The hotly debated Trade Promotion Authority could be approved by Congress today, granting unconstitutional authority to President Barack Obama, according to Ron Paul.
In his latest Liberty Report, the three-time presidential candidate and former congressman from Texas offered his perspective on the TPA. He described it as “the transfer of power from the Congress to the president to design some trade agreements, which, quite frankly, is unconstitutional because the responsibility falls on the Congress.”
“It’s a little bit more complex than this, and more so this time than before,” Paul said, noting that the TPA is something he has voted on numerous times while in Congress. “This trade promotion authority, also called fast track, involves more than one piece of legislation.” This time it looks like Congress will give Obama unconstitutional authority.
Daniel McAdams, co-host of the Liberty Report, explained that the TPA would facilitate the implementation of three pending trade deals, one of which is the Trans-Pacific Partnership. “The other two are secret,” McAdams said.
There is a shroud of secrecy around the TPP as well, Paul detailed. “This is unbelievable,” he said. “The lobbyists, the people who represent big business, the corporations, have been allowed to read those where the members of Congress are not allowed to read it.” Though he conceded that “fast track” is a good descriptive term about the expeditious manner of the TPA, the term does not accurately describe the legislation as also being a manner of keeping the facts behind closed doors.
Moreover, Congressman Paul Ryan was quoted supporting the secrecy of TPA and TPP, saying, “It’s classified. It will be made public once it’s agreed to.”
Did he just take a page out of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi’s book? Consider how the Republicans were up in arms when Pelosi said Congress needed to pass Obamacare before the public could read it. “This just goes to show how the elites are really of one mind and one party,” McAdams said.
Paul agreed. “The one thing that bugs me still as much as it did back then was the hypocrisy of it,” he said. “So here they want to classify it and keep it secret. ‘We’re not allowed to do it.’ ‘It’s best for the country.’ ‘It’s for freedom and free trade.’ At the same time, when the president had a little bit of diplomacy going on, the Congress came down pretty hard.” Though the Congress “might have been technically correct” in their demand for transparency in that situation, Paul said he does believe that the president should be able to have some private talks with other countries.
Point being, the Congress seems to lack principle when it comes to how transparency should be applied. “At one time they’re for all this transparency, and another time they want to cover up,” Paul said.
Watch the full episode above and check out more episodes of the Ron Paul Liberty Report here at Truth In Media. And check out the Liberty Report episode “Fast-Track: Free Trade or Protectionism?” here.
In case you missed Ben Swann’s Truth In Media episode on ISIS watch it below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6kdi1UXxhY