This leaves out an incredibly important point: TPA prevents a Senate filibuster and mandates a simple majority yes/no vote.
In this way it’s similiar to the budget reconciliation process used to ram through Obamacare after the Dems lost their Senate supermajority when Scott Brown won Teddy Kennedy’s seat.
Cruz certainly knows this. Knows how much easier it’ll be to ram through TPP under these rules. Knows that jerks like McCain and Graham will vote for it.
I don’t know what he’s doing here - if he were smart (and he IS) he’d be advocating for a revised TPA that preserves the filibuster.
I don’t know what he’s doing here - if he were smart (and he IS) he’d be advocating for a revised TPA that preserves the filibuster.
What Cruz is doing is running for POTUS. Obviously the big donors have told him TPP is the price of their support. Cruz doesn’t want his fingerprints on it so he supports TPA which lowers the vote required to 50 for passage.
We don’t need any more trade agreements. I have yet to see any benefit for the American economy or the American worker from the trade agreements enacted over the past 30 years. Instead we have:
1) 55,000 closed manufacturing plants
2) Loss of millions of manufacturing and manufacturing support jobs.
3) Higher trade deficits - Where is the promised export boom?
4) Declining standard of living for the average American for the first time in our nation’s history.
5) Decimation of the middle class
6) Less tariff revenue for the treasury
7) The industrialization and rise of China as an economic an military threat to the sovereignty of the United States
Can someone provide quantitative proof of the economic and social benefits from these trade deals? TPP is supposed to be modeled on the EU. How’s that working out for the Europeans other than Germany?
Yup.
I'd be fine with not having amendments, and even a lack of the ability to filibuster if they would call a spade a spade, and require the 2/3 vote as specified in the constitution for treaties.
The other stuff is procedural stuff the Constitution does not speak to. It's up to congress how it operates on a procedural basis.
One thing for folks to keep in mind is that if the ratification of this treaty can be delayed until after the election, any agreement as to procedure agreed to by the current congress is not binding on future congresses. The supreme court has ruled on that way back. One congress cannot bind another.
Exactly!