Obama’s Republican Collaborators

Obama’s Republican Collaborators

Guest Post by Patrick J. Buchanan

The GOP swept to victory in November by declaring that this imperial presidency must be brought to heel, and President Obama’s illicit seizures of Congressional power must end.

That was then. Now is now.

This week, Congress takes up legislation to cede His Majesty full authority to negotiate the largest trade deal in history, the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, and to surrender Congress’ right to amend any TPP that Obama might bring home.

Why the capitulation? Why would Republicans line up to kiss the royal ring? Is Middle America clamoring for “fast track”? Are blue-collar workers marching in the streets to have Congress grant “Trade Promotion Authority Now!” to Barack Obama?

No. Pressure for fast track is coming from two sources.

First, the editorial pages of papers like The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post that truckle to the transnational corporations that provide the advertising revenue stream keeping them alive.

Second, Obama is relying on Congressional Republicans who, for all their bravado about defying his usurpations, know on which side their bread is buttered. It’s the Wall Street-K Street side.

Fast track is the GOP payoff to its bundlers and big donors.

And so, we must hear again all the tired talking points about free trade, soaring exports, jobs created, etc.

But what is reality of the last quarter century of “free trade”?

The economic independence that enabled us to stay out of two world wars — until we chose to go in and help win them swiftly — is history.

We are a dependent nation now. We rely on imports for the necessities of our national life and the vital components of our weapons systems. Hamilton must be turning over in his grave.

Where once wages rose inexorably in America and the middle class seemed ever to expand, we read today about income inequality, the growing gap between rich and poor, and wage stagnation.

Did $11 trillion in trade deficits since Bush I have anything to do with this? Or do we think that the 55,000 factories and 5-6 million manufacturing jobs that went missing in the first decade of this new century had no connection to those huge trade deficits?

Is there a link perhaps between all those factories closing in the USA and all those factories opening in China, or between a U.S. average annual growth rate of 1.8 percent since the turn of the century, and a Chinese average annual growth rate of around 10 percent?

We read of China’s hoard of $4 trillion in cash reserves, of Beijing creating a replica of the World Bank, of European and Asian nations rushing to sign up to get a piece of the action in building China’s new “Silk Road” to Europe.

Monday’s New York Times tells of Premier Xi Jinping coming to Islamabad bearing gifts.

Pakistani officials say Xi will be signing agreements for $46 billion for the construction of railroads, highways and power plants over the next 15 years.

Where did Xi get all that money to displace America in Asia?

Last week came news that Japan has narrowly passed China as a holder of U.S. federal debt. Between them, they hold $2.5 trillion.

Did the tidal wave of imports from Japan and China, and the historic trade deficits we have run with both nations for decades, have anything to do with our Athens-like indebtedness to our Asian creditors?

When we look back to NAFTA, GATT, the WTO, MFN and PNTR for China, the Korean-U.S. free trade deal, CAFTA with Central America — almost all have led to soaring trade deficits and jobs lost to the nations with whom we signed the agreements.

As for the bureaucrats and politicians who promised us big new markets for exports, rising trade surpluses, better jobs — were they simply ignorant, or were they knowingly lying to us?

No one can be that wrong for that long. The law of averages is against it.

Writing yesterday, Peter Morici, chief economist in the early Clinton years at the U.S. International Trade Commission, says the Korean deal alone, and the import surge that followed, cost America 100,000 jobs.

“Asian nations target specific industries — such as autos and information technology — and compel U.S. firms to establish factories and research facilities in their economies,” as China, Germany and Japan manipulate their currencies to keep exports to us high and imports from us low.

Morici estimates that our annual $500 billion trade deficit costs America 4 million jobs and is a contributing cause of the fall of U.S. family income by $4,600 since 2000.

Unless changes are made in TPP, he writes, “Congress should deny President Obama authority to negotiate yet another jobs killing trade pact in the Pacific.”

What the nation needs is not only a rejection of fast track, but also a trade policy that puts country before corporate profit, workers before Wall Street, and America first.

Such a policy once made the Republican Party America’s Party.

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Anonymous
Anonymous

Republicans and Democrats are, in reality, just two factions of the same party.

I would propose they hold a joint convention this time to select common candidates, say a President from one party and a Vice President from the other.

Things would be simpler, so much more unifying, and less stressful that way.

Not only that, there would be no losers in the election since voters on both sides would be able to say their party won and having your party win is all that really matters.

zelmer
zelmer

Either they are bribed or being blackmailed.

Mark
Mark

Let’s face it. The U.S. , Germany, France, Britain, Japan, Findland, Norway, Sweden , and the Netherlands export Captital.

Capital is the machines and know how to manufacture products that are globally competitive.

If wages are less and environmental laws and regulations are less then those goods will be manufactured in those locations even though shipping costs are subtantional on multiple levels. Including importing raw materials and sub suppliers locations.

China with an IQ of 105 will eventually become an exporter of capital as well and so will India.

The profits go to those who own the Capital.

This is what that bellicose Fred Reed did not understand in his column on Mexico.

