WASHINGTON (Rooters agency) – The President today responded to Congressional critics of the TPP, which he called “the most progressive trade agreement since the Treaties of Tientsin.”
Some members of Congress have been complaining, politely, that they don’t know what’s in the TPP, which stands for Trade Pig in a Poke. But, as the President said, any Senator or Congressthing who wants to is allowed to read selected excerpts from the TPP in a locked airless room with no one else present except for a CIA observer singing patriotic songs off key.
These arrangements, the President said today, do not at all infringe on the Constitutional right of Congress to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations.” It is quite possible to regulate things without knowing anything about them, he pointed out, and cited the examples of Catholic clergy regulating marriage, illiterate school boards in many places controlling textbooks, and the Supreme Court, which seems to know nothing about anything but is the ultimate judge of everything.
The President said it seemed “hypocritical and contradictory” for opponents of the TPP to complain that its contents weren’t known. “The opponents of this agreement don’t know what’s in it. We’ve made sure of that by classifying everything. So how can they be against something when they don’t know what it is?”
However, the President backed off slightly from a threat made by the US Trade Representative. It was not automatically the case, the President said, that legislators would go straight to jail for telling anyone what they have read of the TPP in that airless room, even when the light was on. “They would have the alternative that they could probably get political asylum in Moscow, like that other traitor.”
In any case, the President continued, members of Congress seldom read any of the legislation they pass. And there is even less point than usual in reading the TPP, since, once it is passed, it can be changed without being sent back to Congress for approval. No, he regretted he couldn’t tell us who could change the TPP: that information was classified, because, if it was public, “It could cause abrupt rises in some shares on the stock exchange.” Most of the changes will probably be secret too, the President indicated, until they’re made use of.
Before the TPP itself comes to a vote, both houses of Congress will vote on a measure called TPA, or Total Plunder Authorization. If passed, TPA will make it possible for Congress to pass the TPP without thinking about it very much, because legislators will consider: “What would be the point? I wouldn’t be allowed to change anything, and doing something must be better than doing nothing.” For that reason, TPA seems assured of passage.
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