ON CAPITOL HILL

OBAMA GREEN-LIGHTS PLAN TO KILL OBAMATRADE 'WELFARE'?

Says he'll sign fast-track legislation even if Congress doesn't renew benefits

President Obama has given conservatives a rare gift – the chance to kill what critics say is a wasteful welfare program.

The president had previously told Congress the price for Obamatrade included Trade Adjustment Assistance, or TAA, a job retraining program for laid-off union members.

GOP leaders packaged TAA in Obamatrade legislation to buy Democratic Party votes for the fast-track power the president seeks.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, cynically backed the deal, though in the past he called TAA “just another improper gift to the unions.”

But when House Democrats refused to renew TAA, the whole trade package went down in flames on June 12. Only 86 Republicans voted to fund TAA.

Now Obama says he’ll do what many of his opponents thought he was incapable of – slashing a welfare program that critics say wastes money and gets no results.

Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., said Obama told him he will sign fast-track legislation even if Congress doesn’t renew TAA.

That effectively leaves TAA as road kill alongside the fast track as House conservatives seize the opportunity to finally eradicate a program they’ve blasted away at for years.

House Republicans will vote for TAA “when hell falls in the abyss,” Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., told Roll Call.

See the evidence against Obama, in “Crimes Against Liberty: An Indictment of President Barack Obama,” by David Limbaugh.

The House Republican Study Committee has long targeted TAA, and so have outside conservative groups.

Heritage Action has TAA in its cross-hairs, calling it a “leftist solution,” “an egregiously ineffective welfare program” and a “special interest boondoggle that deserves defeat.”

Heritage finds TAA so repellant, it was ready to oppose the entire Obamatrade package despite the organization’s routine support of “free trade.” Now that TAA is decoupled from fast track, Heritage and House conservatives have a cleaner kill shot.

And Heritage is not alone in seeking the program’s demise.

“With President Obama saying he’ll sign a stand-alone fast track bill, the House can finally end a wasteful and ineffective welfare program that should have been eliminated a long time ago,” said Rick Manning, president of Americans for Limited Government.

Club for Growth notes conservative House members have been trying to kill TAA since 1995, and consider it “a federal wealth redistribution program that has no business existing in a free society.”

TAA dates back to the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. It was designed to retrain workers who lost jobs due to the surge of imports resulting from free-trade agreements.

But studies show TAA fails to deliver. Research by Mathematica found TAA participants ended up earning less than a comparable group of workers who had been laid off and didn’t receive TAA benefits.

“The Government Accountability Office confirmed these retrained workers make less money than their non-TAA-assisted counterparts,” wrote Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint.

It appears the president has been listening. His 2015 budget ends TAA by combining it with other job-training programs.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/06/obama-green-lights-plan-to-kill-obamatrade-welfare/#2ZFkGUXuk5TZq0UU.99