Business Group Urges “No” Vote On Obamatrade

“REPUBLICAN” HOUSE SHOULD LISTEN TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, NOT BARACK OBAMA

|| By FITSNEWS || This website has repeatedly expressed its opposition to “Obamatrade” – U.S. president Barack Obama‘s effort to ram a crony capitalist global trade deal through the U.S. Congress.

Efforts to force this deal through the U.S. House failed last week, although some nifty parliamentary moves by “Republican” leaders have revived the measure.

For those of you unfamiliar with the issue, “Obamatrade” consists of two key components.  The first is a vote to grant Obama trade promotion authority (a.k.a. TPA or “fast track”), which means his administration would be able to continue negotiating all sorts of secretive provisions behind the public’s back.  The second vote is to approve the secretive deal itself – dubbed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

A vote for either is a vote to betray American jobs and consumers.

We’ve written exhaustively on this issue – debunking the idea that Obama’s secretive Pacific Rim pact is “free trade.”  It isn’t.  We’ve also written extensively on how the deal is bad for the national economy and for the economy here in South Carolina.

We’re not the only ones.  Americans for Limited Government (ALG) and its leader – Rick Manning – have been leading the fight against Obamatrade.  Still are.

This week the US Business and Industry Council joined the effort – urging lawmakers to reject the critical first Obamatrade vote while slamming “Republican” leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner for using “parliamentary tricks” to advance it.

“The Obama-Boehner-McConnell scheme to ram TPA through the Congress using parliamentary tricks is a sign of desperation,” said Kevin L. Kearns, the group’s president.  “They know that the more the American people know about TPA and TPP, the more likely they are to reject them and the Members of Congress backing them.  Fast track trade authority is opposed by large majorities of the American people, of all political persuasions, in polls that actually ask specifically about it. Members of the House should follow the lead of the American people and not the Obama administration.”

Absolutely …

This is a terrible deal – and lawmakers know it.

That’s why “Republicans” are promising Democrats they will insert a so-called “trade adjustment assistance” (TAA) provision into the deal after the fact.  What’s that?  A tax hike, pure and simple – a bailout for Big Labor.  Basically, TAA would expand a costly government program aimed at helping American workers likely to lose their jobs as a result of Obamatrade’s passage (which if you think about it, ought to tell you everything you need to know about this deal).

As we did with last week’s votes on Obamatrade, FITS will be updating readers on how South Carolina’s delegation voted on this critical issue.

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