve published detailing the dangers of the TPP.

Related articles:

WikiLeaks Publishes Key Chapter of Secret TPP Agreement

Regional Scheme for the Pacific Rim

Trans-Pacific Partnership Ready for Christmas Delivery?

TPP Secret Trade Agreement Puts International Tribunal Above U.S.

The “Free Trade” Agenda Threatens Our Rights

Trans-Pacific Partnership: Secret Surrender of Sovereignty

Japan Set to Join TPP as Secret Negotiations Continue in Malaysia

Goal of TPP: Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP)

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/foreign-policy/item/17175-trans-pacific-partnership-tpp-bigger-and-more-dangerous-than-obamacare

[djean111]

1. So, if I agree that the TPP is indeed horrible, does that make me a Rightie?

I am not playing that game.

[pampango]

3. No. It means that some more conservative types don't like the TPP either.

In that sense opposition to the TPP is different from a liberal policies like raising taxes on the rich, increasing regulation of corporations and Wall Street, enhancing the safety net or repealing Taft-Hartley and reinstating Glass-Steagal. Conservatives don't support any of those, at all.

[djean111]

4. The TPP seems a weird mash-up of right-wing disdain for regulations and 1% greed to me.

None of it can be considered as something that a liberal Dem would espouse - a DINO or Third Way acolyte, sure. IMO and all that.
Guess the GOP can say "worse than Obamacare" because, in a roundabout way, it sure is, even if one LIKES Obamacare.

[subterranean]

6. It's not the GOP saying that.

It's some right-wing website. The GOP, for the most part, loves the TPP because it will benefit corporations and the 1% at the expense of everyone else.

[pampango]

8. You are right. "The GOP" is split on this between the corporate and tea party wings.

Executive-power-wary Tea Partiers and labor-aligned Democrats could block "fast-track" authority for two huge agreements.

It is generally agreed that the Obama will not be able to conclude the TPP and TTIP negotiations unless Congress grants him Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) -- commonly known as "fast-track" -- which guarantees that Congress will hold a straight up or down vote on any trade agreement the president negotiates.

When Congress grants TPA to a president, the authorizing legislation always includes negotiating objectives. This is a reminder to the president that he is acting as a delegate from Congress. The negotiating objectives themselves, however, often become the major point of contention. It was a battle over labor and environmental standards, for example, that prevented the House from granting President Clinton fast-track authority in 1998.

In the Senate, Democrat Max Baucus is already leading the charge for the renewal of TPA. He can expect significant Republican support, but may have some trouble corralling members of his own party. Democrat Sherrod Brown, whose power base in Northeast Ohio's Rust Belt remains upset about the 1994 NAFTA, has already expressed reservations. And since fast-track authorization is subject to filibuster, Obama may need all the votes he can get.

The battle in the House might be even more interesting. ... One can easily see an odd alliance in the House between progressive Democrats, who reflect the concerns of organized labor, and Tea Party Republicans, who don't want to give power away to the president. Even Rep. Darrell Issa, usually a free-trade advocate, might oppose it because of suspicions about the secretive nature of the TPP negotiations.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/the-odd-bipartisan-coalition-that-could-sink-obamas-free-trade-legacy/276938/

[djean111]

9. I pretty much think of GOP as being right-wing, I guess.

This is going to be difficult for the GOP, perhaps - loving the TPP but having to be on record as hating it because it belongs to Obama. Maybe that will help sink that thing, who knows.

[Ed Suspicious]

2. On this point I agree. TPP is bullshit and anyone selling it on the basis of being opposite of what

repukes want is full of shit themselves. A bad treaty is a bad treaty. Don't let you principles be guided by a weather vane

[bullwinkle428]

5. This would indicate to me that there are actually a few

right-wingers out there that are waking up and smelling the coffee!

[KoKo]

7. I was wondering when someone on the Right would pipe up about TPP!

Thanks for the article!

It will take a mighty coalition to stop this from passing. That's its being done in Secret is the issue that should have all Americans up in arms no matter what their politics.

[ProSense]

10. From the right:

The Democrats in Congress passed ObamaCare in 2010, formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Three years later, in October of 2013, tens of millions of Americans began finding out what was really in the bill, as they began receiving health insurance cancellations and/or massive premium hikes. They also began to learn that under ObamaCare the IRS has been given new powers to go after them, their businesses, and their bank accounts. And that is only the beginning. As with all legislation, the devil is in the details, and lots of devils keep popping out of the constantly evolving details, as dozens of federal agencies continue churning out thousands of pages of regulations to implement the misbegotten, misnamed Affordable Care Act.

...massive BS for the John Bircher's.

What's so "dangerous" about ObamaCare?

ObamaCare: The Plan Is to Transition to "Single-Payer" Socialized Medicine
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/health-care/item/16904-obamacare-the-plan-is-to-transition-to-single-payer-socialized-medicine

Run for the hills!!!

[pampango]

11. In this case, the unconnected-to-reality attack on Obamacare serves to prove that the author is

a real conservative so that his presumably-conservative readers will believe what he writes.