Obama hopes to enlist GOP in push for trade pact, despite Democratic resistance

[Jim Lane]

44. Why progressives continue to complain about the TPP

I excerpt your responses to my complaints, then give my replies.

Complaint 1: Do you have any evidence that multinational trade deals have ever been negotiated in any other fashion, and any reasonable argument that they practically could be?

As to your first question: You're defending an Obama Administration policy on the basis that it does not constitute change. Does that strike you as a wee bit ironic? When I went door-to-door for Obama in 2008, should I have been urging people to vote for him in the interest of "Stagnation we can believe in"? As to your second question: I don't think all discussions should be conducted on CNN, but more transparency would be possible and desirable; see the next point for elaboration.

Complaint 2: Business interests are the ones who engage in trade. They obviously should have a seat at the table at a trade negotiation. But what specifically is your information that businesses are being included while other stakeholders are excluded?

Let's first note that the lead negotiator, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), Ron Kirk, is a former lobbyist for Energy Future Holdings (coal/nuclear utility) and Merrill Lynch. As for the specifics of corporate involvement, this has been widely reported and is well known to people who've been following the TPP issue. It took me only a minute or two on duckduckgo to find an excellent explanation from a source I trust, Senator Ron Wyden:

It was our Founding Fathers’
intention to ensure that the laws
and policies that govern the American
people take into account the interests
of all the American people, not just a
privileged few.

Yet, the majority of Congress is
being kept in the dark as to the substance
of the TPP negotiations, while
representatives of U.S. corporations—
like Halliburton, Chevron, PHRMA,
Comcast, and the Motion Picture Association
of America—are being consulted
and made privy to details of the
agreement. As the Office of the USTR
will tell you, the President gives it
broad power to keep information about
the trade policies it advances and negotiates,
secret. Let me tell you, the
USTR is making full use of this authority.
As the Chairman of the Senate Finance
Committee’s Subcommittee on
International Trade, Customs, and
Global Competitiveness, my office is
responsible for conducting oversight
over the USTR and trade negotiations.
To do that, I asked that my staff obtain
the proper security credentials to
view the information that USTR keeps
confidential and secret. This is material
that fully describes what the
USTR is seeking in the TPP talks on
behalf of the American people and on
behalf of Congress. More than two
months after receiving the proper security
credentials, my staff is still barred
from viewing the details of the proposals
that USTR is advancing.

Source: Congressional Record -- Senate, May 23, 2012, pp. S3517-18 (emphasis added)

I do think it would be feasible for the administration to be more open with Congress and to accord progressive NGOs some of the same access that's being given to big business.

Complaint 3: In other words, the draft proposals that have been leaked are the ones horrible enough to motivate someone to leak them, while those that aren't....aren't.

Sorry, I'm not following you here. TPP is long and complex. Public Citizen has stated that it has 29 draft articles (see the quotation posted by PumpkinAle in #27 in this thread). Are you saying that the leaking of several horrible provisions means that the rest are unobjectionable, and that this constitutes some kind of defense of the TPP?

As for my "use of the dismissive phrase 'complaint du jour,' would you seriously deny that a large part of this is indeed "persistent whiners whose criticisms have no basis and who will beon to some other fancied grip tomorrow?" That doesn't have to preclude the legitimacy of serious complaints here - just acknowledge that this seems to have attracted the attention of a...dubious...contingent.

Yes, I absolutely would deny that. If you look outside DU at the progressive movement in this country as a whole, you'll find widespread activism over this issue. In my post I mentioned three important components (labor unions, internet freedom advocates, and environmental organizations), but there are others. I don't know what makes a contingent dubious. I do know that, although not always agreeing with them, I have respect for Ron Wyden, for Public Citizen, for the AFL-CIO, for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and for the Sierra Club. Are any of them "dubious" in your eyes?

Some DUers seem to believe that other DUers live solely to criticize Obama. Maybe the "dubious" ones are criticizing him for the TPP but, if he weren't doing it, would be criticizing him for not doing it. Even assuming that there are in fact some DUers who are anti-Obama hypocrites, I definitely don't see them as "a large part" of the concern over the TPP.

I'm not defending TPP, whatever it is (neither of us knows, since the leaks were of proposals). But I do demand that liberal politics be based on facts and not hysteria.

I absolutely agree with basing decisions on facts. Perhaps you'll even join me in taking the logical next step: Decisions should be based on facts and on a full and fair opportunity to analyze those facts. That's why fast-tracking this decision would be especially bad. (This is my Complaint #1A that you skipped over.) As you say, neither of us knows exactly what will be in the TPP that's proposed. Neither do the NGOs or the members of Congress. If Obama succeeds in getting the fast-track authority that he's asked for, he'll be able to disclose those details, submit the proposal to Congress, and rush it through:

If the President transmits a fast track trade agreement to Congress, then the majority leaders of the House and Senate or their designees must introduce the implementing bill submitted by the President on the first day on which their House is in session. (19 U.S.C. § 2191(c)(1).) Senators and Representatives may not amend the President’s bill, either in committee or in the Senate or House. (19 U.S.C. § 2191(d).) The committees to which the bill has been referred have 45 days after its introduction to report the bill, or be automatically discharged, and each House must vote within 15 days after the bill is reported or discharged. (19 U.S.C. § 2191(e)(1).)

In the likely case that the bill is a revenue bill (as tariffs are revenues), the bill must originate in the House (see U.S. Const., art I, sec. 7), and after the Senate received the House-passed bill, the Finance Committee would have another 15 days to report the bill or be discharged, and then the Senate would have another 15 days to pass the bill. (19 U.S.C. § 2191(e)(2).) On the House and Senate floors, each Body can debate the bill for no more than 20 hours, and thus Senators cannot filibuster the bill and it will pass with a simple majority vote. (19 U.S.C. § 2191(f)-(g).) Thus the entire Congressional consideration could take no longer than 90 days.

(Source: the "Procedure" section of the Wikipedia article on Fast track)

On that timetable, it would simply be impossible to meet your demand that politics be based on facts. Understanding the ramifications of what's finally proposed could not be achieved within the deadlines of fast track.

ETA: I referred to Ron Kirk as the USTR, which he was at the time Wyden made the statement I quoted. I forgot, however, that he's since been replaced. The current USTR is Michael Froman, a Robert Rubin protege who used to work at Citigroup. Somehow this change fails to raise my comfort level.