If you do not like this trade deal and how its proceeding go here:
f you care AT ALL about runaway corporate power, I really need you to take action today.
Congress is about to let President Barack Obama sign a disastrous trade deal that will make the world’s largest corporations more powerful than they’ve ever been.
Email your representative RIGHT NOW to stop this disaster before it’s too late.
http://action.citizen.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=12826
Tomorrow, the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on “Fast Track” authority. Fast Track would railroad the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP — a 12-nation trade pact that makes NAFTA seem practically quaint — through Congress.
And the vote in the House is too close to call.
The Senate already voted to revive this extreme Nixon-era procedure that Congress has rejected for all but five of the past 20 years.
Tomorrow’s vote in the House is our last chance to stop Fast Track and save ourselves from the disastrous TPP.
Make sure your representative votes “No!” on Fast Track. The vote will be so close that your representative could literally make the difference!
Fast Track would let President Obama enter the U.S. into the TPP before the text of the deal is made public or Congress approves its contents. Then it would guarantee a vote on the done deal in 90 days with all amendments banned.
And this overreaching power would be delegated to whoever is president for the next six years — for any and all trade deals he or she may cook up.
It is no exaggeration to say that what happens with Fast Track and the TPP will shape our future.
The TPP would give Big Business unprecedented new powers.
Fast Tracking the TPP would make it easier to offshore our jobs and push down our wages by throwing Americans into competition with workers in Vietnam making less than 60 cents an hour.
It would flood us with unsafe imported food, increase fracking, roll back Wall Street regulation, and on and on and on.
Getting Fast Track and passing the TPP is the number one priority of Big Business in this Congress.
Why else would corporate shills like John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan be FOR this bad deal while progressives like Elizabeth Warren, Al Franken and Bernie Sanders are helping us fight it?
Please take one minute to take this simple action while there’s still time.
We can win this — if we all act together. Right now.
Onward,
Robert Weissman
President, Public Citizen
Or here:
We have one last chance to stop Fast Track on trade – right now! The House has scheduled a vote for Friday, and dozens of members of Congress are still undecided (or undeclared) about which way they will vote.
Will you take a minute right now to call your representative’s office and tell him or her to vote NO on Fast Track?
Click here look up your representative’s phone number.
http://www.house.gov/representatives/
As a quick recap: Right now, the President is finishing up the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal covering 40% of the world’s economy. It was negotiated with the help of 28 working groups, but here’s the scary part: 85% of the people in those groups are corporate executives or corporate lobbyists. I’m not against trade – but a tilted process produces a tilted product, and I’m really worried about a trade deal that works for big, multinational corporations and leaves everyone else in the dirt.
We saw what has happened to American jobs under trade deals like NAFTA: a million lost jobs and stagnant wages for decades. President Obama says this time it’s different – but you can’t see the deal. It’s classified. The Administration will release the text to the public only after Congress passes Fast Track.
What does that mean? Before you are allowed to see the giant Asia trade deal, Congress must voluntarily give up its power to offer amendments and sharply reduce its ability to block a bad deal. So, for example, if this TPP deal includes a dangerous ISDS provision that would let multinational corporations effectively challenge American laws outside of American courts, our hands would be tied.
Also, Fast Track wouldn’t apply to just this one TPP deal. It would apply to ANY trade deal cut by ANY President for the next six years. So if one of the anti-worker, climate-change-denying, Wall-Street accountability-hating Republicans gets elected President, they would have the same Fast Track power to ram bad trade deals that undermine our laws through Congress just 18 months from now.
It’s just plain irresponsible to sign a six-year Fast Track agreement – and to sign away our right to fix the TPP before the public has seen the deal.
It only takes a minute or two to look up your member of Congress, call his or her office, and tell the person who answers the phone: “Hello, I’m Steve from Marlborough, and I’m calling to urge him/her to vote NO on trade Fast Track. Do you know how he/she is planning on voting?”
Can we count on you to make one final call to your representative before Friday’s vote? Click here to look up the phone number now.
Thank you for being a part of this,
Elizabeth
P.S. Even though labor unions, environmental groups, human rights groups, legal experts, and many others oppose Fast Track, trade doesn’t fall neatly in a Republican category or Democratic category. Some Democrats will vote for Fast Track – and some Republicans will vote against it. No matter where you live, no matter who represents you, please make your voice heard. Please call your representative now and tell him or her to vote NO on Fast Track.
P.P.S. Think about family, friends, and neighbors who may not get these emails. Think about the folks you know in other states. Ask if they would call. Forward any part of this email – we need the help. This is how online grassroots democracy really works.