
House Rejects Trade Bill, Rebuffing Obama’s Dramatic Appeal - elahd
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/13/us/politics/obamas-trade-bills-face-tough-battle-against-house-democrats.html
======
Animats
Good. The secret TPP agreement is awful. See the EFF's analysis.[1] It's not
about tariffs; it's a wish list for the RIAA, big pharma, and other lobbyists
who want to override consumer protection laws through a trade bill.

[1] [https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp](https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp)

~~~
rayiner
Don't forget big tech companies:
[http://tppcoalition.org/about](http://tppcoalition.org/about) (Apple, EBay,
Facebook, Microsoft, HP, Oracle, and Xerox).

~~~
walterbell
Or Wall Street - the lead TPP negotiator is ex-Citibank,
[http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/05/28/us-trade-rep-
wal...](http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/05/28/us-trade-rep-wall-street-
crony-groups-demand-transparency)

 _" Noting deep ties between the country's top trade negotiator and Wall
Street banks, ten groups representing millions of Americans are calling on the
White House to make public all communications between U.S. Trade
Representative Michael Froman and the massive financial institutions that
stand to benefit from proposed trade deals._"

More on lobbyists, [http://www.ip-watch.org/2015/06/05/confidential-ustr-
emails-...](http://www.ip-watch.org/2015/06/05/confidential-ustr-emails-show-
close-industry-involvement-in-tpp-negotiations/)

 _".. Many of the industry representatives are themselves former USTR
officials ... Jim DeLisi of Fanwood Chemical said he had just seen the text on
rules of origin, and remarked, “Someone owes USTR a royalty payment. These are
our rules. … This is a very pleasant surprise.”_

------
nsxwolf
Does anyone like this - left, right or center?

Matt Drudge just posted the headline "PELOSI SAYS NO TO OBAMATRADE; TAKES
BRAVE STAND FOR AMERICA" ... stuff's getting weird, man.

~~~
rthomas6
There's a Robert Reich article from a year ago that predicted this kind of
division on issues. He says that the two new sides are "populist" vs
"establishment". It looks to me like he was right.

[http://robertreich.org/post/84984296635](http://robertreich.org/post/84984296635)

It really explains a lot, like why a lot of people feel so differently about
Hillary Clinton vs. Bernie Sanders, or Jeb Bush vs. Rand Paul. I think we
could say that Sanders and Paul are members of a new invisible party of
populists, while Bush and Clinton are members of a pro-establishment party.

~~~
randomname2
Or as other people have called this: Washington DC vs Everyone else.

All presidential candidates except Paul and Sanders are firmly on the
"establishment" side.

But I'm sure we'll also hear the other candidates give plenty of lip service
to the populists this election cycle and turn around and forget about all that
as soon as they're elected.

~~~
BabLingBrooke
Actually, presidential candidate (& ex-HP CEO) Carly Fiorina came out against
TPP as well.

------
RexRollman
I don't know if this agreement is good or bad but I do have an issue with any
trade agreement being ratified without it being viewed first by the public.
And I question the intentions of those who want an agreement passed without
public review.

~~~
yohui
There _would_ be public review before voting to accept or reject. Congress
would have _months_ to process it before voting.

The trade agreement would be public; only the negotiations that produced the
agreement would remain confidential (so that countries can bargain and
compromise more readily).

What President Obama is asking for right now is not approval of the trade
deal, but the ability to make the deal. This power (trade promotion authority,
or "fast track") is not new, but rather the renewal of a piece of legislation
that dates back to 1974 and is standard for such trade agreements, having been
in effect for most years since then.

~~~
happyscrappy
The information you are providing, while accurate, undermines outrage and
should be withheld in order to stifle business interests.

~~~
yohui
I think that was sarcasm, but to respond... I've seen key legitimate concerns
mixed with misinformation and whipped into a frothy public spectacle.

Whether or not the final proposal is worth passing when it comes to vote, I
would rather not encourage the use of such tactics, lest they backfire some
day.

The focus upon "secrecy" also risks obscuring more pertinent criticism,
especially when the final text _is_ released (if the process isn't derailed
first), in which case people might wonder what the fuss was about.

