Two of the many critical issues facing American voters today are the illegal and the legal immigration disaster that has gone unaddressed by serial Congresses and encouraged by successive presidents; and the forthcoming vote on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) that, like NAFTA and other trade agreements since the 1990s, promises to visit even more economic calamity on Middle America and the staggering economy.
Unfortunately Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the presumptive new Speaker of the House, will be of no help to working Americans on either issue.
Ryan has not just been an “open borders” advocate, he can only be described as an immigration radical who believes in amnesty for illegals, apparently unlimited immigration without quotas, and, as revealed by Breitbart’s Julia Hahn in a number of stunning videos, Ryan thinks every American job should be open to anyone, from any country.
Making nationhood and the well being of American citizens subservient to foreign interests, of course, is not a historically “conservative” position, nor is it the opinion of the broad base of the Republican Party or the country. (Ryan has a Conservative Review score of “F”).
Less known is that Ryan is not simply an advocate for the new TPP monstrosity, but its foremost advocate inside the Congress, and as Chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee has used that position to push both unlimited trade authority for President Obama, but to scuttle amendments that would have preemptively dealt with immigration issues we now know are contained in the still “secret” TPP agreement.
The TPP is, of course, an agreement with eleven Asian nations that is euphemistically called a “free trade” agreement by Ryan and other globalist politicians in the Congress. These agreements since NAFTA have produced massive economic dislocations and job loss, decimated U.S. manufacturing capacity, and produced staggering and unending trade imbalances, exporting trillions of U.S. dollars to friends and foes abroad.
The evidence is fairly clear, these are not “free trade,” but managed trade arrangements drafted, like TPP, by largely unknown and unaccountable bureaucrats, international companies and their lobbyists, and special interest groups that will directly benefit from the agreements.
As with immigration, support of TPP as we now understand it, thanks largely to Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) , is not a historically “conservative” position; managed trade instead of genuine reciprocal free trade, is a concoction of the statist, top down mindset and is outside of what of most Republicans support.
Nearing the eve of Ryan’s elevation to third in line to the Presidency, the marvel is that Washington, D.C., and both political parties remain about as far removed from the nation’s immediate concerns and solutions as they could possibly be. The nation has depression-era unemployment and underemployment, all time high rates of food stamp use and poverty, record minority joblessness, a collapsing government education system, and healthcare costs that are skyrocketing as Obamacare implodes.
But Washington is consumed with…Washington. The leadership of both parties have been unable or unwilling to address the crisis level implications of the stagnating U.S. economy, dropping incomes, unfettered and unlimited illegal and legal immigration, and the deteriorating defense posture of the nation in a world that is unraveling.
Ryan wants to make things “work,” but the question is what does he mean by work? Immigration, TPP, further growth of the monster government? Evidently Ryan has assured fellow House members that he’ll not bully the process and circumvent the Hastert Rule, meaning that no legislation will be promoted to the floor unless a majority of Republicans support it.
Is that reassuring?
The obvious questions every citizen should be asking their Representative today and tomorrow is, do you or don’t you support Ryan’s “open border, open job” positions, and do you support ramming TPP through the House process with virtually no input from citizens, who have yet to see it, and might not see it until after the vote?
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[…] world view than Paul Ryan. Over the past year, I have written numerous unflattering articles on Speaker Ryan, the essential summary of which is that the Speaker is a zealot – an extremist […]
[…] open-border advocate Paul Ryan (R-WI), who believes in unrestricted immigration, and has said that every American job should be in competition to anyone from any country, is now lecturing us on what is conservatism is […]
As Politico notes today, Ryan’s previous criticism of the new budget deal (The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 – BBA 2015 introduced last night at 11:30 pm) and proposed for a vote this Thursday (again so much for the commitment to allow for a three day review period for a vote on major legislation) has magically morphed in just 24 hours into his current assessment that it contains some good, some bad, and some ugly. He states to Politico that “what has been produced will go a long way toward relieving the uncertainty hanging over us, and that’s why I intend to support it. It’s time for us to turn the page on the last few years and get to work on a bold agenda that we can take to the American people.”
