Unstoppable
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Both the legislation and the resolution have been completely ignored by the leadership of the two parties who gave strong signals to their flocks to remain silent. Why risk giving the other party any chips? Why pile more issues on busy desks? Why raise and rally public awareness of congressional abdication, which might well lead to citizens calling on legislators to assume more constitutional responsibility for military and foreign policies, practices, and mishaps? Let “mum” be the word.
Further, there are no outside pressure groups on these issues, as there are with the corporate-connected neocons, who have pushed Congress and the White House for military aggressiveness by a unilaterally deciding presidency. Just the opposite is the case. Jones, McGovern, and Kucinich were unable to call on much of an organized outside support structure, which would have the requisite muscle to get things moving on Capitol Hill. Bereft of any news coverage and unable to obtain any mass media access, let alone any commentary whatsoever from the presidential bully pulpit, they could not expect many people back home to mobilize behind their case, of which most were unaware.
Establishing Laws Against Corporate Welfare Where Hands Should Have Joined But Didn’t
This stagnant environment blocks even more vibrant causes from acquiring any momentum. In 1998, the time seemed finally ripe to push the legislative envelope and demand some curtailment of the massive bustling bazaar of accounts receivables, government tax breaks, and payouts to businesses, which years earlier I labeled “corporate welfare.” Just about every large company was on the government dole—including foreign firms operating in the United States. After all, there were hundreds of such giveaways. Signs indicated that the potential for such legislation met the preliminary criteria for convergence. Condemned in reports by such influential right-of-center think tanks as the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute as well as by the Progressive Policy Institute, Common Cause, and Public Citizen, “corporate welfare” and, its right-wing name, “crony capitalism” became dirty words. Numerous exposés by CBS’s Sixty Minutes, ABC’s It’s Your Money, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Time magazine and the Associated Press year after year began to seep into the political consciousness and even put the dirty words in the vernacular of more and more of the public. Scandals and greed regarding corporate subsidies, giveaways of the public’s natural resources and technology transfers, abuse of eminent domain to benefit large companies, and ever larger bailouts angered both conservatives and liberals—for both similar and different reasons.
Conservatives believed it was unfair to taxpayers that crony capitalism distorted free markets, picking winners as industrial policy, rather than as a result of market forces; hurt small business; and corrupted the arm’s-length relationship they viewed as proper between business and government. Liberals saw corporate welfare as giving away taxpayer money and the commons on the public lands—minerals, forests—in favor of big oil and coal over renewable and conserving energy technologies; hurting the small farmer; weakening regulatory policies; and generally giving away valuable public assets, such as government research and development findings, for free without any payment or conditions in the public interest. There was also a genuine overlap of concurrence between each side’s rationales.
It was clear that some powerful members of Congress, though not at the top leadership level, were using conservative doctrine to attack corporatist positions that favored the myriad corporate welfare programs—so numerous, in fact, there was no comprehensive compilation of them anywhere in the federal government. One of these legislators was the current Ohio governor, Republican John Kasich, then chair of the House Budget Committee and a close ally of Newt Gingrich in the latter’s rise to the Speakership. In 1999, I proposed to Kasich that he hold the first public hearing on corporate welfare in American history—looking at not just one program but going across the whole continuum. I would recommend to him a number of substantial witnesses on both sides of the ideological divide, naming Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform and Robert McIntyre of Citizens for Tax Justice as examples. After some weeks, during which he probably was testing the permissible waters—already he had made rare waves in Republican circles by declaring the military budget to be bloated and suitable for cutting—he gave the green light.
The Budget Committee hearing took the better part of the day (June 30, 1999) and should have created a minor sensation. However, the media generally ignored or downplayed it, in part because, while the corporate lobbyists kept an eye on the proceedings, they stayed quiet, holding back on any opposition until they saw signs that an actual piece of legislation might come out of the deliberations from Kasich. Lobbyists have sensitive antennae when it comes to gauging just how committed a committee chair is to pushing his or her hearing toward action. They read Kasich as wanting to display his principled stand as a conservative and going no further. His opening statement, while courteous and receptive, gave as his major concern the unfair competition that corporate welfare, usually wrung from the government by Big Business, inflicts on small business. Kasich also knew that Heritage, Cato, and others were doing the same thing—burnishing their pure marketplace conservative credentials, but not actually pressing for action on Capitol Hill, which would have troubled their wealthy, freeloading funders. The smaller-budgeted Progressive Policy Institute and Common Cause, clearly against these corporate freebies, simply had no resources to give their views any sustained political cutting edge. No candidates, whether incumbents or challengers, had run on a promise to end corporate welfare “as we know it,” as they assuredly did with poverty welfare disbursements.
Even though the LibCons put forth at the Kasich hearing their first-stage priority list of corporate welfare programs for elimination, there was no pickup.
