GOP leaders ready to push Obama trade bill to crucial vote

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By CHARLES BABINGTON

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republican leaders are preparing a major two-day debate and ultimate showdown vote Friday on President Barack Obama's trade agenda, despite heavy Democratic opposition.

Debate will start Thursday on Obama's bid for "fast track" negotiating authority. Previous presidents have enjoyed the authority, which lets them present Congress with proposed trade agreements that it can ratify or reject, but not change.

The issue may turn on how the House resolves a side issue: how to pay for a program to retrain workers displaced by trade agreements, known as Trade Adjustment Assistance, or TAA.

A Senate-passed bill now facing the House would divert money from Medicare to fund the job retraining program. But House Democrats call that unacceptable, and demand another funding source.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20150611/us--congress-trade-699f3fc57c.html

[Divernan]

1. They ADMIT US workers will be "displaced" by the TPP

What the hell are the specifics for this "job retraining program"? Odds are great that yes, people would be signed up for some short term "job retraining", but the devil in the details is that where are said jobs going to come from?

Hey! You lost your IT job? No sweat. The govt. will retrain you as a fast food worker. Repeat after me, "You want fries with that?"

But hey, let's fuck with the seniors' Medicare coverage and dress that pig up with lipstick called "job retraining".

[Recursion]

2. Workers will get displaced with or without the TPP

Trade deals don't make it cheaper to offshore (they make it more expensive -- that's why jobs keep going to India and China, which don't have free trade agreements). Without the TPP, there's no money for retraining.

(The TAA after NAFTA was a mixed bag -- a lot of people got better jobs after, but had to leave where they had lived for the past 30 years or whatever)

[Divernan]

3. Do you have ANY link(s) to back up your statement?

Specifically your claims:
"trade deals make it more expensive to offshore"
and
"a lot of people got better jobs after(NAFTA) but had to leave where they had lived for the the past 30 years"
What constitutes "better" jobs? If they're not higher paying, they're not "better."

I mean links specifying research data and statistics, and interpretations thereof by experts like economists. You may have a Ph.D. in economics or an MBA focusing on overseas trade, for all I know. But the point is, I don't know - and you have basically posted your undocumented beliefs.


And finally "without the TPP, there's no money for retraining"
My question to that is why any moneys dedicated for retraining have to come from Medicare.

Now a penny tax on all stock trades? That would be fine with me.

[Enthusiast]

4. That's why we need tariffs instead of trade deals.

[Enthusiast]

6. What if those people owned a home where they lost their job?

What if there were no alternative jobs in that area? What if real estate was really depressed in that area? What if you were in your early 60s and in questionable health?

Free trade deals suck for the vast majority of American workers. VAST MAJORITY.

Why are you so passionately in favor of these trade deals?

You and several other DUers are constantly defending these proposed trade deals? Why? What good are they? They don't do any good except for already well off corporations.

[Divernan]

8. Exactly- if the home is underwater they are SOL.

One of my kids lost a job in Florida (the office was closed) in an area where you couldn't GIVE houses away. She found another job across the country; rented out her Florida condo at a 50% loss of monthly expenses, hoping to find a buyer. After 18 months of throwing her money down the c****er (OH! Another C word! ), she had to declare bankruptcy. At the sheriff's sale, some real estate attorney snapped it up for ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS (she'd paid $230,000 for it new - about 2 years earlier, with 20% down - basically her life savings). Then said asshole speculator turned around and sold it the next month for $170,000, Earlier, her mortgage holder had refused to let her sell it for a partial payoff of the mortgage balance.

AND THAT'S HOW THE WEALTH GETS TRANSFERRED IN THE GOOD OLE U S OF A!

[Enthusiast]

9. She is one many thousands of abused citizens. Trade deals are life disrupting

Our "representatives" no longer represent our interests.

[Enthusiast]

5. +1 a whole bunch!

[Enthusiast]

7. K&R! This post should have hundreds of recommendations!

Just what we need, more cuts to Medicare!

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