LEGISLATIVE SLIME
Whatever else you think of our lawmakers, you have to be impressed with the amazing ingenuity, exuberant energy, and sheer determination they put into serving their favorite constituency: themselves!
We’ve seen it in Congress, where lawmakers recently rejected a long-overdue increase in America’s wage floor, but did have the gumption to raise their own pay for the fifth time in the past six years. That’s an impressive record of self-aggrandizement, but come on, I live in Texas, where our legislators make Congress critters seem like selfless statesmen.
The Republican leadership in our legislature has hung a new slogan on our state capitol building: “Texas – Third World and Proud of It!” They have been so inadequate, so miserly in developing a budget that we rank down at the bottom of the 50 states in terms of providing even the most basic needs of our people, from public education to environmental protection.
But these stalwarts have now stepped forward to deal creatively with a pressing issue for all Texans: how to increase the pensions of legislators. Cleverly, they didn’t even have to take a direct vote on their pension raise, for the Legislature has based its retirement on a percentage of the annual pay of state judges. Thus, they simply hiked the pay of judges by 22%, automatically jacking up their own pensions by this ricochet shot. As one clever legislator put it, “I am very strongly in favor of raises for judges.”
Even with such a deceptive maneuver, however, the leadership felt the need to add another layer of deception. It made sure that the pay hike for judges was done with no debate and no recorded vote, meaning that We the People can’t know which members voted to fatten their own pay at a time they’re cutting state services for people. As a Republican leader explained, “I’m not a supporter of record votes. I think they just gum up the works.”
In many cases, gumming the works would be a good thing. Pond scum isn’t as slimy as these legislators.
WHAT’S REALLY INSIDE CAFTA
Why is there never any truth in packaging when Washington politicos deliver special-interest goodies to their corporate backers?
When they delivered a multibillion-dollar tax giveaway to drug companies, for example, they didn’t call it the “Pharmaceutical Phreeloader Phund,” but instead, branded it the “American Jobs Creation Act.” And, now, here come the Bushites with another bundle of big corporate favors disguised as a boon for working folks. “CAFTA,” they call it – the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
Despite its sprightly acronym, this giveaway is neither free nor about trade. It extends the job-busting, environment-exploiting provisions of NAFTA to six more Latin countries, and most dangerously, it empowers global corporations to overturn laws and regulations that they don’t like in all the countries involved. It literally usurps democratic sovereignty, yet you’d never know this from the way CAFTA is being packaged and sold.
The debate in Washington and in the media is all about how many jobs will be created or lost, with the corporate forces making phantasmagoric claims that divert the real debate that should be happening. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for example, issued a “study” asserting that CAFTA would be a job machine for U.S. workers. First of all, the “study” itself is a fairy tale, based on the absurd assumption that these six, mostly poor nations will suddenly devote a third of their entire economic activity to buying stuff from us. It also fails to count any of the jobs the U.S. will lose due to our corporations moving there to make stuff to ship back for sale here.
More importantly, though, the debate should be on what CAFTA really gives away to global corporations, which is our very democracy. This astonishing usurpation of power is why Bush and corporate lobbyists are pushing so furiously for this so-called “trade” deal.
Ignore the packaging … look at the contents. Call Global Trade Watch: 202/588-1000.
Oops! The following correction ran in our June 10, 2005 issue: “The Hightower Report” referred to a bill under consideration in the Texas Legislature that would have increased the pensions of legislators. Although SB 368 was alive when the column was drafted, the bill was dead by the time the piece ran. The Chronicle regrets the error.
This article appears in June 3 • 2005.