Nonsense Brokers ( Fast tracking TPP )

[Jefferson23]

June 12, 2015

Rep. Kathleen Rice last week reversed her opposition to fast-track the TPP. If history repeats itself she won’t be the only member of Congress to betray her working class and labor-union supporters.”

By John R. MacArthur

The vote buying to pass fast-track authority in the House of Representatives—legislation that will speed up secret negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement so dear to President Obama and his Wall Street and corporate allies—has evidently begun in earnest. The latest recipient of White House largesse, Rep. Kathleen Rice (D., N.Y.) last week reversed her opposition to fast-track, already approved by the Senate, and if history repeats itself she won’t be the only member of Congress to betray her working class and labor-union supporters.

We can’t yet know what was promised to Rice, since the political deals that grease the way for unpopular legislation aren’t ordinarily announced in press releases or high-minded op-eds. The nasty facts tend to come out later, after the damage has been done. Nevertheless, we can assume that something is rotten in Rice’s district.

For public consumption, Rice chose the high-minded sophistry of an op-ed, published on June 6 in The Hill, to explain her shift. She acknowledged that she earlier signed a letter to the president “expressing deep concern” about granting fast-track authority because she “wasn’t confident” that it “would protect my district’s working families.”

And now? Well, she writes, “my confidence has changed.” Problems of sense aside, there’s something suspicious about this phrase. Could she mean that her self-confidence has been undermined by pressure from the administration? Or has somebody played a confidence trick on her? Whatever it is, she’s been influenced by “more than five months of trade briefings, reviews of classified trade documents, and extensive conversations with those brokering” the TPP.

remainder in full: http://harpers.org/blog/2015/06/nonsense-brokers/

[JRLeft]

1. Money changes politicians minds.