Here's an interesting opinion piece regarding the integrity of the Republicans, written by a (very funny) conservative:
Copyright 1998 The San Diego Union-Tribune
The San Diego Union-Tribune
May 20, 1998, Wednesday
SECTION: OPINION Pg. B-11
LENGTH: 751 words
HEADLINE: The GOP lives up to its caricature
BYLINE: Arianna Huffington
BODY:
This year, Republicans have perfected the art of squandering golden opportunities. Although they face a White House
bedeviled almost daily with new revelations about its contempt for the rule of law -- most recently, illegal campaign
contributions from the Chinese military -- they have repeatedly failed to rise to the occasion.
They are given a financial scandal, and what do they offer up? Al D'Amato. They are given a character scandal, and
they come up with Dan Burton, a.k.a. the Hoosier Pericles. Meanwhile, the titular head of the party, Newt Gingrich, is
considered honest and trustworthy by only 37 percent of Americans. The president -- at 38 percent -- is in the same
part of the barrel.
Republicans continue to provide an all-purpose punch line for the comedy establishment -- as insensitive, uncaring, rich,
country-club types. And if the past few weeks are any guide, they don't plan on deviating from the stereotype one bit.
They seem determined to stand by their Big Tobacco sugar- daddies, thus tossing the Democrats a nice slow softball for
their 30-second ads this fall: "Democrats love children; Republicans love tobacco cash, even if it means more kids
hooked and more addicts dead." Home run.
As if this were not enough, Gingrich is leading the charge to extend federal subsidies for ethanol. Of the $600 million
taxpayers will be forking over to ethanol-producing companies every year until 2007, half will go to
Archer-Daniels-Midland -- which will no doubt turn around and reinvest a portion of it in enormous campaign
contributions.
In the past six years, ADM and its grateful chairman Dwayne Andreas have contributed $1,917,268 to the GOP and
$1,054,000 to the Democrats. To paraphrase Johnny Chung, drop half-a-million annually in the federal Turnstile and get
$300 million back -- a rate of return that would make Warren Buffet drool.
It's no wonder that Newt Gingrich is willing to do anything to protect the subsidy, even replacing on the conference
committee an ethanol opponent, Ways and Means Chairman Bill Archer, R-Texas, with an ethanol lover, Rep. Jim
Nussle, R-Iowa.
Three years ago in a speech to the Natural Gas Supply Association, Gingrich let the cat out the bag by calling the ethanol
subsidies "a political decision." Then in the wink-wink, nudge-nudge street hustle of contemporary politics, he added that
if natural gas were "subsidized as much as ethanol, it would be astonishing the difference it would make."
Obviously, if natural gas producers want to get serious, they need to contribute a few million dollars to the GOP. Buying
your senator or congressman is clearly the most prudent investment a company can make. How this differs from Al
Capone buying off judges in Chicago is a topic worthy of debate in civics classes if not the Sunday morning talk shows
which, incidentally, are subsidized by ADM.
Of course, ethanol isn't the only needy case for a hand-out from the public till. The corporate welfare juggernaut this year
includes plenty of pork in the $218-billion highway bill and $60 billion in other corporate subsidies. The same
Republicans who took over Congress in 1994 promising radical reform have ended up as staunch protectors of the
status quo.
This does not bode well for the upcoming mid-term elections. "House Republicans are really, really nervous, bordering
on panic," says Charles Cook, who is monitoring Congress for the publication Roll Call. "A lot of them believe that their
majorities are in jeopardy." And why should we be surprised? Even the most ballyhooed bipartisan achievement -- the
balanced budget -- epitomizes the failure of Republican leadership. It is about $300 billion higher than when the GOP
assumed control of Congress in 1995, with tax cuts that Rep. David McIntosh accurately described as "anemic and an
embarrassment."
But with Nov. 3 less than six months away, Republicans are singing again their old canticles: Lower taxes, smaller
government, an end to business as usual. There is no music to the song, though, and no credibility to the singers.
So Republicans will just have to hope that the president's disregard of the law and of all unpleasant realities, domestic
and foreign, will finally catch up with him and his acquiescing party. What a tragic indictment of our political system: Let
the least obviously corrupt man win. |
