MALKIN: Why America Hates the GOP-Obamatrade Deal
What part of "Stop selling out America!" does D.C. not understand?
Constitutional conservatives don't like it. Trade unions abhor it. Obama critics hate it. Environmentalists despise it.
Outside
the Beltway bubble, a broad coalition of voters from the left, right
and center opposes the mega-trade deal getting rammed through Congress
this week by the Republican establishment on behalf of the White House.
Here's why.
The
Obama administration, House GOP leader John Boehner and Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell have sold out American sovereignty. Their
so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership Commission will have sweeping
authority over trade, immigration, environmental, labor and commerce
regulations.
As
alert watchdogs U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., chairman of the
Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest and U.S. Rep
Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., warn: "By adopting fast-track, Congress would
be formally authorizing the President to finalize the creation of this
Pacific Union and will have surrendered its legislative prerogatives.
Before a word, line, paragraph, or page of this plan is made public,
Congress will have agreed to give up its treaty powers. ... In effect,
one of the most sweeping international agreements seen in years will be
given less legislative scrutiny and process than a Post Office reform
bill."
The
Obama administration, House GOP leader John Boehner and Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell have sold out legislative transparency. Boehner
smugly asserts that so-called Trade Promotion Authority puts Congress in
charge and promotes "more openness" on trade talks. Nonsense. Under the
Boehner/Obama plan, Congress gives up its ability to amend any trade
deals under fast track, severely limits the ability to debate and lowers
the vote threshold in the Senate from 61 to 51. The 11 international
parties negotiating with Obama on TPP refuse to sign their dotted lines
until Congress agrees to pre-agree to behemoth global trade pacts --
sight unseen.
As
Obamatrade cheerleader and Big Business crony Sen. Orrin Hack, I mean
Hatch, admitted, "I don't know fully what's in TPP myself."
The
secretive wheeling and dealing on the massive 29-chapter draft (kept
under classified lock-and-key and only a tiny portion of which have been
publicly disclosed through WikiLeaks) make the backroom Obamacare
negotiations look like a gigantic solar flare of openness and public
deliberation. Fast-track Republicans, who rightfully made a stink when
Nancy Pelosi declared that "we have to pass the [Obamacare] bill so that
you can find out what is in it," now have no transparency legs to stand
on.
The
Obama administration, House GOP leader John Boehner and Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell have sold out our immigration priorities. Both
parties have put cheap labor from illegal immigrants before American
workers. Both parties support massive increases in foreign temporary
worker programs that favor cheap tech workers from India and China over
highly educated, highly skilled American workers who are forced to train
their replacements. Both parties back fraud-plagued green card giveaway
programs for wealthy immigrant investors that amount to a crony
"economic development" racket. More Obamatrade documents disclosed by
WikiLeaks indicate that negotiators have discussed unilateral changes to
U.S. worker protections in visa law, processing times and temporary
visa expiration dates.
Supporting
free enterprise in America does not mean supporting a global
free-for-all for every last $2.00/hour entry-level foreign tech
journeyman. Past free-trade pacts have failed to live up to their
overhyped promises. University of Maryland economist Peter Morici notes
that under Obama's free trade pact with South Korea, imports with that
country "are up 3.6 billion" while "U.S. exports are down marginally and
the U.S. trade deficit with the Asian nation has swelled to 5 billion."
Meanwhile,
he reports, our wage-suppressing $350 billion bilateral trade deficit
with China "costs American workers at least 3 million jobs" and several
Asian countries now negotiating TPP "have violated WTO and International
Monetary Fund rules by purposefully undervaluing their currencies to
subsidize exports and raise prices for otherwise competitive U.S.
products in their markets."
Here
is what those of us against the GOP-Obamatrade bills can all agree on:
Both political parties in Washington are screwing over our country.
American citizens are sick and tired of the permanent ruling class
subverting the will of the people in the name of "bipartisanship." We've
had enough of Big Business betrayals and Big Government collusion.
What part of "Stop selling out America!" does D.C. not understand?
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