Jason Riley at Fox News, skews truth about Fast Track Trade Authority’s opposition

[g5000]

Here's why the TPP negotiations have to be secret, and why the final agreement needs to be an up or down vote with no amendments:

Remember Obama's protectionist tire tariff? China was supposedly dumping tires in the US, and the labor unions were crying it was costing American jobs. So Obama increased tariffs, and American jobs were saved. All hail Obama!

Except it caused the price of tires to go up, which hurts retailers.


That's the way it is with EVERYTHING. You want to buy a shirt? Well, the retailer wants those shirts as cheap as possible, and so they pay lobbyists to pressure Congresscritters to keep the cost of imports low since their shirts are made overseas by cheap labor. But then the labor unions pay their lobbyists to pressure Congresscritters to raise the cost of imports to save jobs.

No matter which way you decide, somebody wins and somebody loses.

This is a textbook case of "you can't make all of the people happy all of the time". No matter what product you can name, there are lobbies who have conflicting interests.

We're talking trillions of dollars of goods at stake here. And every jackass in Congress is going to want to tweak any agreement which affects a special interest lobbyist who is breathing down his neck, and fuck everybody else. If you allowed debate and amendments, no trade treaty would ever get passed.

And that is why the negotiations are secret and why the whole treaty is an up or down vote.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Here's why the TPP negotiations have to be secret, and why the final agreement needs to be an up or down vote with no amendments:

Remember Obama's protectionist tire tariff? China was supposedly dumping tires in the US, and the labor unions were crying it was costing American jobs. So Obama increased tariffs, and American jobs were saved. All hail Obama!

Except it caused the price of tires to go up, which hurts retailers.


That's the way it is with EVERYTHING. You want to buy a shirt? Well, the retailer wants those shirts as cheap as possible, and so they pay lobbyists to pressure Congresscritters to keep the cost of imports low since their shirts are made overseas by cheap labor. But then the labor unions pay their lobbyists to pressure Congresscritters to raise the cost of imports to save jobs.

This is a textbook case of "you can't make all of the people happy all of the time". No matter what product you can name, there are lobbies who have conflicting interests.

We're talking trillions of dollars of goods at stake here. And every jackass in Congress is going to want to tweak any agreement which affects his particular district, and fuck everybody else. In that situation, no treaty would ever get passed if everyone was attaching amendments and fighting over them.

And that is why the negotiations are secret and why the whole treaty is an up or down vote.

yes and lets not forget that the folks who make the tires are well organized while the people who buy them , thou just as important , are not so politicians are stuck listening to the whining of those who make stuff.