Calm Down Greg Sargent: Hillary isn't 'Running Forever From a Trade Debate'

      He seems to be buying into the idea that she is not telling us enough about what she thinks about trade. But how can she now? There is no deal on the table yet. Again, this has been just about fast track authority. Hopefully worker assistance will also be passed soon-though the irony is that we have the House Democrats to thank that we don't have worker assistance yet. 

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/06/daily-kos-on-fast-track-kind-of-ironic.html

    Yet Sargent feels like she just has to let us know now it's been so long. 

    "Today the Senate is expected to cast the final vote granting President Obama “Fast Track” authority to negotiate the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. With trade badly splitting Democrats, Hillary Clinton had avoided taking a meaningful position on Fast Track, only suggesting she might not support it if it didn’t also include worker assistance (which may also move forward within days)."

     "But if Clinton had hoped to leave the trade debate behind if Fast Track failed, its success now means she may have to take a position on the trade deal itself sooner or later."

     "Clinton’s campaign has said that any trade deal must “put us in a position to protect American workers, raise wages and create more good jobs at home,” and that the U.S. should “walk away from any outcome that falls short” of that. Obviously, this leaves room for Clinton to either support or oppose the deal later."

      "But if we do get a TPP, the debate will shift out of the process netherworld in which the Fast Track fight unfolded, and present us with specifics that can actually be evaluated in light of the test Clinton herself has articulated. Obama has vowed that the TPP will boost labor standards in participating countries like Vietnam, leveling the global playing field for American workers. But we still don’t know what those standards will look like, and we still don’t know how compliant with them such countries will be required to be before participating in the TPP."

     "Meanwhile, we still don’t know what sort of “monopoly pricing power” the deal will contain for biologics, which some critics worry will amount to a giveaway to Big Pharma at the expense of global health. And we still have yet to see the details of the deal’s mechanism for resolving disputes between international investors and other participating countries — which critics worry will give a special break to corporations that is denied to workers."

      "Clinton’s camp is said to believe the trade debate will not create the lasting divisions among Dems that attended the Iraq debate. And some polling does indicate that there may not be rampant anger over it among Dem base voters."

     No this is far from the Iraq debate. The stakes in this are not nearly as high. I think it's very easy for either supporters or opponents of the TPP to oversell it's effects. This deal will neither mean the eternal damnation of American workers nor their salvation. 

     As for whether TPP is a good deal overall, let's wait for it to actually come out. Hillary would be foolish to show her hand before she's even seen the proposals. What is she supposed to say now? I guess some want her to categorically condemn it but this serves no purpose now. 

   We'll see what it says. Either way these proposals by the 'liberal billionaire' will do a lot more for workers than say killing a marginal trade deal. 

    http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/06/when-i-grow-up-i-want-to-be-like-nick.html

  http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/06/whats-next-for-uber-economy-part-2.html