Freedom First Society

Issue:  H.R. 2146. Amendment to add Trade Promotion Authority to the Senate-approved Defending Public Safety Employees’ Retirement Act (House Report 114-167).  Question:  On Motion to Concur in Senate Amendment With Amendment.

Result: Passed in House, 218 to 208, 8 not voting. (Passed in Senate 6-24-15)  Became Public Law No: 114-26 (signed by the President, 6-29-15). Republicans scored.

Freedom First Society: H.R. 2146 provided the president with Trade Promotion Authority, primarily in conjunction with the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership. Trade Promotion Authority, originally known as “fast track,” is an unconstitutional delegation by Congress of law-making responsibility to the president.

Fast track is a key component of the Internationalist scheme to tie our nation to a system of regional trade blocs as a steppingstone to regional government, such as the European Union. National authority over trade is to be replaced by Internationalist regulation of trade. The pretext of removing trade barriers is merely the bait.

We score only the Republicans on this one. Opposition by Liberal Democrats (right vote, wrong reason) provides the plan’s architects with a useful pretext for increasing international authority, ostensibly to address liberal concerns, and it allows the negotiated measure to pass as conservative, reassuring the public that nothing serious is amiss.

We have assigned (good vote) to the Noes and (bad vote) to the Ayes. (P = voted present; ? = not voting; blank = not listed on roll call.)

Bill Summary:  For this vote, the House leadership appended Trade Promotion Authority as a separate title to the unrelated, but less controversial H.R. 2146, “Defending Public Safety Employees’ Retirement Act,” which had recently come back from the Senate.This maneuver allowed the leadership to bring Trade Promotion Authority to a second House vote, while escaping an earlier House rule directly tying TPA to approval of Trade Adjustment Assistance. 

H.R. 2146 would now, if enacted into law, provides the president with Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), primarily in conjunction with the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). TPA requires Congress to vote up or down on any negotiated agreement after the president submits the package (including implementing legislation). No amendments are allowed.

Analysis:  Trade Promotion Authority, originally known as “fast track,” is an unconstitutional delegation by Congress of law-making responsibility to the president.  TPA violates the Constitution’s separation of powers.

Even leftist Representatives Rosa DeLauro (CT-03) and George Miller (CA-11) objected to the fast track delegation of congressional authority. In a November 2013 letter to President Obama signed by 151 Democrats (3/4 of the caucus) opposing fast track for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the two representatives complained about “the continued lack of adequate congressional consultation in many areas of the proposed pact that deeply implicates Congress’ constitutional and domestic policy authorities.”

Out of character, the letter pointed to constitutional separation of powers issues:

“Given our concerns, we will oppose  ‘Fast Track’ Trade Promotion Authority or any other mechanism delegating Congress’ constitutional authority over trade policy that continues to exclude us from having a meaningful role in the formative stages of trade agreements and throughout negotiating and approval processes.”

However, much worse than the constitutional violation in “fast track” itself is the violation by the actual agreements fast track was developed to facilitate. These agreements unconstitutionally surrender sovereign U.S. power to international authorities, such as the World Trade Organization and NAFTA tribunals, having no public accountability.

Following an earlier successful vote in the Senate on TPP, Washington’s Roll Call (5-14-15) stated that Senator Ron “Wyden, the lead Democratic negotiator on the bill and the ranking member of the Finance Committee, said [the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal] would improve enforcement of worker protections and environmental protections across the globe, including upgrading enforcement in existing trade pacts like NAFTA.” [Emphasis added.]

Indeed, fast track is a key component of the Internationalist scheme to tie our nation to a system of regional trade blocs as a steppingstone to regional government, such as the European Union.   This hidden objective has nothing to do with removing trade barriers.

The deceptions used to create the European Union provide a good model for what Americans are now being told. In the case of the European Union, Internationalists promoted its precursor Common Market as a mere trade agreement, when, in fact, they intended it from the beginning as a foot in the door toward political union. [See, for example, the revelations in The Great Deception: A Secret History of the European Union, by British journalist Christopher Booker and Dr. Richard North (a former research director for an agency of the European Parliament).

With regard to the NAFTA treaty, for example, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger boasted (see column in July 18, 1993 Los Angeles Times):

“[NAFTA] is not a conventional trade agreement, but the architecture of a new international system….”

The NAFTA treaty, combined with side agreements, set up more than 30 new international committees to decide issues previously the responsibility of the individual national legislatures.

The Fall 1991 issue of [the Council on Foreign Relations’] Foreign Affairs revealed that the Insiders were well aware that NAFTA was following in the EU’s footsteps:

“The creation of trinational dispute-resolution mechanisms and rule-making bodies on border and environmental issues may also be embryonic forms of more comprehensive structures. After all, international organizations and agreements like GATT and NAFTA by definition minimize assertions of sovereignty in favor of a joint rule-making authority.”

GOP Leadership Support

The Internationalists have minimized public opposition to these deceptive power grabs by enlisting “conservatives” to tout the ostensible economic benefits.

On May 22 Rush Limbaugh, provided a small speed bump in the deception, by questioning the eagerness of Republicans to give President Obama Trade Promotion Authority:

“[T]he Republicans are providing the necessary push to get it passed, which kind of bothers me. Since it’s an Obama deal, the odds are it isn’t good. Since it’s an Obama deal, the odds are the United States is gonna take it in the shorts, as we have on so much of the Obama agenda, both domestic and foreign policy.”

Undoubtedly many Americans have also found this GOP eagerness strange. But what Rush wasn’t willing to tell his audience is that the Internationalist Establishment has a grip on the presidency (regardless of what party occupies the White House), the leadership of both parties, and on the major media that has cast Limbaugh as a popular conservative voice.

Opposition by Liberal Democrats allows the negotiated measure to pass as conservative, reassuring the public that nothing serious is amiss. The opposition also provides the internationalists an excuse to increase the immediate authority of the new meddling institutions, ostensibly to address liberal concerns.

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