Posted on 06/14/2015 8:41:48 PM PDT by TNMOUTH
Thank you
Most of us got our picture taken with him, too at no extra charge. What a great deal!
Steve and I attended the round table discussion. Mark Thomas of Canadian County asked him if he thought he could keep his principles while serving in office (my version of the question). Cruz said yes, he could.
Steve Byas asked Cruz about TPA/TPP. Cruz spent a good deal of time on this answer. He said he voted for TPA because every President had had TPA until Harry Reid killed it. Cruz said all this does is fast track any trade agreement.
Cruz said TPP is still being worked out. They have yet to vote on TPP. Cruz said the big deal with TPP is that it is being kept secret. Cruz has read it and called for it to become public.
He said any country can say which portions of the agreement they will and will not abide by. He said there is nothing in it that would cause us to lose our sovereignty. He said he has always been a free trade guy.
Cruz came across as a very sincere guy, I thought. He shook many of our hands (including mine) as he came into the room.
Then, when we went across the street to the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame--which was a great and handy place to hold it---Cruz went around to several tables and shook their hands, too.
Cruz gave a great speech---he will fight for us, he went to DC and has told the truth and did what he said he would do, he things the US can be turned around and he thinks the GOP will win this time if we do not nominate in the same mold as John McCain and Mitt Romney; "He's someone I could see sitting in the Oval Office" ~Donna Byas
When he finished the speech, he got a very, very, very long standing ovation. It went on so long, that after he sat down, he stood up again to acknowledge it and kind of put his hands in the shape to tell the crowd thanks but that's enough---It was a really long standing ovation.
He is a great speaker and he does have charisma. He seems very sincere and the real deal. He did so well that I changed my Facebook picture to the picture Steve and I took with him today.
I was kind of waffling--heading towards Walker, but Cruz just really made me a believer today. It's the 2nd time I have seen him speak---we went to see Cruz and Sarah Palin and Mike Lee speak for TW in Tulsa during the US Senate race--though we supported Randy Brogdon.
Cruz is an excellent speaker. He's someone I could see sitting in the Oval Office, standing in front of the cameras before all of Congress and the US Senate making a State of the Union address, or sitting down eye ball to eye ball with Putin and drawing a line in the sand about some invasion or other nuclear war heads or something.
He also is a friend of Israel. I think he said we need to make our enemies fear us and our friends know they have an ally. I think he would do that.
Oh, and the food was very good. We also had cheesecake again, and Steve said it was very good---as I decided I ought to cut back somewhere. We had some sort of fancy chicken with vegetables---very good. It was well attended.
Oh...and all the money went to the Oklahoma GOP which I thought was a stand up, generous, and great thing to do of Ted as he had to miss the Gala because of the NSA vote. So, the OKGOP has twice made money off Ted Cruz's name. He did show up onscreen from DC but being there in person is quite different.
I really thought Cruz would have won the straw poll had he been there in person to speak and had Carson not bought 100 votes. I had another "Disneyland" kind of day. It is really neat to see Presidential hopefuls come through Oklahoma for a change. Chairman Randy Brogdon organized a really great event.
Cruz thinks he can get the 50 million or so Christian right voters who stayed at home last time to come out and vote for him; Cruz thinks we can turn the US around with Tax reform (he wants the flat tax), he wants to abolish the IRS, Bring back jobs we've lost over seas, and regulatory reforms--get Obama's zealots out of the business of regulation--they strangle small businesses, repeal every word of Obamacare and repeal Common Core--get back to local control of Education, Restore America's leadership was the 3rd plank.
He is deeply optimistic. His Dad is his hero. Cruz and his wife are members at First Baptist Church of Houston.