I encourage you to review this excellent summary below for yourself and determine if you agree with my assessment that what it really represents is total and complete surrender by the Republican establishment and by House leadership to thier national fiscal responsibilities.This is how Ryan’s potential assumption of the leadership launches with the apparent complete compliance of the likes of Rep. Jim Jordan and the House Freedom Caucus, that might as well just shut it’s meeting room doors. The work of countless dedicated people in the conservative and libertarian base since 2010 to introduce responsible spending and deficit management has been set back to ZERO. The Republican Party looks more and more like a collection of pitiful corporate political hacks without a single statesman in sight to lead and make the difficult decisions.
https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2015/10/what-total-gop-budget-surrender-looks-like-an-analysis-of-the-budget-deal
Wait, I thought radical was a good thing these days?
It is precisely because of these loonie Open Border Republicans such as Ryan that the GOP is in disarray and we now have Trump and Carson as the frontrunners. If the pack of conventional GOP politicians had given a frig about borders and culture and society, we would not be in the mess we are in today. Fortunately, Hillary is a fatally flawed candidate as well.
mark…wish Ryno were loony but guys like this know what they are doing and that is pushing the donor’s demand for unfettered immigration for which they will be handsomely rewarded when they leave like Eric Cantor. Ryno has been said to be planning to leave Congress in the short term and start the cashing in… He may really not stay past 2017 because he has some chips to collect from the Chamber of Commerce House…
Stonewall – I used to think such talk was for those whose shoes were laced a bit too tightly, but I regret that you are likely correct.
Mike, how do you feel about Trey Gowdy being the one who will place Ryan’s name into nomination for Speaker?
Same as you will feel when Trump gets the GOP nomination for President. Or is Hillary your man?
Since one is actually happening and the other is a fantasy, I’m not sure your comparison works.
Trump winning the nomination is closer to reality than your fantasy of Yeb! winning now isn’t it? Or are you a cuckservative for Hillary? Or are you a just plain old lib for Hillary?
Not supporting either, but you’re welcome to keep guessing.
Marco.
Polo.
Giere: “LA LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”
“These agreements since NAFTA have produced massive economic dislocations and job loss” <- I though Immigration caused this…..
The problem is that the TTP creates a system that greatly encourages companies to move overseas for cheap labor. Why pay an american worker 15$ an hour when you can just move to Vietnam and pay someone at 1/8 of that for the same type of work. Is illegal immigration a problem? Absolutely, but it’ll never cause a situation were you have thousands of people lose their job because the company they were working for decided to move to Asia to maximize their profits.
you didn’t answer my question, you gave talking points…. check your labels Vietnam and others are already producing goods…. companies moved for several reasons, cheap labor is only 1…. they can get cheap labor here, we are told that everyday by the populist who claim immigration costs jobs because of cheap labor.
I apologize I was arguing the point you made about immigration being the main cause of job loss in the U.S.
As for your question it seems to me that you’re implying that the only way to do business with other countries is through this kind of Trade Agreements, and that this is the only way to trade with other countries which is simply not true. Your question is assuming a dichotomy were we either have this specific type of trade agreements or no trade.
I apologize if it seems like that. I realize we can trade without deals. Agreements eaae trade. The argument more jobs will be lost is a farce as Asian countries already produce goods. An argument against immigration because of it is a farce because of previous argument. An argument against high corporate tax is a good one, an argument against unions is a good one. An argument against the ban on exporting crude is a good one. But foreign manufacturing and immigration are not.
Analysis from the Peterson Institute for International Economics has found TPP will actually increase US exports by $123 Billion and raise incomes $77 Billion per year, invariably resulting in more, better-paying jobs and a stronger middle class.
