McConnell Gets All Slippery When Cornered on the Secrecy That Surrounds Obamatrade

By Personal Liberty News Desk. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell may butt heads with Barack Obama on many things — but Obamatrade, apparently, isn’t one of them.

Speaking with Fox News this week, McConnell had a lot of trouble explaining why the White House has been so secretive with the contents of the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), the backbone for Obama’s plans to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). He was similarly dodgy when attempting to explain why he supports the president’s plan.

“The trade agreement will be completely transparent,” he told Fox. “We’ll have a chance to vote whether to approve it or not.” (Read more from “McConnell Gets All Slippery When Cornered on the Secrecy That Surrounds Obamatrade” HERE)

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GOP Leadership’s Latest Obamatrade Ploy Revealed

By Alex Swoyer. Establishment Republicans are desperately trying to secure the passage of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), which would give President Obama fast-track authority to secure congressional approval of at least three secretive trade deals, are now willing to increase taxes on small businesses in a way that would violate a pledge almost every Republican Congressman has taken when elected into office.

To secure final passage through Congress of a package that would include TPA fast-track authority—which would ensure finalization of the secretive Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) and Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), among other deals—the House would need to pass the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) package that was necessary for Senate passage of TPA. The House voted TAA down 302-126 with widespread bipartisan opposition to last week, but House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and his allies in House GOP leadership have pledged that they will try to pass it again early next week. The vote would potentially be on Monday, but more likely on Tuesday—and if there is no vote by Tuesday, it’s unlikely that Ryan will be able to succeed in his ploy to revive TPA.

TAA is a big government program usually favored by Democrats—it increases the size and scope of government, and is essentially viewed by Republicans as a welfare program—so their opposition to it during Friday’s complicated and confusing House vote schedule was not opposition to TAA as a specific concept, but opposition to the full Obamatrade package, especially TPA.

House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) gave a blistering floor speech against the full Obamatrade deal, causing a Democratic rebellion against TAA—and forcing Ryan to push Republicans to vote for that part of the package.

TAA was originally supposed to be financed with Medicare cuts – which sparked major outrage, and cries of hypocrisy in what would have certainly turned into boldly negative campaign advertisements against Republicans by Democrats this next cycle. But under pressure, Republican leadership, mainly Boehner and Ryan, negotiated with Democrats to remove the Medicare cuts from the financial backing of TAA and instead using direct tax hikes by raising the penalties for misfiled taxes. (Read more from this story HERE)

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