In theory, as a general agenda for LC convergence, direct and indirect taxpayer subsidies to fat-cat corporations, ones that are overpaying their bosses and underpaying their shareholder dividends while often not performing in return for the subsidizers’ intents—e.g., synthetic fuels and improved auto engine efficiency—would be hard to surpass. In practice, it didn’t seem to matter, even though, from time to time, a Democrat and a Republican would jointly introduce a bill to rid the country of an especially egregious subsidy or giveaway. There was just no traction to rid America of the curse of “aid to dependent corporations,” to borrow a phrase from the social welfare world. It didn’t matter that lawmakers told their various publics how much they abstractly believed in limited government, fiscal responsibility, and accountability to the taxpayers, because they then turned around and unfurled a flurry of annual votes backing the corporate freeloaders. A few shameless lawmakers, such as Rep. Michele Bachmann, even had their own businesses that received various federal payouts. Importantly, as happened in relation to the law and the resolution on presidential war powers, no one in Congress, from either party, felt any push, heat, or encouragement from the White House or the media to change this status quo that keeps Washington busier with handing out largesse to corporations than with any other regular engagements. The process of Washington saving Wall Street years later in 2008–2009 reflected this institutionalization of the corporate state or what some call “corporate socialism.” Given how millions of Americans suffered from job losses, home foreclosures, greater consumer debt, and taxpayer debt on their children, how apt was Gore Vidal’s expression that America “is a unique society where you have free enterprise for the poor and socialism for the rich.”3
During a debate with Ronald Reagan in 1977, sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, I elicited from him a clear distaste for government propping up business. He noted that he kept telling his corporate friends not to have their hands in Washington’s trough. He cited as an example of an unwarranted corporate giveaway the Jones Act, which restricted US port-to-port shipping to US-flag ships, thereby keeping shipping rates high. Reagan was known as a rhetorical opponent of business policies that begin and end with taxpayers ho
lding the bag—another way of keeping taxes higher. Yet, on becoming president in 1981, Mr. Reagan continued and amplified corporate welfare, and avoided bringing up the topic in any of his speeches
Corporations Block Bipartisan Hand Clasping
Many other convergences suffer similar fates when liberals and conservatives join together only to find that, though they may be in a numerical majority, they are blocked by commercial interests. In 2003, the FCC voted 3–2 to allow even greater concentration of ownership by Big Media over television, radio, and newspaper properties in any community, in spite of an avalanche of protest by Americans of all persuasions, from the NRA to Common Cause. The battle moved to Congress. In an astonishingly lopsided result, the House voted 400–21, for the first time in its history overturning an FCC decision and handing Big Media a stunning defeat. Yet Big Media recovered and stanched a rising swell in the Senate, whose members were also responding to tens of thousands of emails and other messages from the voters back home. Unfortunately, the conflict was drawn out. Unlike corporations, the people had no staying power, and the controversy faded away. The FCC decision survived.
In the summer of 2010, a most unlikely group of politicians gathered a group of experts spanning the ideological spectrum whose charge was to reduce the military budget. The conveners, Representatives Ron Paul and Barney Frank, were not lonely outliers. And a majority of Congress silently supported their effort, being well informed about military financial profligacy, which has been regularly documented by the investigative arm of the Congress, the Government Accountability Office, in report after report on the waste, fraud, and duplication that absorbs huge amounts of money. Pentagon contractor fraud, theft, huge cost overruns, and defects, also pointed out by public Pentagon audits, are old news to members of Congress. They know all about it, but they are not about to openly take on the powerful “military-industrial complex” about which President Eisenhower warned. Even moving against obsolete or redundant weapons systems or yet another aircraft carrier or submarine, which would seem natural following the end of the Soviet Union, and which even retired generals and admirals have called for, has proven to be too much for these politicians. Too much campaign cash, too much economic muscle in their districts, often backed by labor unions, which see such contracts as jobs programs, are weighed in the balance. Taxpayers are still paying massive billions of dollars for the ill-advised F-22, the troubled Osprey helicopter, the skyrocketing costs of the F-35, which continue to be in production at a time when their purpose—countering the Soviet Union—is no more. So, again, the task force’s findings came to nothing.4
In 2010, a grand alliance of conservatives and liberals organized around expanding the whistle-blowing rights and remedies of federal government employees. The bipartisan appeal of this legislation made it about as invulnerable to attack as any bill in modern congressional history. After all, who could oppose assuring protections for courageous public servants who want to expose fraud, waste, and corruption mostly by corporate contractors on the government? Well, for a start, the many companies and consulting firms, such as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, CACI, and Booz Allen Hamilton, that benefit from federal employees who facilitate corrupt practices. Then there are the members of the executive branch who look to these companies for future jobs. But this time these vested interests couldn’t really go public. They worked behind the scenes to dilute provisions of the bill, but they could not seriously gut it. At the very end of the session, Republican and Democrat sponsors (Senators Burris, Cardin, Carper, Collins, Grassley, Leahy, Levin, Lieberman, Mikulski, Pryor, Tester, and Voinovich) and their supporters, most prominently the whistle-blower-defending Government Accountability Project, were figuratively ready to break open the champagne bottles.5 Suddenly, they learned that a secret hold had been put on the bill by two undisclosed senators, as the paralyzing Senate rules permitted. The bill died in the Senate. S. 372 would probably have received a 90 percent approval by the American people if it could have been put to a vote. But President Obama did sign a similar bill (S. 743), which finally passed in 2012, when time overcame the effect of last-ditch holds, who turned out to have been Republican senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL).