Countries that need the commodities will buy them with or without an agreement. I do not like anything about the agreements congress is trying to pass now. TPA is supposed to be a framework in which the Congress sets goals for the President to negotiate. Obama has been negotiating the TPP secretly for years now, so how will that work? How can the Congress give him a groundwork when he has already negotiated most of it? I also do not like the fact that congress has never defeated a TPA negotiated agreement, which is understandable because these agreement remove most of the constitutional safeguards normally in place for legislation. What makes anybody think this time will be different? I do not see any reason to even consider this while Obama is in office. Giving Obama even more authority than he already has is not why the Republicans won such a huge victory last year. On top of all that, secret legislation is just plain un-American and should never be considered just on principle.
No argument from me and I think you won’t get an argument from Ted Cruz who I know does not approve of any trade agreements kept secret.
But there a few things that you are not understanding. One is that export licenses are required for certain commodities and granting those licences require approval from Congress, hence requiring a trade agreement.
I understand that if other countries want our commodities badly enough, they will do what they need to do to buy them from us. What I do not understand why the GOP establishment is so hell bent on granting Obama expanded authority on anything. The most relevant factors about this affair in my view are that the TPP is secret and that Congress has never defeated a TPA negotiated deal. That makes this a recipe for disaster which should probably be shelved until we have a trustworthy president who actually cares about the well being of our country in office. I fail to see how anything good can come from further expanding Obama’s authority in any area.
> “I understand that if other countries want our commodities badly enough, they will do what they need to do to buy them from us.”
Only if licenses are granted to American exporters will other countries be allowed to buy certain commodities. Granting the licenses is very political and gets tied up in Congress so that nothing ever gets done. That’s why TPA was first crafted and it’s been around a long time. Harry Reid killed it for GW Bush and now republicans want it back.
> “What I do not understand why the GOP establishment is so hell bent on granting Obama expanded authority on anything.”
Conservatives do not trust establishment republicans either.
The reason TPA failed this go-round is because the democrats do not want to give republicans the power because they are afraid that the next president will be a republican. This is made clear on Warren’s blog (http://elizabethwarren.com/blog/heres-what-this-fight-is-all-about).
> “The most relevant factors about this affair in my view are that the TPP is secret and that Congress has never defeated a TPA negotiated deal. “
Your concerns are legitimate. But you lack full information and that’s not your fault. Those with full information will have a different view on it. And the persons with full information are US Senators.
Ted Cruz is for TPA because he wants it for when he is president. His Texan constituents want him to have it because they have an oil glut now and they want to export some of it. Along with the excess crude there is a gigantic surplus of NG which is flared and wasted because LNG export licenses are not being granted by Obama. Then there are the cattle ranchers, and farmers and manufacturers that are putting pressure on Ted to get the TPA back. These are all good reasons for TPA if Ted gets elected but if he doesn’t get it now it will be very difficult if not impossible to get it later and the result is that millions of jobs will not be created and economic growth will be slower.
> “That makes this a recipe for disaster which should probably be shelved until we have a trustworthy president who actually cares about the well being of our country in office. I fail to see how anything good can come from further expanding Obama’s authority in any area.”
Ted Cruz is trustworthy, and will be the most trustworthy president since Ronald Reagan. But shelving it means it will need to be voted on in 2017 and then it won’t be possible to get it because it will need 60 cloture votes in the Senate and the democrats will never give enough votes to reach cloture if the President is republican. That’s why to some fully informed persons it is now or never.
Ted’s rationale is that Obama only has 19 months more in office and in my calculation he has only 9 months or less to work a trade deal using TPA because if TPA were passed today it would take another 2 months to pass a trade deal, and then we subtract 4 months of campaign season in 2016, subtract 2 months of Congress’ lame duck session and subtract January of 2017.
If Ted Cruz comes to a town hall near you and you can get in to see him, try and ask him or have someone you know ask him how it is he believes Obama will not have enough time to do anything using TPA. I see where Ted is coming from and I trust him but it would be good to know how he stops Obama from using TPA to damage the rights of Americans.
Hopefully, this gives you some more insight.
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