As economist Dean Baker explains,
“Our current trade deficit of more than $500 billion a year has the same effect on demand in our economy as if consumers took $500 billion from their paychecks each year and stuffed it under their mattress rather than spend it. This money is creating demand in other countries, not in the United States.”Not surprisingly, this giant trade deficit has resulted in a net job loss of nearly 5 million — many of them good-paying manufacturing jobs.
Now the same old empty promises are being pushed by Obama, Republicans and some corporate Dems in their efforts to “fast track” passage of the TPP agreement. Even worse, from what’s been leaked about the secret TPP agreement, only 5 of the 29 chapters even deal with trade. The rest is a corporate power grab to undermine workers, consumers, the environment and state sovereignty.
In particular, the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provision would allow corporations to sue governments (and taxpayers) in foreign tribunals run by corporate attorneys if the corporation thinks a particular law would cut into its future profits. The result will be a chilling effect on any regulation intended to protect workers, consumers and the environment.
The TPP is so heinous that it could never pass Congress without an undemocratic “Fast Track” process secured before We The People can actually read it. The president is asking Congress to agree to an up or down vote on the TPP with little or no debate and no amendments.
Jump over the orange squiggle for tips on how to kill the TPP...
The best way to Stop the TPP is to Stop Fast Track, which has already passed the Senate and could come up for a vote in the House as soon as next week. So call your Representative TODAY at 202-224-3121 and tell them to vote NO on Fast Track. You can pick some of these points to make (some courtesy of MoveOn.org and Rep Alan Grayson):
1. The U.S. Trade Debt is already $11 Trillion. TPP will accelerate the race to the bottom and make the trade debt worse. American workers cannot compete with workers making less than 60 cents per hour in Vietnam or countries engaging in horrendous human rights violations including slave labor.
2. Why would we ever give up our sovereignty and our democracy to a tribunal of corporate attorneys rotating between acting as lawyer-lobbyists and judges?
3. Drug prices are sure to skyrocket as pharmaceutical corporations secure longer patent protections and challenge the sovereignty of governments to negotiate better prices for their citizens.
4. Fast Track applies to whatever the president says is a trade agreement, even if it has nothing to do with trade. Fast Track lasts for 7 years — well into the next presidency.
5. Fast Track restricts Congress from holding hearings, digging deep, debating a bill or offering amendments; basically, it keeps Congress from doing its job.
6. No other bills get this special Fast Track treatment: not bills on taxes, or Social Security, or defense, or transportation, or healthcare, or minimum wage. Let this corporate sweetheart deal go through the same arduous sausage-making process as every other form of legislation. That’s called democracy.
7. Fast Track greases the skids for deals being negotiated in secret—and is designed to make sure they’re concluded quickly—and far away from the prying eyes of the American public.
8. Not one of the “standards” that Fast Track sets for trade agreements is enforceable. Once Fast Track is in place, nobody can deliver on promised protections for things like U.S. jobs, Buy American policies, or environmental laws, if they threaten corporate profits.
9. Congress is planning to raid $700 million from Medicare to pay for training workers displaced by TPP. How did Medicare get dragged into this cesspool?
10. The TPP would be FOREVER. Once it is signed, there is no expiration date and it can only be altered by a consensus of all signing countries — including letting other countries join.
To learn more about TPP, watch this short video by Rep. Alan Grayson: www.TradeTreachery.com https://www.youtube.com/...