Barack Obama wants immediate action on three trade deals that he says will create jobs in the US. Congress, Obama says, is dragging its heels on these bills and making it harder for the White House to create jobs. ThereÂ’s only one problem with this argument, which ABCÂ’s Devin Dwyer points out:President Obama has touted three pending U.S. trade deals as measures that could immediately spur job growth, if only Congress would approve them to become law. The only problem: the White House has not yet formally sent the deals to Congress for a vote.
Besides, the “do-nothing Congress” meme Obama clearly wants to push has another problem: Republicans only control the House. Treaties are ratified in the Senate only, and that’s been controlled by Harry Reid and the Democrats for more than four years. And it’s worth pointing out that these trade deals have actually been languishing for almost that long — since they were originally negotiated and signed by George Bush and not Barack Obama:
All three trade agreements were signed during the George W. Bush administration, but none of them advanced in the Democratic-controlled Congress.
So yes, let’s point out that we have a do-nothing Senate, which hasn’t produced its own budget plan for only slightly less long than those treaties — which could have created jobs in the US when we really needed them — got blocked. By Democrats.