'Free Trade' Agreements Promoted for Corporate Benefit Gut the Middle Class

[brentspeak]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michele-swenson/free-trade-agreements-pro_b_6610050.html

'Free Trade' Agreements Promoted for Corporate Benefit Gut the Middle Class

Michele Swenson

Posted: 02/06/2015 10:45 am EST

Conflicts Between Free Trade and a Recovering Middle Class

The Washington ruling class often speak out of both sides of their mouths. The political focus in 2015 has shifted abruptly, in word if not in deed, to the middle class. That beleaguered segment, largely ignored for decades, became a central talking point in the president's State of the Union address, attended by a number of invited working people. Even Republican presidential candidates are giving lip service to the lower economic class, though they have long cloaked issues of economic benefits for the wealthy with the pretense of concern for the middle class, e.g., progressive taxation of all wealth, including capital gains, will "hurt working families."

Even as they commiserate with the middle class, corporate Republicans and Democrats are poised to get behind another "free trade" deal that would hold U.S. democracy, taxpayers and workers for ransom.

President Obama's State of the Union conveyed conflicting messages. A main theme of the address was growing wealth inequity, the need for the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes, and the economically depressed middle class. Such admirable intent was negated when he urged both parties to "give me trade promotion authority to protect American workers, with strong new trade deals from Asia to Europe that aren't just free, but fair."

Urging bipartisan support for Trade Promotion Authority, a "fast track" bill to bypass constitutional congressional oversight and speed passage of the secretive Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal (more far-reaching than NAFTA and bound to further undermine [link:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lori-wallach/obamas-state-of-the-union_b_4658767.htmljobs and manufacturing]) the president telegraphed his support of the corporate agenda. Only five of 29 chapters of the TPP have anything to do with trade; the remainder amount to a huge corporate power grab...[/div[

[msongs]

1. yeah but it will do wonders for obama, congress, and their corporate "friends" nt

[Vattel]

2. The dishonesty of the Obama Administration's claim

that TPP would create 650,000 new jobs is breathtaking. Not unlike Obama's pretending to be anti-NAFTA, or his pretending to respect Congress's power create war, or his pretending to be against telecom immunity, etc.