The Wall Street Journal explained on Monday why Republicans in Congress should support the trade authority promotion bill. However, as the Journal notes, some Republicans are leery of supporting the bill because they don’t trust President Obama. Well, I don’t trust him either. But the bill isn’t just for President Obama. It extends into the next president’s term, too. And he or she could be a Republican.
While the Journal says it is better to pass this bill now, so the next president won’t “have to spend scarce political capital to pass it in 2017,” I say we need to pass it now because we can’t be sure it would pass under a Republican president. I realize that the President Obama isn’t getting that many Democrats to support the bill, but there would be even fewer Democrats supporting a similar bill with a Republican president. I don’t know if we could get one passed.
If we want a Republican president elected in November of 2016 to have fast-track trade authority, we need to pass this bill now.
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UPDATE (5/21/15 10:00 am): Corrected a typo in the quotation from The Wall Street Journal in the second paragraph.
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