Alex Swoyer writing at Breitbart has followed the political permutations related to “fast track” trade authority and various trade bills closely for the publication. This post from her earlier today should be read in its entirety. Permit us to distill and interpret (in red) Paul Ryan’s comments to Fox news, which she refers to in the article
Essence of Paul Ryan’s comments to Fox News (translated by us):
” You know that 800 page Rube Goldberg so-called Trans Pacific Partnership proposal in the bowels of the Capitol everyone has been talking about? It’s a joke. We was just mess’n with ya . It’s just a bunch of words. It’s not something we will be voting on. What we will be voting on this week is only “fast track” which we promise will have everything to make all your concerns go away about subsequent trade legislation.”
Except the idea that grandiose “trade bills” are anything less than a treaty subject to Constitutional requirements of two-thirds of the Senate for approval. And the idea of no amendments to heavy hitting proposals larded with who knows what. And Obama.
Here are Ryan’s actual words to Fox News about the timing of the votes (via Breitbart):
There’s a lot of confusion. Trade Promotion Authority—what we’re voting on this week—is a process. It’s not a trade agreement. It’s a procedure for how you consider trade agreement. The Transpacific Partnership – it doesn’t exist yet. The reason we can’t see it yet is because it hasn’t been negotiated yet – it doesn’t exist yet. It’s been negotiated for years. Bush started these negotiations.
“So you’re voting on an idea tomorrow?” Doocy asked him.
“No we’re voting on a procedure,” Ryan said. “How does Congress consider trade agreements? Then in the fall, probably in the fall, we’ll consider a trade agreement—which hasn’t been completed yet. That’s why we don’t know what’s in it because it doesn’t exist yet.”
So nothing on TPP until fall, presuming leadership honors their on again off again commitment to allow 60 days for review by the public, that pretty much shoots the year. Which brings us to our earlier comments, why bother? Why not wait for a Republican President . . . unless Republican leadership is planning to lose the Congress and the Presidency?
What follows is Swoyer’s analysis of Ryan’s veracity:
Ryan’s decision to say there is no trade deal yet is an obvious fabrication because roughly 800 pages of Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) are ready for review on Capitol Hill. As for the other two trade deals Obamatrade would definitely fast-track—the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) and the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA)—the text of those are not available for members of Congress. President Obama could publicly release the TPP text now, but he and Ryan don’t want the public to see it before Congress votes on fast-track.
When fast track has been granted in the past by Congress, no trade deals have ever been stopped by Congress as it hands over the power to the president to finish all negotiations, and all Congress gets in the end is an up or down vote with no amendments. It also lowers the vote thresholds in the Senate from 60 to 51, decimating the filibuster.
Questions arise
Why isn’t Mitch “regular order” McConnell in high dudgeon about the implications for the filibuster. One would also think congressional dignity* would be challenged by the prospect of having to eat a sh*t sandwich of a bill with no opportunity to offer an amendment. We are told that Ryan added amendments to fast track to allay fears of conservatives regarding immigration, climate change and more. The promise of manipulations by him in furtherance of those matters were Obama’s selling points to Democrats to get them to vote for Obamatrade. How will that set with them? What happened to the three days promised from Boehner for public review of bills prior to a vote. Why would TPA “fast track” specifics be kept secret? Won’t the Senate have to go along with any changes?
R Mall with DLH
*Using the those words in the same sentence also made us laugh
