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Jewish World Review Aug. 13, 1999 /1 Elul 5759

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Econophone

George W. and the corporate gravy train


http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- THE PRESS IS SUDDENLY ALL OVER George W. Bush, chiding him for smirking, rebuking him for his potty mouth, complaining that he doesn't like reading long books and badgering him to answer what reporters are calling "the cocaine question.''

But Bush's Achilles' heel is not snorting or swearing or smirking or any other private vice. His chief vulnerability is completely public -- namely, raising massive amounts of money while leaving unanswered the question of what, precisely, his contributors are buying.

Ironically, George W.'s greatest strength is also his greatest weakness. A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll found that 56 percent considered Bush's fund-raising total "excessive and a sign of what's wrong with politics today,'' compared to 29 percent who saw it as "impressive and a sign of broad-based support.'' It's not hard to understand why.

Consider the tax bill the House just passed. It doled out almost $100 billion in tax breaks to big contributors -- including, according to Public Campaign, an $8.4 billion tax break for the restaurant and hotel industries. Does anyone believe that the restoration of the food lobby's beloved 80 percent write-off for business meals has nothing to do with the $9.9 million the industry has forked over in campaign contributions?

"Republicans promised to change this kind of behavior,'' said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). "Now we're going to see this big thick tax code on our desks, and the fine print will reveal another cornucopia for the special interests and a chamber of horrors for the taxpayers.''

Included in the cornucopia were $30 billion in tax breaks for banks and securities firms in exchange for $34.6 million in contributions and a $5 billion windfall for the oil and gas companies in exchange for $14.3 million. It's a pretty sweet deal -- you put in millions, and you get back billions.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, George W. has already raked in $7 million from the finance, insurance and real estate industries, $1.3 million from pharmaceutical and health companies and $1 million from the oil and gas crowd. He now has to show that he can, in the words of former California Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh, "eat their food, drink their booze, screw their women, take their money and then vote against them.''

So far he's off to a rocky start. He said that he would sign the tax bill into law without expressing any reservations about the government giveaways the bill is loaded with. (Al Gore isn't attacking them either, which is all the more reason why Bush should have seized this populist high ground.) "If you're a business lobbyist and couldn't get into this legislation,'' said one lobbyist of the House bill, "you better turn in your six-shooter. There was that much money around.''

"It smells bad,'' Steve Moore, the Cato Institute's director of Fiscal Policy Studies, told me. "It feeds the public's mistrust of Republicans when they so readily pay back the people who've greased their palms.'' When Moore testified to Congress on corporate welfare he offered three suggestions that Bush should adopt: No grants or special-interest tax breaks for corporations that make more than a million dollars, no corporate double-dipping (i.e. multiple government subsidies) and time limits on corporate welfare like we have on social welfare.

Unfortunately for the country, whenever lobbyists win, ordinary citizens with no clout and no money lose. So far, lobbyists and lawyers have ponied up $3.28 million to Bush's campaign. The governor needs to give voters a reason to believe that he will respond to the needs of all Americans, even if they'll never turn up on his contributor list or at his fund-raising parties.

That was the message that 89-year-old Doris Haddock, better known as Granny D, brought to New Hampshire last month, as she walked from the Pacific to the Atlantic to call attention to the desperate need for campaign finance reform: "A worthy American ought to be able to run for a public office without having to sell his or her soul to the corporations or the unions in order to become a candidate. Fund-raising muscle should not be the measure of a candidate.''

Compassionate conservatism is a powerful message. But it has to be more than just the sugary icing on a cake made from all the old ingredients. It has to be part of a political philosophy that addresses the needs of "those left behind'' not only through charity but through governing. Otherwise Bush will remain vulnerable to accusations that he is being bought at the high-priced auction presidential campaigns have become.



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©1999, L. A. Times Syndicate