------
randomname2
Roll call on TAA:
[http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2015/roll361.xml](http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2015/roll361.xml)

Roll call on TPA:
[http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2015/roll362.xml](http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2015/roll362.xml)

The Democrats downvoted the TAA section, it will get a new vote next week and
then it goes straight to the President (both have to pass at once).

~~~
walterbell
The earlier Senate vote also had two iterations - the first failed, with many
headline articles. The second succeeded, with less hullabaloo.

A repeat of the House TAA vote has been scheduled for next Tuesday. What could
cause a change in votes between today and Tue?

~~~
randomname2
This reminds me of TARP.

TARP lost 228-205 in a first vote. Then the stock market went down a bit and
despite constituent phone calls being 300-1 against TARP, Congress added 448
pages (of mostly pork) to the bill and passed it anyway.

~~~
walterbell
We need a good book or ten on legislative game theory/tropes, which can be
cited in newspaper coverage.

 _Dear citizen, you are facing ___ because ___ years ago, bill ___ was drafted
by lobbyists ___, legitimized by playbook moves ___ and approved by ___ votes.
Opposing votes were reversed after playbook moves ___, also used in ___
preceding bills._

------
Implicated
> “We want a better deal for America’s workers,” said Representative Nancy
> Pelosi of California.

I can only imagine what this quote would say if these people spoke in truth
about what they really want.

~~~
Happydayz
likely have constituents who work in an industry that would be threatened with
greater trade integration.

Nationally a detrimental move with greater costs, but locally they might very
well be better off without it.

The standard story trotted out about trade are the steel tariffs implemented
by Bush 43. Highly beneficial for the small number of steel workers in the US,
but an effective tax on every other consumer. Forgot the figures from way back
when, but IIRC we could have paid every steel worker $2-300,000/yr for the
rest of their lives and still come out far ahead as a country.

~~~
x0x0
Except we don't.

The story of trade they tell in undergrad econ is that the country as a whole
will benefit while individuals / individual sectors will be hurt. The country
as a whole will benefit so much that we can help those that are hurt and still
come out ahead. Unfortunately, this is america, so we virtually never get
around to helping those that are hurt, or when we do, it's not at all
effective [1]. So trade, in practice, is a transfer from those less well-off
to those more well-off.

Not to mention that Obama is a liar and the purpose of this treaty is to
remove worker protections. See, eg, the position of labor in vietnam: they
widely oppose the TPP. We're a rich country and we can afford to not use
virtual slave labor to make our clothes.

[1] [http://archive.wilsonquarterly.com/in-essence/no-help-
displa...](http://archive.wilsonquarterly.com/in-essence/no-help-displaced-
workers-0)

~~~
lukeschlather
I think you overstate the negatives. Assuming the $300k/year/displaced worker
figure is accurate, I'd guess the other important figures are more like:

* Workers currently paid on average $40k/year will lose their jobs. * They will get new jobs paying on average $60k/year * The businesses that pay them will get an extra $200k/year in profit.

I pulled those figures out of thin air, but you can play around with them and
see that it's very easy for a trade agreement to be good for everyone while
still being disproportionately better for the people who control the business.

~~~
x0x0
You just imagineered up some data that supports your pro-trade position, then
used that as proof that trade is good for everyone.

Tada!

~~~
lukeschlather
By all means, I'd love to see some real figures.

While people can be in general better off, I still think the situation is
unfair and it's reasonable to oppose the treaty just on the question of
fairness, but that's a much more complicated conversation.

------
rthomas6
It's interesting that on this issue the democrats disagree with the president,
but the GOP backs him fully.

~~~
unk
That should be an indication of how bad an idea this is.

~~~
jtd514
Wait, so is Obama still our savior? So confusing...

------
happyscrappy
Wait, I thought the government was bought by corporations?

~~~
gtaylor
There are numerous corporations that would be negatively impacted by this
trade deal. It's not a white-and-black "all corporations would love this deal"
type situation.

~~~
happyscrappy
So corporations control the government but more are negatively affected by
TTIP so it didn't pass? This is stretching the bounds of logic.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
I don't know the details on this particular case, but its not on the face of
it ridiculous.

Currently, European oil and gas corporations are pushing for a carbon tax. The
reason is that they think they'd displace a lot of coal usage if both where
priced accurately. In the US the coal lobby is currently stronger than the gas
lobby (even with cracking).

Corporations compete, even in lobbying, sometimes this leads to surprisingly
positive sounding outcome.

(I say "sounding" as its not clear if the worse-than-carbon-for-climate-change
methane that gas production produces would be costed properly if gas companies
are driving the "carbon" tax)

