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06-18-2015, 01:55 PM #1
House OKs Obama trade agenda on 2nd try, bill heads to Senate
House OKs Obama trade agenda on 2nd try, bill heads to Senate
Published June 18, 2015 FoxNews.com
The House on Thursday approved a key plank of President Obama's trade agenda after the push nearly imploded amid Democratic resistance last week, sending the bill to the Senate where it still faces an uncertain fate.
The 218-208 vote nevertheless marked a significant victory for Obama and his pro-trade supporters in both parties. The vote came after Obama huddled Wednesday evening with congressional allies to try to craft a way forward.
The bill would specifically give the president so-called "fast-track" authority to approve trade deals, which Obama wants to seal a 12-nation pact involving Japan and 11 other countries bordering the Pacific Ocean.
The mechanics of the vote are some of the most complicated in recent memory, in a legislative body notorious for esoteric procedural maneuvers. The vote failed in the House last week because another measure it was attached to was defeated by a coalition of Democrats and Republicans.
It was labor-aligned Democrats, in particular, who caused the biggest headaches for the White House. Democrats have fought the measure for months, for fear it would lead to the loss of U.S. jobs overseas.
"Let's kill this donkey once and for all," Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Md., said before the latest vote.
On Thursday, House leaders moved to vote only on the "fast-track" measure, known as Trade Promotion Authority. The measure on the House floor would give Obama authority to negotiate global trade deals that Congress can approve or reject, but not change. Other recent presidents have had the same prerogative Obama seeks.
With the bill's approval, it heads back to the Senate where lawmakers would have to approve it in tact in order to send it to Obama's desk.
The issue has led to unusual alliances and factions on Capitol Hill, with some Tea Party-aligned Republicans and labor-aligned Democrats joining forces to resist it -- while pro-trade Democrats and GOP congressional leaders side with the White House.
The House debate and vote Thursday marked the beginning of an extraordinary rescue operation that the White House and GOP leaders in Congress hope will result in passage of both bills by the end of next week. The other bill, not addressed on Thursday, would renew an expiring program of aid for workers who lose their jobs because of imports.
"We are committed to ensuring both ... get votes in the House and Senate and are sent to the president for signature," House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a joint statement issued Wednesday in an attempt to reassure pro-trade Democrats whose votes will be needed.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi had no comment on the day's events. The California Democrat joined the revolt last week in which her party's rank-and-file lawmakers helped vote down the aid package that they customarily support, calculating their actions would prevent the entire trade package from reaching Obama's desk.
Supporters of the president's agenda argue that the United States must stay involved in international trade, in part because otherwise, countries like China will write the rules to their own advantage. The administration's immediate negotiating objective is a round of talks involving 12 countries in Asia, North America and South America.
Organized labor and other opponents of international trade deals say they cost thousands of American workers their jobs by shifting employment to foreign countries with low wages, poor working conditions and lax environmental standards.
Officials in Congress said Boehner and McConnell hope to have both the trade and the aid legislation to the president by the time lawmakers begin a scheduled vacation at the end of next week.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015...ads-to-senate/
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06-18-2015, 03:03 PM #2
Despicable. They know the damage, they know the cost, they know there is only harm to the US and our citizens, yet they plunge ahead like a bunch of crack-crazed floozies at a BOGO shoe sale.
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06-18-2015, 03:23 PM #3
- Join Date
- Apr 2012
- Posts
- 3,185
With Boehner and McConnell captaining the republican leadership we certainly do not need any more republican leadership in D.C. All need to remember who did this, which with the refusal to defund Obamnesty. is purposeful destruction of America. Two major errors in 120 days, both designed to lower American living standards. How can that be construed as American?
I hope Senators rip it up and let it fall in pieces to the Senate floor! Oh, they already approved it once. No, I do not believe in the tooth fairy. Just be sure your grandchildren are schooled in Chinese and Spanish languages..
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06-18-2015, 06:33 PM #4
House Passes Fast-Track Trade Bill, but Senate Outcome Uncertain
Revised bill to expand Obama’s trade-negotiating authority moves back to Senate
By SIOBHAN HUGHES
Updated June 18, 2015 2:24 p.m. ET 103 COMMENTS
WASHINGTON—The House on Thursday passed legislation to restore presidential power to ease trade pacts through Congress, as Republicans and pro-trade Democrats drove through a new fast-track bill a week after liberals brought down a similar measure in an uprising against their own president.
