Obama Wants to Fight Income Inequality…With More Free Trade?

[cali]

The president is expected to call for more liberalization agreements in the State of the Union. The only thing that will stimulate is liberal and conservative opposition to what looks like a plan for offshoring.

On Saturday, the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting, a.k.a. Davos, came to an end. But its spirit of transnational and bipartisan cooperation among the rich will live on—at least for a few more days: on Tuesday night, President Obama will deliver his fifth State of the Union Address.

Left unmentioned by the administration is that its expected proposals on trade stand to pit the Democratic and Republican bases against their respective parties’ elites. In addition to strenuously, repeatedly and regularly denouncing inequality, the president is expected to use the State of the Union to call for trade liberalization with 11 Asian and Latin American nations, and to seek Trade Promotion Authority (TPA). TPA is a congressional mechanism which would enable finalized trade deals to be considered on a legislative “fast track,” on a closed, as is, take it-or leave-it basis.

<snip>

Fast forward to the 2008 Democratic primaries, where Obama expressed his hostility to NAFTA because it favored Wall Street over Main Street—his words, not mine. In a debate held in the pivotal rust-belt swing state of Ohio and hosted by MSNBC, Obama announced that NAFTA “did not have the labor standards and environmental standards that were required in order to not just be good for Wall Street but also be good for Main Street.” For good measure, Obama added that, “I will make sure that we renegotiate, in the same way that Senator Clinton talked about.”

Did Obama really believe what he was saying? Well, while the candidate was decrying NAFTA in front of the cameras, Austan Goolsbee, Obama’s senior economic policy adviser, was secretly offering verbal succor to Canadian diplomats. According to Joseph De Mora, a Canadian political and economic affairs consular officer, Goolsbee admitted that Obama’s stated position was “more reflective of political maneuvering than policy.”

<snip>

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/27/obama-wants-to-fight-income-inequality-with-more-free-trade.html

HYPOCRITE WRIT LARGE- THAT'S OUR PREZ

[demmiblue]

1. Jesus H. Christ on a trailer hitch.

This is just revolting.

[djean111]

2. You are just looking at that "inequality" thing from the wrong direction.

The TPP and other trade agreements will put what's left of American workers on the same economic level as the more poverty-stricken countries. Then voila! we will have equality with other poorly paid workers, worldwide!
Were you thinking the TPP was meant to raise up anything but 1% profits? That the inequality to be addressed was between the 1% and the 99%? No, this will level - and LOWER - the playing field for workers all over the world. IMO, etc.

[magical thyme]

6. this....exactly. He does mean to reduce income inequality, by lowering US 99% to 3rd world incomes

Voila. All but the 1% will subsist equally.

[Armstead]

3. I am tired of Democrats I want to support pissing me off

Obama has so much going for him, and I share many of his (stated) views.

But he -- like the Clintons and many Dems who talk a good game makes it impossible to be wholeheartedly supportive of him because he always undermines it with crap like this.

[democratisphere]

4. Do as I say, not as I do.

We need a President and Congress of "We the Working People".

[Puzzledtraveller]

5. Why yes he does

Income inequality for other nations and people, you didn't think it was us did you?

[ProSense]

7. It's clear

"Obama Wants to Fight Income Inequality…With More Free Trade?"

...the President has some other proposals in mind. Some already enacted.

Proposal to Raise Tip Wages Resisted
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024394701

Krugman: Obama and the One Percent
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024391415

[Wilms]

10. .

[solarhydrocan]

8. He is convincing when he speaks

If candidates are just going to lie for 2 years why not cut back the election season to 6 months or so. It will save money that can go to the next bombing and invading of a country that the US doesn't like. Also, it makes fools of the Citizenry.

[djean111]

9. Yes, the dissonance between campaign blather and what really happens is pretty ridiculous.

I do not listen to speeches any more. Have not, for years. Mostly lies and dreck. Nothing to actually count on.
The money spent on campaigning, though - particularly since Citizens United - just flows from one set of deep pockets to another set, so doubties campaign money will be diverted into anything useful for the 99%.

[woo me with science]

11. I consider this treason.

It is yet one more massive and secretive step, trading our representative system of government for corporate rule.