Christmas Comes Early in Washington

Christmas comes early in Washington
Molly Ivins - Creators Syndicate

12.02.03 - AUSTIN, Texas -- Call them -- irresponsible ... Call them --
unreliable ... Throw in -- undependable, too ... Yes, it's undeniably
true -- the Congress of the United States makes Bart Simpson look like
Averell Harriman.

The grownups have left the building. Good grief, what a horror show.

Thanks to David Chen of The New York Times for catching one little horror
that might have gone unnoticed. "Senate Rejects Plea for Extra Year of
Filing for 9-11 Awards." Only 60 percent of the families who suffered losses
on 9-11 have so far filed for compensation, presumably because of the
notorious confusion and difficulty surrounding the process, with massive
amounts of paperwork required. The deadline is Dec. 22, and administrators
of the Victim Compensation Fund have been scrambling for weeks to encourage
families to apply -- language difficulties and in some cases lack of
citizenship make it even more complicated and frightening for some.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey tried a classic tactic just before
adjournment -- going to the Senate floor and asking for unanimous consent.
Couldn't get it. Republican leaders opposed.

Here's an immortal quote from F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wisc., chairman
of the House Judiciary Committee: "The chairman views the extension as
unnecessary and has concerns that it would provide a disincentive for people
to file." Uh-huh.

And you may be wondering, given the condemnations of the Medicare "reform"
bill from both left and right, which side actually won. It's so fabulous --
they both lost. The Wall Street Journal, which is furious about the bill, is
right. So is The Nation, and it's right, too! Hooray! A bill so awful
absolutely everyone hates it! Yes, it is a huge new entitlement costing $400
billion over 10 years. No, it will not help many senior citizens. It's the
silliest bill you ever saw -- it has a hole in the middle of it just like a
doughnut, and it will be used to destroy Medicare. It uses taxpayer money to
help drug companies, and insurance companies and HMOs, all the while running
up debt, debt, debt.

And boy, did they win ugly. The Medicare bill went down in the House -- it
lost. And then the Republicans just held the vote open, for three hours,
from 3:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m., until Tom DeLay could bludgeon some
sleep-deprived members into changing their votes. These guys think nothing
of changing the rules in the middle of the game. For that matter, they think
nothing of rules.

The same morons who wrote this bill also passed, again this year, for the
third year in a row, MORE tax cuts for corporations, so that regular people
will have to pay more and we have even less money with which to do anything
useful. Not that they let that stop them -- they were in there just
appropriating pork barrel like there's no tomorrow. Whee, what a giveaway --
Santa has nothing on them. All you had to do was be a big special interest
donor to the Republican Party, and it was whoopee time at the Capitol. The
only bad news for the big corporations is that the Republicans couldn't get
the energy bill, the ultimate Christmas gift for the oil, gas, coal and
nuclear industries, passed. But wait 'til next year.

Ooops, they also failed to meet their most basic responsibility -- the $820
billion spending bill is two months overdue. The good news is that when
passed, the spending bill will gut gun-control law and cut money for AIDS in
Africa.

At least we'll never have to listen to Republicans calling Democrats
"big-spenders" again. To hell with the gag reflex, the laughter alone will
be deafening. What a Never Neverland they live in, just like Michael
Jackson's. What's so maddening is that we have nothing to show for all this
spending -- our education hasn't been improved, our health care system is
still falling apart, the air is getting dirtier, and we're killing the
oceans, lakes and rivers. There's no planning, no investment, no thought for
the future. They're throwing away the seed corn, and we're sittin' here
watching it happen. It's not just the money they're throwing away, it's
democratic traditions -- bipartisanship, compromise, sound public policy.

Am I exaggerating? I don't think so -- you look at the legislation and tell
me. This country is dirtier, poorer and less fair as a consequence of
breathtakingly irresponsible misrule. Twenty-four percent of American
workers now make less that $8.70 an hour, and they have effectively lost
their right to unionize.

As Harold Meyerson reported in The Washington Post, "When European employers
look to the United States, they see roughly the same thing that U.S.
employers see when they look to China: millions of low-wage workers who have
all but lost the right to organize and a government intent on keeping things
the way they are."

It has been apparent for some time that much of the corporate elite in this
country is blinded by greed, not just to long-term interests, but to simple
honesty. I think the same thing is starting to happen to our political
leaders.

(c) 2003 Creators Syndicate


URL: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=16084





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