Friday, May 8, 2015

PPT Spells the End of the US Economy

Trade Authority For Obama Will Cut Congress Out Of Picture, BY RICK MANNING , Investor's Business Daily, 05/06/2015
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President Obama should be denied Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) or fast-track trade authority that enables a simple majority-vote passage of his nearly completed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
That is the conclusion that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and real estate and media mogul Donald Trump all reached this past week in public announcements.
But it's a quietly released memorandum from Sen. Jeff Sessions titled "Critical Alert: Top Five Concerns with Trade Promotion Authority" that's rocking the Capitol as it lays bare the issue with the insightful intelligence for which Alabama's junior senator is renowned.
Beyond the obvious absurdity of a Republican Congress that campaigned on reining in President Obama's power-grab ceding even more power to the executive branch, the Sessions memo hits one issue that no thinking limited-government supporter can accept: The TPP is a "living document."
The battle over fast-tracking the TPP can be better understood when one realizes that it is not a traditional trade deal but rather a comprehensive regulatory treaty designed to "harmonize" regulations between participating nations, with sections ranging from immigration to intellectual property to environmental law.
Here is how Sessions characterizes the "living document" section of the TPP:
"A USTR (U.S. Trade Representative) outline of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (which TPA would expedite) notes in the 'Key Features' summary that the TPP is a 'living agreement.'
"This means the president could update the agreement 'as appropriate to address trade issues that emerge in the future as well as new issues that arise with the expansion of the agreement to include new countries.'
"The 'living agreement' provision means that participating nations could add countries to the TPP without Congress' approval (like China) and change any of the terms of the agreement, including in controversial areas such as the entry of foreign workers and foreign employees.
"Again: These changes would not be subject to congressional approval."
In essence, TPP would give this and future presidents unprecedented authority to add countries to it and change the terms Congress ratified, after the fact, effectively ending Congress' role in the treaty-making process forever.
Should TPP be ratified, no nation would choose to subject itself to the congressional ratification process through a bilateral deal when they could garner the economic benefits of a trade deal with the stroke of a president's pen.
And given a treaty's unique capacity to override conflicting regulations and statutory laws, it is reasonable to be concerned that this president or a future one would walk through the door of renegotiating the language, negating the need to consult Congress while affecting his own version of fundamental transformation.
Members of Congress have a responsibility to read the terms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership before they vote to fast-track it, even as private citizens are barred from doing so under treaty-making rules.
While the process for accessing the treaty is arduous, the stakes are too high for anyone to blithely proclaim that they are for "free trade" so they support fast-track and by inference the TPP. At the least, they should read Sen. Sessions' analysis based on publicly available documents before ratifying what the president calls "the most progressive trade deal in history."
After reading the Sessions analysis, there is no excuse for any Republican to support fast-tracking the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
• Manning is president of Americans for Limited Government.
Source:http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-viewpoint/050615-751349-fast-track-authority-lets-president-avoid-congressional-approval.htm?p=2

Comments
PPT is economic suicide for American workers. If you think it’s bad now, you have no idea how bad it gets with over 50% real unemployment.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

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