Mexico has the good fortune to be close to the U.S. Where capital is exported to it. Can you name any high tech Mexican company or Auto , Airliner Manufaturer that originated in Mexico?

The fact is this is the way it’s going to be. If you reverse the spigots it’s going to take a long time to reestablish all the supply lines necessary for manufacturing.

The government is going to grow as it is and will tax the Capital and Capitalist to pay for itself.

So the basic thing that changed is the number of good paying manufacturing jobs gets transferred to good paying government jobs.

DC Sunsets

So Pat still hasn’t give up on the political system.

He still thinks there’s a universe where it works?

There are, as Bastiat wrote, ONLY two ways to get from this life what you need: Produce and trade, or (what he called) THE POLITICAL MEANS, AKA theft.

So we’re shocked, shocked to discover that no matter who you send to Washington, District of Criminals, all they produce is CRIMINALITY?

TE
TE

More blatant, disgusting, proof that there is NO difference.

THIS treaty is 100% destructive to the Middle Class.

And our current rate and history of destruction is blatantly understated once you take out the abnormally high pay of the government, bankster, pharm and unionist, what was left for the rest of us was much worse than stated. Now realize that we didn’t just lose the manufacturing jobs. We lost the retail, business services including high tech, suppliers, maintenance, cleaning, uniforms, trash collection, scrap collection, food services, housing and all that those manufacturing jobs used to support.

The only jobs we really have left seem 100% parasitic. Supplying insulin and mind meds, along with deadly convenience foods, all produced in China, to a non-productive, bonafide, disabled, member of our growing FSA is in NO way a NET positive for our country.

The fact that in middle of the biggest unheeded, unmentioned, unstated, wage arbitrage our nation has ever faced, our “elected” officials are signing up for it wholesale is very telling.

Stick a fork in us, American industry is done.

And please, please, keep believing their state-approved health and food experts and rules are in our best interests too.

It will work out as well as this POS will work out for our family supporting jobs. I’d bet on it.

Peaceout
Peaceout

It’s 1992 all over again, back to the well to try another failed policy again, this time it will be different, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkgx1C_S6ls&feature=player_detailpage

Overthecliff
Overthecliff

“why the capitulation?”

Because the whore got paid !

Purplefrog
Purplefrog

Hamilton…? Would this be the same A. Hamilton that was a Bank of England plant in the new republic? Jefferson might be turning over in his grave..right along with the other great president Andrew Jackson.

NickelthroweR
NickelthroweR

Greetings,

This is already a done deal. At this point in time, the only option left is to figure out how not to get buried by it. Each and every one of these treaties creates winners and losers. Now, the size of the pie doesn’t change but who gets the bigger slice will so it is up to us to try to position ourselves to take advantage of it.

I know this may sound silly but I see no other option. 80% of Americans are going to be hurt by this – no doubt about it but, and this is important, 20% will probably benefit. I plan on being in that 20% given that I’m powerless to stop this treaty. To think in any other manner does a disservice to myself and my family.

Westcoaster
Westcoaster

TPTB have tried their best to keep the TPP secret, and the little we know about it sounds like NAFTA on steriods. I’d like to see an expose on how it came to be, who wrote it, and for what reason (truth please).
I think we might be surprised at the answers.

AnarchoPagan
AnarchoPagan

Why are almost all of the critics of TPP calling for protectionism? What would be wrong with genuine free trade? It makes me no poorer if China and India become wealthy.

Anonymous
Anonymous

AnarchoPagan,

Karl Marx was a staunch supporter and promoter of genuine “free trade”.

What he and no one else seems to tell you about it till it ends up in practice is that it pits the lowest wage denominator against the highest, making those on the high end that have spent generations getting there give their wealth to those on the low end without their having had to work for it.

But Marx saw that as good, taking away from those who have worked for it and giving to those who have not, the usual phrase being “from each according to his ability and to each according to his need” (in which case it pays to have lots of needs and few abilities but not the other way around).

As for me, I see no problem in protecting what hundreds of years of American workers have labored and sacrificed to build.

starfcker
starfcker

Anarcho, think it through. Of course it makes you poorer, in any number of ways. Are you poorer if home depot sells finished products for less than the cost of the materials to build them? Are you poorer when your neighbor loses his job, has to move, and trayvon is your new neighbor on a section 8 voucher?

starfcker
starfcker

Are you poorer when your dog dies from melamine laced food? Are you poorer When all the fine folk who work at the local walmart are being subsidized with your tax welfare dollars because their pay is so low. Hmmmm……….

TE
TE

@Anon, good call on Marx, but it looks to miss the obvious – as most do.

The reality isn’t just the wage flow from “higher” (us) to “lower” (them), it is the graft the greases the elites hands BOTH ways.

That was the true communism, IS the true communism.

And it is EXACTLY what we have become.

Platitudes for the unclean masses are just to keep us quiet until we have nothing left for them to take. Then, as throughout history, the death can begin wholesale.

The elite, of course, will still win.

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