Why push so hard?

Last Friday the Democrats in the House defied their president and refused to approve a part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. A large number of GOP members voted for it and about 3/4 of the Democrats did not. Which makes me suspicious of who is getting what from the deal. And why Obama is pushing for it.

The prez. and the GOP say the treaty creates jobs. The Dems say it doesn't. Who to believe? William Finnegan of the New Yorker delves into it. Democrats, spurred on by labor organizations, have come to see NAFTA, signed in 1994, as a bad deal for workers. Will the TPP treat labor better? Or worse? How will the environment be affected under the treaty? Minimum wages? Public health issues? Then there are some strange aspects of trade deals, such as corporations of one country suing governments in another.

A big problem in this debate is that the text of the agreement is under security and lawmakers are not allowed to make any notes as they view it. Mighty suspicious right there. Some pages have been leaked (thanks, WikiLeaks) and the more various progressive groups read of the details, the more they are opposed.

There is an important question in the debate. Why is Obama pushing so hard? The TPP annoys important Dem backers who plan to punish any Dem lawmaker who supports it. Obama doesn't have a next campaign to fund with gifts from corporations that would benefit from the deal. So why is Obama pushing so hard?

Robert Scott, writing in the Washington Spectator, provides a bit of background for Dem reluctance and GOP enthusiasm for the TPP and other trade deals. As these agreements are marketed to Congress and the American people there is lots of trumpeting about how many jobs will be created because of increased exports to the countries in the deal. There is quite thorough silence about how many jobs will be lost because of increased imports. The reason for the silence: the job losses are much greater than the job gains. There is, of course, silence on how the deals benefit corporations.