The 218-208 vote was the House’s second attempt to give PresidentBarack Obama the power to submit trade deals to Congress for an up-or-down vote without amendments.
But the course forward is uncertain. The fate of the fast-track legislation is intertwined with a related measure to help workers hurt by international trade. Many pro-trade Senate Democrats say they won’t vote for the fast-track bill without evidence the workers’ aid program will pass both chambers.
House and Senate Republican leaders have committed to separately passing the workers’ assistance extension, but Democrats are anxious about whether they can deliver.
The Senate could take an initial procedural vote on the House-passed fast track bill as early as Thursday, depending on the progress of other items on the chamber’s agenda. The most critical step would likely be early next week, when fast-track supporters would need to line up 60 votes to get around another procedural hurdle.
Whether pro-trade Senate Democrats will provide enough votes to get around the second procedural hurdle is now the biggest question. In May, 14 Democrats joined 48 Republicans to pass the fast-track bill 62-37.
READ MORE ON CAPITAL JOURNAL
Capital Journal is WSJ.com’s home for politics, policy and national security news.
- Some House Democrats Question Fast-Track Strategy
- Obama Mingles With Lawmakers Ahead of Vote
- The Trade Debate—Latest Developments
- House Deals Blow to Obama’s Bid for Trade Deal, Rejects Worker-Aid Program (June 12)
Mr. Obama has long pushed for fast-track authority, which many past presidents have had. The power is seen as necessary to wrap up a 12-nation trade pact among countries around the Pacific Ocean and possibly, later, an agreement with European nations.
Talks over the Pacific accord are nearly complete but have come to a standstill because U.S. trading partners are unwilling to make their best, final offers until Congress signals it is on board with the talks and won’t amend any agreement.
The Senate had already passed fast-track legislation, but House Democrats, led by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), sank the bill last week by voting against a key component. In response, House Republican leaders stripped out that portion of the bill, which would extend a program to help workers hurt by import competition or production shifts overseas. Instead, House Republicans brought a stand-alone fast-track measure to the floor on Thursday and promised to separately advance a measure to renew the aid program, known as Trade Adjustment Assistance or TAA.
Even with the leaders’ commitments however, supporters of TAA are concerned that Republicans, who are in the majority in both chambers, would oppose it. Many Republicans call the program an inefficient form of government welfare, and persuading Republicans in both chambers to support it could present a challenge.
A pro-trade House Democrat who met on Wednesday with Mr. Obama said the president said he would sign the fast-track bill into law before Congress had passed a bill to renew the workers’ aid program.
While Mr. Obama’s move would put pressure on House Democrats to reverse course and vote for a workers’ aid program they had previously voted against to scuttle the fast-track bill, the action could also cut both ways. Some pro-trade Senate Democrats could withhold their support for the fast-track bill if they thought Mr. Obama was giving up his leverage to force passage of the Trade Adjustment Assistance program.
“I can’t predict that,” Mrs. Pelosi said on Thursday when asked if she thought both the fast-track bill and the TAA measure would pass. “I don’t see a path right now for TAA.”
The passage of a narrower fast-track bill through the House itself depended on the willingness of a small group of pro-trade Democrats to trust that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) can fulfill their promise to find a way to separately renew the workers’ aid program. Mr. Obama, who has closely coordinated with the two Republicans, worked this week to build that trust, meeting with pro-trade Democrats at the White House to convince them that there was a separate path forward for the renewal of Trade Adjustment Assistance, which expires at the end of September.
“The only legislative strategy that the president will support is a strategy that results in both TPA and TAA coming to his desk,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Wednesday. “There are a variety of ways to do that.”
Liberal groups weren’t convinced, and one outlined plans to take revenge on Democrats who voted for the fast-track bill.
“Any Democrat in Congress who trusts John Boehner or Mitch McConnell to pass Trade Adjustment Assistance, that will actually help working families, deserves to lose their job,” said Jim Dean, the chair of Democracy for America, in a statement. “Whether it’s this election cycle or election cycles to come, Democracy for America will actively search for opportunities to make sure they lose their jobs and are replaced with real Democrats committed to fighting growing income inequality, not enabling it.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/house-pa...ill-1434645208
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