Dakota Beacon

This is in response to many questions churned up by the Trump campaign which are meant to deceive rather than inform voters and the general audience. 

Steve Miller’s remarks, made during Trump’s effort to win votes in the Wisconsin primary, attempt to dissuade those concerned about unemployment from supporting Cruz by falsifying the record on Cruz’s history in the Senate, accusing him of supporting the TPP, and authoring an amendment which was supposedly designed to bring in twice as many migrants to flood our labor force.  Understandably many are alarmed at this. 

First we must distinguish between the “TPP” and the “TPA”. 

The TPA, or Trade Promotion Authority, is a device by which Congress authorizes the President to negotiate trade agreements which are then submitted to Congress for a straight up-or-down vote, not allowing for amendments.  Congress must still approve it but it avoids the problem of tying up foreign trade agreements in Congress with endless back-and-forth debate on amendments and deal-making in Congress.  Almost every president has been so authorized by Congress to negotiate arrangements like this subject to ratification. 

Cruz first supported this, mainly because he is anticipating a Republican president following Obama’s last term and considering this, it might be difficult to get Congress to authorize this for a Republican depending upon the makeup of the new Congress.  Right now there would be the votes to do this and the life of this authorization is six years, so the first term of a Republican president would be covered by a “yes” vote on TPA now. Believing that this could be beneficial to a future Republican president and could more easily be passed under the presidency of Obama, he voted “yes” on a preliminary vote.  Cruz had been assured by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that the rescue of the Export Import Bank would not be smuggled in as part of this vote.  When he learned that McConnell had lied about the ExIm Bank bailout, allowing it to come to the floor with this bailout intact despite a promise not to, Cruz basically exploded with his famous accusation to McConnell, “You lied!” and withdrew his support.  The TPA passed despite Cruz’s opposition, and  thus McConnell was able to save the ExIm Bank as well.  McConnell traded the ExIm bailout to the Democrats to buy their votes for the TPA, even though he had sworn he would not do this.

The TPP is something else altogether.  This is the Trans-Pacific Partnership.  It has not come to a vote as yet.  You may recall that this bill has been developed in the strictest secrecy – the senators not directly involved in authoring it have not been allowed to have a copy to read and have only been allowed limited access to view it in a secure room.  Again, there has been duplicity in the design of this legislation.  Cruz has said that what he had seen of it looked fairly benign, but then he learned that a portion of it called “trade in services” would allow immigration outside of the existing immigration law, and he is opposing this, maintaining that our immigration laws need to be upheld and immigration should not have a “back door”.  So in this, also, Miller has made untrue statements mischaracterizing Cruz’s positions and history.  This is simply lying.

Finally we come to the famous Gang of Eight immigration “reform” bill.  Marco Rubio and Chuck Schumer attempted to pass this.  They both had their reasons.  The bill would have brought in millions of foreign workers and other immigrants and it would have been a regurgitation of the “Dream Act” which would have given these immigrants the vote.  Schumer liked this because he could almost guarantee that these new votes would be Democrat votes.  Rubio liked it because it was favored by the several special interests he served in providing a massive amount of cheap labor.  Cruz was well aware of the reasons these senators were promoting this and he countered with the “poison pill” amendment, one which was designed to show them for what they were and expose the true effects and intentions of the Gang of Eight bill.  He proposed an amendment which would have brought even more immigrants in – thus giving apparent incentive to these” compassionate” Gang of Eight members – but would have denied them the vote in perpetuity.  This removed their crass incentives for votes.  He had the insight to know who and what these senators were and he reckoned that their “compassion” was governed strictly by their greed.  He gambled and was proven right.  It was, in truth, not so much of a gamble as it was a royal flush.  He defeated the Gang of Eight bill almost single-handedly with his astute reasoning and his perception.  This was not an effort by Cruz to “bring in twice as many immigrants to take away our jobs”.  It was an effort to uncover the truth behind the bill and stop it dead in its tracks.  Despite his best efforts to divide the support for this the juggernaut persisted and the Gang of Eight bill passed in the Senate.  Cruz didn’t let it end there.  He went to the House to lobby against it.  About this time Eric Cantor, House Majority Leader, lost his seat to Dave Brat, a conservative.  This sent shock waves through the House and the Immigration Bill did fail to pass in the House, as members of Congress felt a cold chill that blunted their bravado (Cruz explained this whole thing on the Rush Limbaugh radio show – June 19, 2013).

I hope that this brief history will clear up a complex matter which has been used to deceive people who care about these issues.  The rest of the truth is that Donald Trump has made heavy use of these “guest worker” programs to staff his resorts and hotels.  He loves the cheap labor.  His famous ground-zero resort called Mar-A-Lago is heavily staffed by immigrant labor.  It  is obvious.  He makes deals.  He hones in on his bottom line.  Everything he does, whether it is importing cheap foreign labor to staff his enterprises (or clean house for the likes of ex-wife Ivana), or paying off our office holders in “quid-pro-quo” understandings, it is all geared to vacuum up more wealth – at any cost to the nation or the public.  That, he will tell you, is just good business.