Obama says will make strong push for fast-track trade authority

[pampango]

24. republicans made that point about FDR in their 1936 party platform.

The 1936 republican party platform looks like it could have been written for the tea party:

It has coerced and intimidated voters by withholding relief to those opposing its tyrannical policies.

It has destroyed the morale of our people and made them dependent upon government.

Appeals to passion and class prejudice have replaced reason and tolerance.

It has created a vast multitude of new offices, filled them with its favorites, set up a centralized bureaucracy, and sent out swarms of inspectors to harass our people.

It has bred fear and hesitation in commerce and industry, thus discouraging new enterprises, preventing employment and prolonging the depression.

It secretly has made tariff agreements with our foreign competitors, flooding our markets with foreign commodities.

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29639

"Fast track is a legacy of the Reciprocal Tariff Act of 1934 passed under FDR by a Democratic congress.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act (RTAA) into law in 1934. RTAA gave the president power to negotiate trade agreements with other countries. This law enabled Roosevelt to liberalize American trade policy around the globe. It is widely credited with ushering in the era of liberal trade policy that persists to this day.

By giving the President the authority to negotiate these deals, the Congress effectively ceded a part of their power (authorized under US Constitution, Article I, Section VIII) to the executive branch.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_Tariff_Act