Commercial interests do not tolerate federal study commissions either, even when proposed by members of both parties in Congress, if there is any chance they will be shining light on their business practices. In 2002, Senator John McCain introduced a bill to establish a federal commission on corporate welfare (S. 2181: Corporate Subsidy Reform Commission Act). The reaction was swift by the corporate welfare kings working behind the scenes. It never received a hearing, nor did he reintroduce it during the next session, although his bipartisan charge related intimately to the then-urgent debate on deficits and taxes. The Arizona senator has never reintroduced this sensible measure.
In another example, Democratic senator Jim Webb introduced S. 306 to establish a National Criminal Justice Commission on prison reforms, a subject long overdue for consideration. Again, though attracting supporters from both sides of the aisle, it has not even been given a Senate hearing. The prison-industrial complex, including its union backers, made sure that the bill withered on the vine, blocking Senator Webb’s move. Again, were it put to a private vote in Congress, the yeas would have carried.
It might be asked: If there are majorities in favor of these varied measures, how can lobbies block these initiatives from even leaving the gate or not making that one last step before expected victory? The answer can be called “the Khyber Pass block strategy.” Corporatists know in amazing detail where and when the various bottlenecks (Khyber Passes) afford the opportunity to stop the actions of even a great majority of senators. They know the procedures, the timing, the tight schedules, the personalities, the stealth moves to make. The mere threat of a filibuster is enough to get the Senate majority leader to not take the bill to the floor for debate. And always lurking is the campaign money given, withheld, or awarded to a primary challenger. After all, as the Oklahoma sage Will Rogers said eighty years ago: “Congress is the best money can buy.”
When Hands Have Met
Consider, on the other hand, the convergence that did come about to advance air bag installation in motor vehicles at a moment when the contact point for action—a government procurement agency—was beyond the auto industries’ lobbying clutches. In 1985, frustrated with the auto companies blocking the Department of Transportation from issuing a mandatory air bag standard for motor vehicles, I decided to do an end run by going through the government procurement process. I knew that through the General Services Administration (GSA), its purchasing arm, the federal government bought over forty thousand new cars a year for its federal employees. Taking the motto “The customer is always right” down to the GSA’s chief, Gerald Carmen, an arch antiregulatory New Hampshire conservative, I made the arguments that he should get air bags in any new cars he bought because it would save lives, save taxpayer money, and establish a large private market for promoting air bags as a result of the stimulus of a government purchase. Carmen eyed me cautiously. I knew he was a former auto parts dealer as well as, in the key New Hampshire primary, an early backer of Ronald Reagan. He was rich and did not need the job. Most importantly, he had no awe of the auto companies, having been a part of a supplementary industry that was not always treated well.
To Carmen, my request was not one for regulation, but one for smart, efficient buying on behalf of the taxpayer. He let Ford, GM, and Chrysler know of GSA’s intention to issue specifications for a preliminary buy of five thousand cars with driver-side air bags. GM knew what was in the works and did not like it. At a social gathering, a GM lobbyist came up to Carmen and tried to dissuade him. No dice. One car company, Ford, said they would bid and, being the only bid, won the job to sell and equip five thousand Tempos with the safety system.
What happened next showed that domino effects are not always negative. Chrysler’s Lee Iacocca, long a vocal derider of air bags, switched posit
ions and, in a dramatic number of full-page newspaper ads showing his picture, he exclaimed in large bold print: “WHO SAYS YOU CAN’T TEACH AN OLD DOG NEW TRICKS?” He was announcing driver-side air bags as standard equipment on several Chrysler models. It wasn’t long before the Department of Transportation finally moved to require air bags for drivers and front-seat passengers as standard equipment on all motor vehicles. Many lives were saved and injuries were prevented.
Carmen had full authority to do what he did, but I’m sure he checked with the White House as a courtesy. He became a believer in using government purchasing as a taxpayer efficiency tool, delivering a major address on the subject. Had I prejudged him according to the stereotype, defining him solely as a very conservative businessman and supporter of Ronald Reagan, my initial trip to GSA would never have occurred. There was common ground between us on this matter, though not on many other policies of the Reagan administration.
Potential Pitfalls on the Route to Convergence
There are many ways to cross the aisle inside and outside of government. The challenge is to root these convergence movements as deeply as possible in common values and solid facts. Outside of government, existing or likely common ground has to become sufficiently visible so that the participants can reach first base, and that means confronting and overcoming some pretty mundane but persistent obstacles.