pucho812
Well-known member
anyone?
trans pacfic partnership
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The deal cut with Senate Democrats is to attach the "trade adjustment assistance" TAA (worker benefits program) to another piece of legislation specifically addressing African trade. So the clean TPA can be voted on and should pass.pucho812 said:
So the assistance part isn't going away, just getting stuck to a different bill.
Passing legislation is a little like making sausage.. ugly to watch.
JR
pucho812
Well-known member
thanks John. But I am trying to find out more about it. It's very difficult to find any information these days without a ton of opinion attached to it to the point it seems like that wasn't really any facts at all. Hard to dilute fact from fiction on it.
pucho812 said:
The TPP will set guidelines for trade between major nations in Pac Rim and from our continent. The fast track authority is necessary to get international deals worked out since negotiating with 535 separate congresspeople would be a babel of sound bites pulling in 535 directions. Congress who actually has to ratify such deals will get an up/down vote later.
The Assistance part of the deal (worker compensation for jobs displaced by trade) will get attached to the African trade bill coming soon and expected to be more popular.
The politics of this is odd, Bernie and Hillary are opposed, so the president is working with the other team on this one. I won't speculate on why, only that it is unusual.
Try google for details, I think we are mostly looking to get tariffs reduced on our exports , I don't think we have very high import duties.
JR
PS: Bill passed senate so going to President today.
After Pres Clinton lost the house and the senate during his second term he decided to work with the opposition congress to get several pieces of important legislation through. Pres Obama has just dug in and stayed pretty partisan. Obama dragged his feet on validating the Columbian and So Korean trade deals that he inherited as done deals when he took office.Gold said:
So something is different now, and I doubt he is channeling his inner Bill Clinton, since Hillary is striking the expected partisan notes, but who knows? Not me.
JR
JohnRoberts said:
There has been a lot of legislation going through lately in the Republican controlled legislature. Unlike the previous six years. No one wants to talk about it because compromise is a dirty word. There was just too much of a backlog to let it fester.
Gold said:
I can live without a lot of new legislation but Harry Reid had the senate pretty puckered up.. I think the legislature should be a part time job. Pass a budget, and a small handful of important new stuff... not the massive output that comes from legislature and regulators.
I'm probably breaking a law thinking about this.
JR
JohnRoberts said:
Couldn't agree more. The kneejerk reaction to "do something" rarely turns out well. I'd be fine with much less "doing". Let them go to cocktail parties for all I care. Just stop trying to "do" things... They aren't good at it.
pucho812
Well-known member
well as I have said before they look at how much damage they do only working two days a week. Imagine if they worked a full 5 day work week?
[quote author=JohnRoberts ] I think the legislature should be a part time job.
I'm probably breaking a law thinking about this.
JR
[/quote]
New York State has a part time legislature. The longtime leader of the Assembly ( Democrat) and the longtime leader of the Senate ( Republican) were both just indicted for corruption.
I'm probably breaking a law thinking about this.
JR
[/quote]
New York State has a part time legislature. The longtime leader of the Assembly ( Democrat) and the longtime leader of the Senate ( Republican) were both just indicted for corruption.
My expierience with NAFTA is limited to shipping packages to Canada. It didn't do much as far as I can tell. It's still way more expensive to ship a package from NYC to Toronto than to Raliegh. About the same distance I think.
I know it allowed a lot of manufacturing to be moved to northern Mexico. The good is it helped stabilize the Mexican economy. Most migration is from Central America now. The bad is that American manufacturing left.
I know it allowed a lot of manufacturing to be moved to northern Mexico. The good is it helped stabilize the Mexican economy. Most migration is from Central America now. The bad is that American manufacturing left.
> I think the legislature should be a part time job.
New Jersey's fast-track to hell started about the time they put air-conditioning in the chambers.
Before that they HAD to knock-off for the summer. Nobody would survive the heat and especially the Trenton humidity.
Now they can stir poop all year long.
I vote for taking out the A/C. If that is not enough, take out the heat also.
New Jersey's fast-track to hell started about the time they put air-conditioning in the chambers.
