To: DMaA who wrote (11568 ) 2/19/2000 6:28:00 PM From: nihil Read Replies (1) | Respond to
It is important to pass a bills that provide benefits for their movers and supporters but are not so obviously private corporate welfare that intelligent, public spirited people will see what's going on. It happens that Congress isn't really interested in the public welfare, so that to improve society or to end grievous wrongs one must enter the political process in which one hand washes the other, logs have to be rolled, people have to be paid off. 40 years ago I struggled with a coalition of Hispanics, Quaker do gooders, socialists, labor unionists to get a bill passed that would provide unemeployment insurance and temporary disability insurance for farm workers, many of them migrants. These were the poorest working people in California. Many of them were "braceros." I was a professional economist, an expert in labor economics, and I had to testify about the costs of these provisions and how much taxes would have to be raised and on whom. I was paid nothing, while the experts on the other side received substantial fees. I couldn't lie because, not being paid, people would think I was an ideologue. They were expected to lie, because being paid, they were expected to haul water for their masters. I lobbied every legislator personally. Many of them told me they were sympathetic, but farm laborers didn't vote and the farmers were around in November and never forgot a hurt. Some of them asked why an acting assistant professor at Berkeley should lobby for the poor. They thought it was inappropriate and threatened that the farmers would get me. On the whole, I thought them weak, cowardly, dishonest men. Good men, in short. One of them -- Phil Burton, was a hero to us. Although there were few farm workers in his San Francisco district, he was a friend to those who were trying to improve the conditions of the poor farm workers.
