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Leadership: The Obama administration has contented itself with talking a good game on free trade pacts and then doing nothing, citing "glitches." In reality, de facto deadlines lie ahead that will cost it big if this goes on.
President Obama's failure to go to bat for three pending free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea is becoming a problem. Sixteen months into his presidency, he has paid lip service to free trade but kept the pacts on ice, in deference to Big Labor. This weight given to one interest group has driven much of Obama's Cabinet and now Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry into a revolt of sorts, given the importance of these pacts to U.S. interests.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week made an impassioned plea at the Council of the Americas for Colombia to hang on just a bit longer for its pact, assuring Bogota of the U.S. "commitment" even as the trade deals have languished for nearly four years. She tried to convince Colombia's foreign minister that the White House wants free trade deals passed and acknowledged how far the Colombians had bent over backward to accommodate Democrats.
Kerry, meanwhile, focused on the increasingly dangerous situation on the Korean peninsula. He made an unexpectedly forceful plea to Obama, along with his GOP counterpart, Sen. Richard Lugar, to use the trade pact to seal U.S. ties with South Korea. No doubt things are going to get worse in that part of the world, and Kerry could see how critical it was to secure this relationship.
U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk also made a strong public plea last week, asking Democrats to pass all three pacts for the sake of the U.S. economy, as did Defense Secretary Bob Gates a few weeks earlier, citing national security imperatives.
It all shows an urgency not seen before — as in a ticking clock.
Well, it is. While Obama pursues a talk-and-dither policy and showers Big Labor with protectionist measures, none of which has made Big Labor happy, a billboard has gone up in Buffalo blaring "I want a freakin' job" and Facebook groups on this theme have formed. That's a deadline, like it or not.
At 9.9%, unemployment is out of control. Free trade pacts, according to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce study released Friday, have created 5.4 million American jobs, and additional agreements could help create more. The Chamber also found that 17.7 million American jobs depend on the 14 countries with which the U.S. has existing pacts. All this trade adds $1 trillion to the economy.
The news that Goldman Sachs and a group of other leading banks may ride to the rescue of ShoreBank, by industry standards a tiny institution based on Chicago's South Side, should add a new phrase to the justifications for bailouts. To "too big to fail," add "too good a cause to fail." For ShoreBank ...
Competence: Stumbling from one gaffe to another and showing little appreciation for our Constitution, Attorney General Eric Holder has become a major embarrassment. Time to admit he's in over his head and let him go. We were never big fans of the AG, but like many others, we had hoped our ...
Integrity: There is no question the president made a solemn promise not to raise taxes on those making $250,000 or less. Why is his budget director insulting Americans' intelligence by calling it a "stance"? Regardless of party or political philosophy, when you make a specific, repeated, ...
Medicine: The administration's nominee to run Medicare and Medicaid is a fan of Britain's National Health Service and rationing services. He believes in less discretion for your doctor, more power for your government. 'The decision is not whether or not we will ration care — the ...
President Obama is fond of using ridicule to frustrate critics. He recently mocked Republicans for predicting "Armageddon" if health care reform passed. After signing the bill, he cracked that he looked around to "see if there were any asteroids falling," only to discover a nice day with "birds ...
Posted By: jpdwn(600) on 5/14/2010 | 7:54 PM ET
Kudo's to Kerry and Clinton. A rare sign of seriousness as public servants. Let's hope they are successful in getting the "Sullen Teenager" administration off their butts.
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