There are other benefits of free trade, as seen with NAFTA — which increased our farm exports 156%, has created a trade surplus in services, lowers oil prices, lowers food prices, lowers prices on consumer goods, and has tripled American investment in Mexico and Canada which boosts profits of American companies.
But, sure, both came from Democrats so they must be evil.
I have different figures from yours. Granted the source seems biased.
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimates that the rising U.S. trade deficit with Mexico and Canada
since NAFTA went into effect had already eliminated about one million net jobs in the United States by
2004.43 EPI estimates that about one third of the jobs lost due to the rising trade deficit under NAFTA’s
first decade were in non-manufacturing sectors of the economy, including service sector jobs, which
suffered as closed factories no longer demanded services.
44 EPI further calculates that the ballooning trade
deficit with Mexico alone destroyed about seven hundred thousand net U.S. jobs between NAFTA’s
implementation and 2010
Hum, that’s interesting since outside of a very few number of actual international trade negotiators and a restricted list within the Obama administration and at last count Sens. Sessions and Cruz, who made the trek to the secure room to review the entire working document section by section, NO one has had open and complete review access to either the TPP base documents, let alone the secert negotiated side deals included as attachments, RIGHT UP AND THROUGH it’s passage. It still hasn’t been released to the public as of today. So the Peterson Institute must have done their anaylsis with a ouija board or used the dubious bits and pieces released on Wikileaks. Don’t bother writing a long rebuttal on how wrong I am, just send the copy of the TPP agreement that substantiates your comment or an online location as I would very much like to see it myself. Needless to say I won’t be expecting anything.
The likely reality is Ryan will be elected Speaker and the behind closed doors budget deal cut by Boehner and his supporting cast prior to his departure will completely fund Obama’s progressive agenda through 2017, plus providing him with tens of billions of new borrowed cash for his pet domestic programs.The last shreds of the 2013 sequestration effort will be swept away and it will be back to full blown, out of control deficit spending. As for ObamaCare, forget it, and expect to see an aggressive attempt to resurrect and fund the Ex-Im Bank. Ryan will claim his hands are clean (for those that need a tissue of justification for this outright duplicity), as he was not directly involved in the final sell out deal involving a lame duck Speaker and President, while the near complete support of the Republican House precludes Obama from even having to arm twist his own party (if any were even required) to be granted his complete domestic wish list. What we are in effect witnessing is the evolution of the statist based corporate directed “uniparty”, they may wear red vs blue ties but they all govern off the same script.
Are there any House triage options open to the conservative base besides the next election cycle? Well, first the Constitution does not state the duties of the Speaker, and the role of the Speaker has largely been shaped by traditions and customs that have evolved over time into two main forms: 1) a Speaker possessing enormous power such as is the case today, including the power to appoint members and chairmen of all committees and to control the timing and content of bills brought before the House; 2) a Speaker with reduced power supplemented by chairmen who have been appointed primarily by reason of seniority, as was the case in the modern era until the mid-1970s. That is pretty much it and neither of these approaches, as far as I can see, leverage any near term options to prod the Republican establishment majority to address conservative base concerns. That leaves implementing a Conservative voting bloc under the prescribed rules for Congressional Member Organizations (CMO) within the Republican Party itself that votes on conservative issues as a block and proposes legislation as a caucus with a ready committed set of votes already whipped and in place for passage or negotiation. The House Freedom Caucus being only the most recent example of what NOT to think in terms of when attempting to implement such an approach. Without a functioning voting bloc based in principles of conservative governance and willing to negotiate as a group and self enforce membership criteria, removing “reelection cycle” conservatives from it’s ranks when called for, then little will ever be accomplished. Without a power base calling your representative to protest is nothing more then a placebo. But feel free to dial away.
I grew up in a Christian home w/staunch Republican parents. The GOP was the party of God, Country, family, and small Gov’t. Now I learn that they are the Mafia. My father is rolling over in his grave, and my mother has dementia. The only blessing of her having dementia is that she isn’t aware of how America, the beloved country both my parents served in WWII is being destroyed from the inside and the top down.