Issue Position: Jobs
Issue Position
While America's media is busy following the bouncing debt-ceiling ball, President Obama and Congress are working a far more destructive deal behind closed doors.
They'd like to pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership, another so-called "free trade" agreement, as quietly as possible, before you, and I get wind of it.
Called "NAFTA on Steroids," TPP is on track to destroy American jobs, legal rights and sovereignty. Just like NAFTA, CAFTA (the Central American Free Trade Agreement) and similar pacts with Colombia, South Korea and Panama have already done.
Since NAFTA, America has lost an estimated 682,900 jobs; some 30,000 in Florida. Our nation was clearly bleeding jobs even by 2005, but despite that fact, our illustrious House "Representative" Jeff Miller voted for CAFTA anyway; and the last three agreements in 2011.
There's no reason to believe he won't vote to pass TPP. Thanks Jeff.
And thanks to the Korean deal alone, in one year we lost 40,000 mostly manufacturing jobs. It jacked our trade deficit with Korea up by $5.8 billion. That's because we imported $2.3 billion MORE from and exported $3.5 billion LESS to them.
That's not even considering the sneaky "investor state" lawsuits built into those agreements.
Lawsuits that privilege elite foreign and multinational corporate leaders over local American governments. After all, who needs American sovereignty when we can have secret global court systems decide what's best for us?
If a global company thinks the will of the people; i.e., public laws passed by duly elected representatives as provided for in the U.S. Constitution, state and local laws; interfere with their doing business, they can sue We the People for "lost profits."
Those lawsuits don't go to a legitimate, open court. They're decided in secret, international arbitration bodies of the World Bank and the United Nations, which are closed to public participation, observation and input.
There is no due process. American sovereignty is irrelevant. Again, thanks Jeff. Hope no Vietnamese corporations are looking to mine sand off the beach anytime in the near future, or we could all be on the hook for billions if we somehow object and decide to keep our sand here.
Americans have already paid out over $3 billion through these lawsuits and there's another $14 billion up in the air. When does it stop? When Mexican and Japanese and Vietnamese businessmen own our homes and our water supplies?
Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership "free trade" talks began a 19th round of negotiations last month in Brunei. Member nations include the United States, Japan, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam.
TPP talks have been closed to legislators, press and public, but include 600 global corporations. They could finish by November and pass Congress through Presidential "fast track" authority, with no amendment debate.
In other words, Congress gave the executive branch authority to trade our Constitutional rights away to global elites before, and it looks like they're going do it again.
But some of us still remember that Congress was designated the final Constitutional authority on trade agreements for a reason. The President has no business usurping that power, and more to the point, Congress has no business giving it to him. Or a UN lawyer, for that matter.
Why isn't our District 1 representative challenging this outrage? Oh right, because he's voted for it 4 four times before.
Quite frankly, if Mr. Miller isn't interested in exercising the responsibilities set down for him in the U.S. Constitution and his constituency, he needs to step down now before he does any more damage.
The TPP will give global corporations increased control over American food safety, financial markets, medicine prices and Internet freedom. And Congress is just handing it over to them. From what we know through leaked information, only 5 of 26 chapters in this thing actually cover trade issues. The rest are binding laws we'll have no hand in deciding.
How much more of America's Constitutional sovereignty are we going to trade away for magic beans? How many more jobs do we have to lose to foreign slave labor before somebody says enough?
We the people are working harder and making less than ever. Where's are the promised jobs and employment NAFTA and CAFTA were supposed to create?
They're certainly not evident in food or gas prices. Free trade agreements steal jobs; they don't create them.
There is no way Congress needs to hand President Obama rubber stamp authority to pass this Unconstitutional mess by bypassing the will of the American people. Enough is enough.
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