AS IF HE NEEDED THEM …
|| By FITSNEWS || There are millions of reasons why politicians in Washington, S.C. should oppose “fast track” – the first phase of U.S. president Barack Obama‘s effort to ram a crony capitalist trade deal through the U.S. Congress.
Among those reasons? The millions of American jobs which would be jeopardized should this secretive agreement be passed. In fact all you really need to know about “Obamatrade” is the debate over it in Congress has centered around how much taxpayer money should be set aside to cover all the jobs it’s going to cost our country.
Yeah … how’s that for reassuring?
“Obamatrade” is a two-part deal. The first part is called “fast track,” or trade promotion authority (TPA). This would give Obama the authority to unilaterally write and enforce TPP, which is the “Trans-Pacific Parternship” – a massive trade deal with Pacific Rim nations. By approving TPA, the U.S. Congress would surrender its role in American trade negotiations to Obama – allowing him to continue secretly conducting a deal which would endorse foreign currency manipulation, subsidize the outsourcing of U.S. jobs and erode America’s rule of law.
It’s a power grab in the name of eroding American economic strength … and the fact a single “Republican” in Congress is supporting it is truly disheartening.
Anyway, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham has supported “fast track” authority for Obama even though the trade deal the administration is pushing would be terrible for his home state of South Carolina (see HERE and HERE).
Last month, though, Graham briefly threatened to pull his support for “fast track.”
How come? Because U.S. Senate leaders promised him a vote on the crony capitalist U.S. Export-Import Bank – a glorified slush fund for big corporations which Graham supports (and we oppose).
Graham never got his slush fund vote, though … yet now those same U.S. Senate leaders are asking him to cast another critical vote in support of “Obamatrade.” Which leads us to the first of three (more) reasons why Graham should say “no.”
1. He got punked once already.
Graham traded his vote on the first critical “Obamatrade” tally in exchange for the Senate agreeing to take up his favored crony capitalist slush fund. They didn’t. So he should be true to his word now and oppose “fast track.”
The other two reasons?
2. He’s running for president.
Sure, Graham’s Quixotic campaign isn’t actually about winning the White House (he’s running to attack Rand Paul, to pimp the U.S. military-industrial complex and position himself for a cabinet position in a “Republican” administration), but still … arguing on the campaign trail in favor of Obamatrade would put him at odds with most of his GOP rivals. Even the more liberal ones.
3. He opposes currency manipulation.
Graham has consistently opposed the practice of currency manipulation – which enables foreign countries like China to gain an unfair competitive advantage in the global marketplace. “Obamatrade” provides absolutely no protections against currency manipulation – which is pretty important when you consider the deal will impact an estimated 40 percent of the global economy.
Graham shouldn’t need any additional reasons to oppose “Obamatrade.” But these are three compelling ones in the event he does …
9 comments
‘Fast Track’? That’s what he said to me after putting a bag over his head,and pulling out the K-Y
Again Fitsnews shows his true sentiment by siding with the liberal Democrats against the conservative Republicans like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Tim Scott. (Mention of Tim Scott is suspiciously absent from this article.)
The votes in the House and Senate have been predominantly party line votes.
Every single point that Fits makes is wrong. But the most egregious error is that South Carolina will be harmed.
1.South Carolina is a completely different state now that when NAFTA was passed. We were dependent on low wage, tarriff protected, outdated, low skilled, domestic market industries.
Now the vast majority of our industries are higher wage, foreign tariff restricted, modern, high skilled, export market driven industries. Thank god for NAFTA for forcing SC to make that long term beneficial transition. Since 1999, South Carolina’s exports have increased by over 2000%.
2. South Carolina has one of the best ports in the nation. One of the easiest to upgrade to the new Panamax standard and the most room for expansion. We also have the last undeveloped natural ports in the nation on the north Shore of the the Savannah river.
3. The opposition to free trade is almost totally focused on the corny capitalist private sector unions effort to protect themselves from competition. They care nothing about South Carolina. Throughout the last hundred years, the unions have pressured unionized companies not to create jobs in South Carolina and when they have, they have done their best (sometimes successfully) to see that they fail.
Nikki Haley KILLED point #2 when she took Georgia bribe money to allow Port of Savannah tailings to be dumped in that “natural port” area, thus eliminating them. In fact, it was the lawyers for the Savannah Port Authority who made the “campaign donation” to her.
What bribe? I don’t recall any conviction. The new port would cost 2 billion. Upgrading Savannah is 500 million. When Savannah reaches capacity, the South Carolina side will be developed. That is decades away.
#3 is simply a lie. As to the decline in unions, corporations have been allowed to become large enough to control government policies, and they have put substantial money into killing workers’ rights.
The fact is, freer trade has taken away the unions monopoly on labor, which is great for the consumer both in price and innovation.
#1 is not true. In fact, SC never really recovered from NAFTA.
China does not meet the TPP standards.
And China is not a member of TPP.