Before that they HAD to knock-off for the summer. Nobody would survive the heat and especially the Trenton humidity.
Now they can stir poop all year long.
I vote for taking out the A/C. If that is not enough, take out the heat also.
Shouldn't affect shipping cost but could affect what the receiver of that package had to pay... I was working at Peavey at the time. IIRC there was something like a 10% duty into Canada for some of my products. They didn't drop it all in one year, but rolled it back 1% per year over 10 years.Gold said:
There were already special trade zones in No. Mexico along the border called magilladoros (?) where components could come in duty free, have mexican labor value added, then ship back out. I visited one capacitor factory down there, that got the film capacitor in chip form from the US, then added wire leads and conformal coating in Mexico. Nowadays we'd just use the chip cap.
Back then Mexico refused to import from China, because years earlier China had killed the mexican shoe industry, it was a pain for Peavey in the early days when Chinese builds could not be sold in Mexico, but eventually it became too difficult to ignore the value that Chinese products offered, and they liberalized trade.
More trade is usually a good thing for buyer and seller, while there will be dislocations to inefficient industries. With the surplus of oil/gas the cost of energy is getting cheaper here and some energy intensive manufacturing is moving back.
With tax reform and competitive tax rates, we could get a bunch of new jobs back here, but there are current discussions to harmonize tax rates so everybody is paying the higher rates. Mainly putting the squeeze on the handful of tax haven countries. Such a harmonization might slow down the erosion of our corporate tax base (due to tax conversions where a domestic company combines with a lower taxed foreign company), but will not be as good for business as lower tax rates here. Big business already gets their tax breaks, we need lower rates to help small business that creates lots of new jobs and new stuff.... [/soapbox]
JR
dmp
Well-known member
Yes, somehow compromise became a terrible thing in some circles. I personally think it is commendable to compromise and produce legislation and progress, but it seems, particularly on the Republican side, compromising means getting your butt kicked in the next primary. So we had 6 yrs of Republicans not only opposing things they disagreed with but disagreeing with ANYTHING the other side agreed with - to avoid looking like they compromise AT ALL. It is insane (or inane?).
And now that the Republicans are in control and there is some compromise (which side is that coming from? isn't that a commendable thing?) there are conservative pundits patting themselves on the back for being the party that gets stuff done. It is ludicrous. It would be funny if it weren't so sad.
And over and over conservative pundits are working to paint Obama as a president unable to get something done. Well, try to get anything done with people who absolutely refuse to compromise on principle.
But sorry for the sideline - back to the OP topic. The specifics are unknown at this point. But it seems business wants free trade so that's what we'll get. We're in an era of the wealthy setting the rules.
Being mostly a liberal Democrat I basically agree with this analysis. I will say I'm no fan of Harry Reid's or Nancy Pelosi's leadership. I was hoping that Shumer was going to get minority leader. I think he would do a better job.
That's an interesting perspective. All legislation involves compromise, unless it gets passed without debate like back when there were super majorities.dmp said:
Since 2012 the republican house passed a pile of bills that Harry Reid in the democratic senate refused to allow votes on. this does not fit your narrative, but he could get away with doing that because the left of center media are all too happy to blame the republicans, and the public is all too willing to believe what they are told. Harry was just protecting the democratic senators from having to put their votes on the official record, and Obama from having to veto legislation,
Since the republican's took control of the senate they held more votes in one week (jan 2015) than the democrat controlled senate held in all of 2014. http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/230495-senate-surpasses-2014-vote-total-in-one-week
The republicans won the house and then the senate because of voter push back against administration policy. They were sent there to stop changing the country in directions the majority didn't want to go.
It is the far left that accuses Obama of not getting enough done. If you have time I'll prepare my list of things he needed to do, and not do. For one recent example, his announcement that the administration will stop prosecuting families of kidnapped hostages for paying ransoms is hard to fathom. I applaud being compassionate toward the families of victims, but why the very public announcement of this policy change, from this otherwise secretive administration. This is just going to encourage more kidnapping, and higher ransom demands. Kidnapping, extortion, and other criminal activities are reported to generate $1M a day in revenue to fund terrorist operations. The families could have been notified quietly, or just not prosecuted. They are already in communication with the administration. Europe's liberal policy regarding paying kidnapping ransoms does not discourage this activity for european citizens in the region.
