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View Full Version : Obama’s Vain Search for a TPP “Legacy” to Screw the Middle Class




NACBA
01-09-2015, 02:35 PM
Posted on January 9, 2015 by Yves Smith

Yves here. This post confirms what readers know all to well, that Obama will use every opportunity to sell out the middle class to corporate interests.

One thing to bear in mind is that opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and its ugly sister, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, do not split on simply party lines. This fall, when Obama was unable to get enough votes to get “fast track” approval, which the Executive Branch uses to force an up-down vote on a final trade deal, denying Congress the opportunity to influence its contents, whip counts showed that nearly 40 Republicans in the House were prepared to join Democrats in opposing it. How the numbers would break now is an open question, but that means it is worth your time and effort to call your Congressman and let them know you are firmly opposed to these toxic trade deals.

By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Jointly published with New Economic Perspectives

The banksters have given Obama an important political opportunity – which he has spurned. The very first thing the new Republican majorities sought to do with their power was to use the Omnibus bill to extort the first of many cuts designed to destroy the Volcker rule. Naturally, Obama agreed and wouldn’t join the Democratic wing of the Party when they could have easily stopped the giveaway if they had received even mild help from the administration. Instead, the administration lobbied hard for the Omnibus bills’ Christmas gift to banksters.

Next, the Republicans sought to slip another big delay in the effective date of provisions of the Volcker bill through Congress. Progressive Democrats killed that attempt. The Obama administration couldn’t even bring itself to feign rage at the effort to gut the Volcker rule.

These Republican efforts were (a) substantively awful, (b) designed to eviscerate the key Dodd-Frank provision purportedly supported by Obama as a vital reform, and (c) would have been incredibly unpopular with the public and the Tea Party – if Obama had stirred himself to mount a public campaign opposing them ala Elizabeth Warren. But Obama never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity to side with the American people against the banksters.

The Travesty Known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/01/bill-black-obamas-vain-search-tpp-legacy.html