|
Post by unlawflcombatnt on Jun 30, 2007 2:41:56 GMT -6
Below is an excerpt from an article from the Baltimore Sun describing the death of Presidential Fast-Track trade authority. Bush loses authority to 'fast-track' trade" President Bush loses his power today to seal "fast-track" trade agreements without intervention from Congress, where Democrats blame recent deals for sending U.S. jobs abroad.
Since 1975, only one other president, Bill Clinton, has lost that trade promotion authority, designed to speed the reduction of trade barriers and open new markets with other countries. Bush won't get it back, and the next president might not, either.
House Democratic leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Rep. Charles B. Rangel of New York, whose Ways and Means Committee handles trade policy, said in a written statement that their legislative priorities "do not include the renewal of fast track authority."....Good riddance. Maybe we can begin to stem the flood of outsourced American jobs and prevent Corporate America from continuing to enrich themselves at the expense of American workers.
|
|
|
Post by blueneck on Jun 30, 2007 5:25:50 GMT -6
This is some of the best news to come out of congress in a long time. This coupled with the defeat of the amnesty bill, and now Lugar's breaking ranks with the neoCONS on the war.
Congress should never have ceded their constitutional authority on trade to the executive branch in the first place - and especially to an incompetent ideologue like Bush.
Maybe if the congress finally starts listening to the people they are voted in to represent they can dig themselves out of their 22% approval rating.
|
|
|
Post by unlawflcombatnt on Jun 30, 2007 15:49:13 GMT -6
It certainly has been a good week for American workers. The potential new flood of excess workers into the country has been blocked for the time being. And one of the aids to outsourcing American jobs has come to an end.
Now we need to make sure this trend continues. There are still going to be some more battles on recent free trade agreements that have already been signed. Congress will still need to vote some of them down to prevent their implementation.
We need more Kucinich's and Paul's to get us out of the WTO and NAFTA. Both have sponsored bills to withdraw from the WTO. And Kucinich showed his stuff in the Democratic Presidential debate at Howard University calling for us to "cancel NAFTA." (Needless to say, none of the major Democratic candidate's joined him on that position.)
Hopefully, the Senate's Comprehensive Amnesty Bill is dead for good. But I'm not holding my breath. The Corporate interests supporting it still have plenty of money, as well as near total control of the news media. They certainly have the means and desire to bribe more Senators into supporting amnesty, as it will amnesitisize employers as well. And they certainly have enough control of the media to propagandize that Amnesty really is "in the public's best interest."
|
|