====
Obama has had a good week so congrats to him. The fast track trade legislation was passed by republicans... He even got some conservative justices to bless his ACA in the Supreme Court... (he won 6-3)
Negotiations couldn't start until this authority was passed. Indeed increased exports helps big business more than small business, but ultimately it helps all of us (not a zero sum game ). The democrats on the campaign trail seemed to all be opposed to the fast track trade bill. It seems they are trying to both distance themselves from the president and work populist political themes, like trade is bad for workers.
To influence our pacific trade partners we have to actually be sitting at the table negotiating with them so Pres Obama is correct to promote this.
The trade adjustment assistance act has already passed the house and senate. Now AFAIK it is waiting to get attached to the African trade bill. I do not know the timing on that but it seems imminent.
If the wealthy were setting the rules I suspect we would have a much better economy (tax reform etc).. The wealthy IMO are playing self-defense; as they are the go-to pinata in this age of partisan class warfare. I just saw a sound bite from Bernie Sanders where he was comfortable with a 90% tax rate. Of course Bernie is not electable but his campaign is getting the publicity on the campaign trail and may pull Hillary further left than she wants to be for the general election. (Primaries tend to do that).
Of course opinions vary.
JR
dmp
Well-known member
Of course this "pile" of bills included 50+ to overturn ACA. I would argue that if you dig into these bills passed by the republicans, it actually makes my point. They weren't bills with any hint of compromise, they were far right wing bills with no hope of passing to advertise in the next round of primaries. Now why is the onus on Harry Reid to take up ultra partisan bills? Why is the onus on the him to compromise? I'd be interested to dig into the Republican bills and really evaluate this further, but I don't have time this morning. I think it would be very difficult. We've just seen enormous compromise from Democrates on trade in the past few weeks. Yes, it was a bit messy, but I'd be interested to see a single comparable example from Republicans during this administration demonstrating compromise.
I saw another statistic last night that of some 180 polls gauging the popularity of the ACA only one was statistically in favor of it.dmp said:
Now it looks like it will take a republican white house to reform this. I heard President Obama say yesterday that the ACA turned out better than even he expected. Huh? That seems inconsitent with his numerous public promises that were abandoned. Perhaps he actually expected it to turn out worse privately. Gruber (the ACA consultant ) shared there was more than a little public deception involved in passing this.
I suspect we could both look at the same list of bills and draw different conclusions, but Harry Reid could have scheduled a vote on just one of the 50 bills to repeal the ACA and put that fire out, unless he was afraid of how that vote would go. This legislation was originally passed by bending the rules,,, (the senate amended it using a budget reconciliation procedure after they lost their ability to force it through using a super majority). I think I understand your feelings about this legislation but it does not seem to reflect the will of the majority of voters, at least as executed.
I appreciate Roberts and the court not wanting to re-write legislation (separation of powers yadda yadda). While that appears to be what they have done in this case (actually both times).
speculation... without a vote you don't know that... Public opinion was already turning in opposition, and that trajectory seems to continue. Again, Harry Reid could stop that gotcha game with a few official votes. The public deserves to see up/down votes on important issues. Admittedly the senate is supposed to deliberate and not be the populist body of the legislature, but blocking almost every bill was not good governance but manipulation of the system to provide political cover for unpopular policy.
It is not compromise to allow a vote... compromise would be voting for "ultra partisan" bills. Allowing votes on "ultra partisan" bills would expose them to public inspection and if unpopular would stir up negative sentiment among the voters.
You seem to have pretty strong opinions about one side being the bad guy here. I think both sides suck, but consider the republicans the lesser evil from this short list. Obama has the right to veto a bill to repeal the ACA , but he must take the public heat for doing so. Harry Reid shielded him from ever having to do that.
JR
