Rep. John Conyers Calls TTP: Fast Track to Job Losses

[bigtree]

Trans-Pacific Partnership: Fast Track to Job Losses
Posted: 01/29/2015


____The new Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) -- an agreement between the U.S. and Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam -- has rightfully been called "NAFTA on steroids." The 11-nation trade deal would force Americans to compete against workers from developing nations like Vietnam, where the minimum wage is less than 60 cents per hour.

Much like NAFTA, the TPP has more to do with big-business protectionism than with genuine free trade. Of TPP's 29 sections, only five relate to traditional trade issues like lowering tariffs. The rest of the chapters seek to limit the powers of governments to protect the safety of food, medicines, and the environment, as well as to forestall governments from implementing financial regulations of the sort that are needed to safeguard taxpayer money from bank bailouts. Most damaging of all, the TPP would create new incentives for corporations to ship jobs overseas and would forbid governments from using strategies like "Buy American" provisions that keep jobs in our country.

But the TPP is only part of the problem. This same failed NAFTA model is being replicated yet again though a massive new Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) with Europe. Like NAFTA and the TPP, this proposed agreement would empower corporations to offshore jobs, attack U.S. and Michigan consumer protections, and sue taxpayers.

Thankfully, there's a way to stop these deals. Because they contain individual provisions that are harmful to every group of Americans -- from farmers to factory workers -- the agreements will almost certainly be amended beyond recognition once they're debated openly in Congress, forcing international negotiators back to the drawing board. That's why the agreements' backers are pushing for a special legislative procedure known as Trade Promotion Authority, or "Fast Track," to remove Congress's power to decide on the content of trade agreements. Fast Track would prevent Congress from being able to fully debate and amend the TPP or TAFTA and would force lawmakers to consider the agreements under expedited timetables. Because Congress has constitutional authority over trade policy, members of the House and Senate have a sacred obligation not only to stop these destructive deals but to stop the usurpation of their constitutionally granted powers. By rejecting Fast Track, we can defeat the TPP and TAFTA.

In this era of partisanship and gridlock, the fight for fair trade is an extraordinary opportunity for Democrats and Republicans to come together. In the last Congress, 178 lawmakers from both parties signed letters expressing strong opposition to Fast Track. In the weeks ahead we will work to build on this support. Protecting American workers, consumers, and taxpayers from foreign lawsuits and a regulatory race to the bottom isn't liberal or conservative; it's simple common sense.


read: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-conyers/trans-pacific-partnership_b_6571496.html

[Autumn]

1. The TPP is the best thing ever.

At least I see a lot of DUers defending it. I often wonder if they did the same for NAFTA

[Buns_of_Fire]

11. Hey, trust us. You're just gonna LOVE it.

We won't even give you a hint about WHAT you're gonna love, but that would spoil the surprise!

Do I need this? +++> (I suppose. Better safe than sorry.)

[KoKo]

2. Uh...Oh....its "Huffington Post"

which is Propaganda....a disinformation source we are not supposed to read from for information about the TPP--according to the "CIC." Even when it is Representative John Conyers reporting it.

[Autumn]

3. It is all so confusing!!! Who can we trust???

Even history is nothing more than disinformation A worthless General who answers to the President decides he interprets the constitution, not the courts and doesn't have to answer to anyone is just exercising his 4th amendment rights. Yep.

[bigtree]

4. even when it's...

Barack Obama
44th President of the United States

A Blueprint for Middle-Class Economics
Posted: 01/29/2015

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barack-obama/obama-budget-middle-class-economics_b_6570948.html?1422544154

[kelliekat44]

5. I wish we could read it for ourselves. Where is Anonymous? nt

[think]

6. k&R

[colsohlibgal]

7. Obama Carrying On What Bubba Started

Crazy Ross Perot wasn't all crazy, he was dead on about trade deals, and this is a trade deal with even more added that's terrible for most of us.

[backwoodsbob]

15. at this point

I almost wish I had voted for Ross Perot

[djean111]

8. kick and rec and this is so important!!!!!

[ND-Dem]

9. k&r and thank you john conyers

[KoKo]

18. Recommend...

[Ykcutnek]

10. Spoken like a good puppet of Zane Walker and Karla Swift. nt

[Autumn]

12. I always considered Rep. Conyers a puppet of the American people, the vulnerable ones.

[Buns_of_Fire]

13. If you're going to be a puppet, being a puppet of the AFL-CIO is probably better

than being a puppet of some other organizations that anyone here could name without any trouble.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

14. More like a slow track to Palookaville. K&R

[TheKentuckian]

16. Uh oh...looks like we have another anonymous, racist, isolationist, uninformed,

Republican enabling, Obama hating internet crank all hopped up on the Huffington Post.

[hughee99]

17. Some people just can't get over the fact that we have a black president! n/t