Fast Track

Above: Senate Democrats who voted to grant President Obama fast track authority on the Trans-Pacific Partnership

Well, enough Senate Democrats predictably caved to Obama’s pressure on the Trans-Pacific Partnership to vote to grant him fast track. The 13 Democrats who have sold out working Americans on the TPP.

Michael Bennet (D-CO)
Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
Tom Carper (D-DE)
Chris Coons (D-DE)
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND)
Tim Kaine (D-VA)
Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
Patty Murray (D-WA)
Bill Nelson (D-FL)
Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)
Mark Warner (D-VA)
Ron Wyden (D-OR)

Vague promises by Mitch McConnell convinced some Democrats. Patty Murray said “Mitch gave a commitment” on a June vote on renewing the Export-Import Bank, recently a target of Tea Partiers. Boy would I be shocked to see him renege on those promises. Just flabbergasted.

The biggest hope now is that Elizabeth Warren’s amendment stripping the Investor State Dispute Settlement out of the deal, which is what allows corporations to sue governments if they enact regulations that hurt the corporation. If that happens, probably the biggest objection to the TPP will be gone. But I am highly skeptical that it will pass or that enough Democrats will stand up to the president and corporations at all in the end. Some will. But the 13 listed above are probably yes votes for anything if some pressure is applied.

Bernie Sanders is of course saying all the right things:

“The Senate just put the interests of powerful multi-national corporations, drug companies and Wall Street ahead of the needs of American workers. If this disastrous trade agreement is approved, it will throw Americans out of work while companies continue moving operations and good-paying jobs to low-wage countries overseas.

“Bad trade deals like the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership are a major reason for the collapse of the American middle class and the increase in wealth and income inequality in the United States. This agreement, like bad trade deals before it, would force American workers to compete with desperate workers around the world – including workers in Vietnam where the minimum wage is 56-cents an hour.

“Trade agreements should not just work for corporate America, Wall Street and the pharmaceutical industry. They have got to benefit the working families of our country,” Sanders said. “We must defeat fast track and develop a new policy on trade.”

Hillary?