GOP Must Hold the Line Against Obama’s ATM Politics With Free Trade

Obama imposing his bad luck on job creation and economic growth 

As Obama travels through America’s heartland on his teleprompter tours bus, he is touting a new plan to create jobs.  While he has offered few specifics thus far, Obama is calling for the ratification of the free trade agreements (FTAs) with Columbia, Panama, and South Korea as vehicles for job creation.  The rest of his jobs (killing) plan will be released at some later date, possibly at the time when Huntsman releases his proposal.

This newfound support for free enterprise is quite perplexing, given that he has held the FTAs hostage for a pet welfare program, Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), since the day he became president.
Democrats, at the behest of their Big Labor puppet masters, have held up the FTAs with three allied nations for over four years.  Now, amidst growing pressure to create jobs and keep up with other allied nations like Canada, Obama is willing to send the trade pacts to Congress on condition that they reauthorize the TAA.  The TAA is a subsidy program created in 1962, which arbitrarily rewards job training, relocation allowances, loans, grants, and unemployment pay to workers who supposedly lost jobs from FTAs.

So Obama is holding up a free market policy, which he readily admits will create jobs, for a program that indiscriminately throws money at obsolete jobs of special interests that are dubiously connected to FTAs.  What a jobs plan, Mr. President.

Say No to Baucus Trade Deal

 Didn't we all play mock Senate in middle school?

While Obama has spent the past two years pandering to leftist dictators in Latin America, he has also impeded ratification of free trade agreements with our allies.  Along with Democrat leaders in Congress, Obama has refused to approve the 5-year-old trade pacts with Columbia, Panama, and South Korea unless Republicans agree to renew a trade subsidy program known as Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA).  Yesterday, Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) announced that he had secured a novel compromise with House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and the president.  Drum roll.... He will agree to fast track the trade agreements if ...Republicans agree to renew the TAA program!  Wow, who needed two years' worth of negotiations?

The Trade Adjustment Assistance, which expired in February, is nothing more than a welfare program that is subjectively doled out to anyone who offers a dubious claim that they lost a job due to trade agreements.  Like many other programs, the TAA was drastically expanded under the stimulus bill to include all sorts of workers at a cost of over $1 billion, and has been used as a slush fund for special interests.  Keep in mind that this program is totally independent from the unemployment benefits that are already being offered for an unprecedented 99-week period.  The TAA grants some unemployed workers assistance for up to three years.  The continuation of this program until 2013, as proposed by Baucus, would only serve to perpetuate unemployment the same way that hyper long-term unemployment benefits do.  Besides, like all federal jobs programs, studies show that TAA has failed to boost long-term success for the unemployed.

Baucus plans to pair the TAA reauthorization with the South Korean trade implementation bill and hold a "mock markup" of all three bills at the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday to hash out the details of the compromise.  Under the Trade Act of 1974, in order to fast-track trade agreements, Congress cannot amend or filibuster the implementation law for the agreement, even in committee.  The whole point was to preempt poison pills from protectionists by forcing an up or down vote on the final trade agreement.

Consequently, Baucus cannot hold a real markup to work out amendments and compromises.  Instead, he is scheduling a backdoor wheeling and dealing session being dubbed as a mock markup.  Presumably, a mock markup is the most productive thing this Senate can do, being that they failed to produce a budget for almost 800 days, have not passed a single important piece of legislation this session, and plan to lighten their "burden" of 'advise and consent' on presidential appointees.

More Residual Effects of Obama's Anti-Oil Policies

The depletion of our oil production is corroding the Alaska pipeline and widening the trade deficit.

Obama's oil free utopia is precipitating yet more mayhem on our economy.  Today, two major news stories concerning our lack of oil production highlight just how profoundly oil affects our economy.

The first story concerns the Trans Alaska Pipeline.  The pipeline employs 2,000 workers and delivers 11% of our domestically produced oil to the other states.  During its early years, when we weren't impounding the oil in Alaska, the pipeline transported 2 million barrels of oil per day.  Now, less than a third of that volume flows through the pipeline, with the trajectory spiraling sharply downward.  The Wall Street Journal reported today that there is growing concern about the adverse effects of decreasing oil flow on the pipeline itself:

Now, dwindling oil production along Alaska's northern edge means the pipeline carries less than one-third the volume it once did—and the crude takes five times as long to get to its destination.
That leisurely flow means the oil is above ground longer and more exposed to Alaska's frigid weather; the crude sometimes arrives chilled to 40 degrees. As the flow and temperature continue to drop, experts say the risks of a clog or corrosion increase, as do the odds of ruptures and spills.

Unless a technological solution can be found, the arcane physics of crude flow may force the multibillion dollar, 48-inch-wide steel pipeline to shut down—and determine the fate of the largest oil field ever found in the U.S.
There's one other, seemingly simple fix: Add more oil.