Boom: House Rejects Fast Track... For Now
from the down-it-goes dept
Without getting too down in the procedural weeds, just a little while ago, the House of Representatives effectively blocked "fast track authority" for the White House on trade deals -- for now. There was a lot of political maneuvering, and apparently the President started pushing hard on Congressional Democrats to support the trade deals. Many thought the last minute push would make it happen, but with Nancy Pelosi saying that Congress needed to "slow down" fast track, fast track basically came off the table. Again, how this was done involved a lot of gamesmanship and technically a later vote on fast track actually passed very narrowly (219 to 211), but it doesn't matter, because an earlier vote on a different, related measure, needed to pass as well, as the two issues were bundled together. After a bunch of confusing procedural moves, it appears that the House of Representatives will take another shot at this next week, but considering that the key provision went down by a 302 to 126 vote, a lot of arms need to be twisted in the next week and that may not be possible. If the vote next week fails, then things are extremely bleak for the future of "fast track" and the various trade agreements the USTR is pushing.The whole setup was somewhat confusing, because that official 302 to 126 vote was against Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), a program for helping workers whose jobs are displaced by trade. Such a program is usually supported by Democrats, but was rejected here in order to block Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), which was bundled with TAA on the Senate side. The later "show vote" for TPA is meaningless, because it would now need to go back to the Senate for a new vote, and the Senate won't approve TPA without TAA. And, of course, all of this is needed for the USTR and Obama to get the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) approved. And, if you're confused by the fact that TAA, TPA and TPP all sound sorta similar, don't worry: that's all on purpose to confuse the hell out of you and most of the rest of the public.
Rest assured, however, that what happened today was the House of Representatives pumping the brakes on trade agreements like the TPP, after months of really heavy pressure from the White House, which had really ramped up in the past few weeks and days. This is a big blow to the USTR's program. It doesn't mean the House won't eventually get there, but it's not going to be an easy path, and this certainly could put agreements like the TPP (and TTIP and TISA) at risk.
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Filed Under: congress, fast track, house of representatives, taa, tpa, tpp, trade promotion, ustr
Reader Comments
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all we can do is hope. there has been nothing good come out of anyof these deals and they are only raised in the first place to screw the people, not other businesses, industries of countries. the main aim being to stop copyright theft, illegal downloading, propping up the (hopefully) dying models of the movie and music studios then lengthening copyright terms, raising any and all punishments, then similar things for patents. one main area being to ensure Pharma companies can carry on playing God over who lives and who dies, simply by stopping any 'look-a-like' drugs on to the market! let's hope there are no changes to the vote!
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Trade Agreements
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"T"
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TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT TTTT
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Re: "T"
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Re: Re: "T"
Sockpuppet fail?
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Re: "T"
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FTFY
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Re: Re: "T"
This is censorship!!
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Re:
They'll keep trying, which means people need to keep opposing them. They can score occasional victories sure, but they only really win when people let them.
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Re: Re:
That is the problem, once a law is enacted it is very rarely repealed.
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Take Ron Paul for example... the is no more or less nuts than any other politician, but you will find that people have little tolerance for his type.
He advocates the abolition of the Fed and IRS.
Jesse Ventura said that the law was to complicated to serve his fellow man. That is a wisdom seldom seen.
Something you people need to learn... all of the politicians you think are normal people... those are the ones to watch out for... because they did a damn good job paying off people and coaching themselves to hide their faults. These are nearly guaranteed to be the most corruptible of people. All the whacky ones... those with weird habits and goofy bullshit that spews from time to time tend to be more honest because they are not so deceitful as to spend time hiding their bullshit from others.
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Then whichever branch wants to have unilateral law-making powers like this, they'll have to get this law repealed* by all three branches to succeed.
* yes, they might be able to do a two-step and just get it modified to begin with, but it would still be almost as tricky as repealing copyright.
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Re: Re:
The president would veto such a bill, and if the veto were overruled, I don't think it would pass constitutional muster. That process is just not what the Constitution outlines for how laws are made. You'd have to amend the Constitution to get this done.
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New Zealand
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TD - Please include bill numbers.
Mike,
Agreed. It can get extremely confusing.
Please consider doing us a public service by including, whenever possible, the House and Senate bill numbers in your posts (e.g., Trade Adjustment Assistance(TAA)(H.R. 1314)). That would make it much easier on those that care to see which way their reps voted and see the bills/resolutions status (e.g., at https://www.congress.gov).
Thanks,
Anonymous Coward
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Yes it was confusing
Anything you read crediting Pelosi with stopping this is based on her flacks' false account. Pelosi and Obama lost today, and the Democratic party regained a smidgeon of their lost honor.
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Political Suicide
That was my first thought when I saw she voted "no". That, and confusion.
As far as I'm concerned, TPP, TTIP, etc. amount to nothing less than the plutocrats publicly declaring an all out war on our democracy. And they're making it very easy to spot the enemy. Any Representative voting in support of this garbage is committing political suicide. Whether Democrat, Republican, Independent, or other, knowing whether or not to ever vote for your Rep again is as easy as seeing how they voted on these bills. No matter what pretty words they try to wrap around a "yes" vote, you really don't need to give them any further consideration.
As for the Democrats voting in favor of this nonsense - see you in the primaries, bitches!
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why would this be needed if jobs weren't going away in the first place.
just sit still while i stitch up this knife wound that you'll be getting soon.
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If only they would die of SSFTADS
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