You'all know what "Fast track" is. I like to think of it as the "Corporations Get More Say Than Congress" Act. And it's sucking wind, on life support, headed for the trash bin. Hey, just call me an optimist two days in a row, starting with believing Bernie Sanders can win this thing. But, first things first: Fast track ain't got the votes.
As I've written before, people pretty close to the action had told me that "fast track" didn't have the votes in the House, which is where the action is (the Senate will likely pass this pile of dung because the Senate has always been more pro so-called "free trade" no matter who ran the show...).
The current numbers:
The House is currently dozens of votes short of being able to pass legislation that would allow President Barack Obama to send trade deals to Congress for fast approval, according to senior lawmakers and aides in both parties, imperiling a top White House priority for the president’s final years in office.
At this point, upward of 75 House Republicans could vote against trade promotion authority if it comes up for a vote in the coming weeks, according to aides and lawmakers involved in the process. Some of the lawmakers fear job losses in their districts from free trade; others distrust Obama and oppose giving him more power.
And:
House Democrats, meanwhile, say just 12 to 20 of their lawmakers support Obama’s request. That figure, if it holds, would amount to a stinging rebuke of a president by his own party.
“It’s very low on the Democratic side,” Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) said, commenting on the support. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said the 12-to-20 figure is “probably pretty accurate” but added the White House is keeping the count. The Senate is generally expected to pass the measure.
It is true that a big part of the "no" vote will come from Republicans who are opposed to anything the president wants done. But, it should be telling to the president--if he would only listen to voices on trade other than the Robert Rubin wing of his party--that he can't muster but a handful of votes from his own party.
The dumb part of this piece--and you can always rely on Politico to throw in a conventional piece of erroneous Village wisdom--is this:
Obama needs the bill to complete the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership with Japan and 10 other countries.
This is simply not true--and every time you hear that you need to respond that "fast track" is an anomaly. As Global Trade Watch pointed out, as I wrote
here:
Both Democratic and GOP presidents have struggled to convince Congress to delegate its constitutional trade authority via the Nixon-era Fast Track scheme. Fast Track has been in effect for only five years (2002-2007) of the 21 years since passage of NAFTA and the agreement that created the WTO.
· A two-year effort by President Bill Clinton to obtain Fast Track trade authority during his second term in office was voted down on the House floor in 1998 when 171 Democrats were joined by 71 GOP members who bucked then-Speaker Newt Gingrich. Clinton did not have Fast Track for six of his eight years in office, but still implemented more than a hundred trade agreements.[emphasis added]
The point: "Fast track" does not prevent trade deals from being done but it does allow for BAD CORPORATE deals to get done because it means members of Congress cannot have a say, and offer amendments representing the interests of people.
The reason this thing is going down--and, yes, there is still a lot of work to be done--is because of all the calls people made to their Congresscritter. Congrats on the hard work...and keep calling.