White House's Fast Track Push Facing Serious Opposition

[unhappycamper]

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-johnson/53804/white-houses-fast-track-push-facing-serious-opposition

White House's Fast Track Push Facing Serious Opposition
by Dave Johnson | January 23, 2014 - 9:09am

The Hill reports that the White House is pushing hard for “fast track” trade promotion authority, to help push through the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other upcoming “trade” agreements. Meanwhile the yearly trade deficit resulting from previous trade agreements will likely approach $500 billion for 2013. Think about the boost $500 billion of orders for American-provided goods and services would give our economy.

~snip~

Fortunately few Democrats are falling for this. Introduced by lobbyist Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and the committee’s ranking Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) along with House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) the bill has found no Democratic co-sponsors and no members of the Democratic leadership have signed on. In fact, according to The Huffington Post last week, “The fast track trade bill introduced in the Senate last week will go nowhere anytime soon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday.” … “Asked if he told Baucus that Reid would make time on the floor of the U.S. Senate to debate the measure, Reid said ‘No,’ four times.”

In addition to problems in the Senate, HuffPo’s Zach Carter reports on problems in the House, in “Why House Democrats Might Kill Obama’s Big Trade Deal“:

“We want transparency. We want to see what’s going on there,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters. “We have a problem with that.”

[Demeter]

1. Lethal Opposition, please