They are talking about it. Fast Track authority means the administration can negotiate a trade deal, or any other sort of deal, with foreign countries, and submit the treaty to the Senate for an up or down vote, no amendments.
If you think about it, fast track is the only way to get anything done. What foreign country, after negotiating some favorable clauses into the treaty wants to see all their hard won concessions go away when the US Congress rewrites the deal before ratifying it? Hence fast track. But fast track is not a constitutional power of the president, Congress has to vote it in, for a limited time. Right now, Barack Obama doesn't have it.
Basically, I believe in free, or at least freer trade, it reduces prices for us poor consumers, and it increases exports, which provides more US jobs.
But, you gotta look at Barack Obama's negotiating skills. He just negotiated an energy deal with the Chinese. We cut our CO2 emissions by 27% starting now, they let their CO2 emissions grow with out limit until the year 2030. That kinda deal we don't need.
Far as I can see, Obama is such an incompetent negotiator, that giving him fast track authority is like giving matches to a two year old. It's a bad idea.
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