Well, I guess this what we get for re-electing a President who thinks “the jury’s still out” on evolution. To help offset exploding Dubya deficits, Congress “has cut the budget for the National Science Foundation, an engine for research in science and technology, just two years after endorsing a plan to double the amount given to the agency.” But, don’t fret: “While cutting the budget of the science foundation, Congress found money for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in Birmingham, the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, bathhouses in Hot Springs, Ark., and hundreds of similar projects.” Yep, priorities, people. (Although granted that cutting-edge cancer research probably costs more than Charlie Daniels’ signed guitar.)
Category: Political Economy
The Teddy Bears’ Picnic.
By way of Follow Me Here, the chief economist at Morgan Stanley warns private audiences that, in his opinion, the US is headed for economic “Armageddon.” “In a nutshell, Roach’s argument is that America’s record trade deficit means the dollar will keep falling. To keep foreigners buying T-bills and prevent a resulting rise in inflation, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan will be forced to raise interest rates further and faster than he wants. The result: U.S. consumers, who are in debt up to their eyeballs, will get pounded.”
Follow the Money.
A recent study by PoliticalMoneyLine confirms what we all know: corporations love them some GOP. “While many corporate PACs in the 1970s and 1980s sought to split campaign contributions between candidates of both parties, the new study found that more than a quarter of the large corporate PACs gave at least $3 to Republican candidates for every $1 to Democrats.“
Beg, Borrow, and Steal.
“Less than a day after President Bush implied that Senator John Kerry lacked ‘fiscal sanity,’ the Bush administration said on Thursday that the federal government had hit the debt ceiling set by Congress [for the fourth time in three years] and would have to borrow from the civil service retirement system until after the elections.” As this article goes on to note, the Congressional GOP kicked the vote on this matter until after Election Day, so Dubya wouldn’t get any bad press. Under this president, the national debt has increased 40%, to $7.4 trillion.
The Atkins Congress.
“Senator Charles E. Grassley needed every possible vote to pass his mammoth corporate tax bill. So he was more than willing to accept Zell Miller’s plea on behalf of imported ceiling fans…[This] provision is just one tiny example of how the need to solve a narrow tax problem in 2002 gave birth to the biggest free-for-all in corporate lobbying that Congress has experienced in nearly 20 years.” The NYT conducts a post-mortem of the pork-bloated corporate tax legislation passed by Congress on Monday.
Bringing Home the Bacon.
Looking to recess in time for some electioneering, the House and Senate both pass a pork-swollen corporate tax measure by comfortable margins. “[C]ritics — including budget watchdogs, liberal activists and Treasury Secretary John W. Snow — decried what they saw as a cornucopia of special-interest tax cuts that would complicate the tax code, favor companies doing business overseas and ultimately worsen the budget deficit. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) pronounced it ‘disgraceful’ and ‘a classic example of the special interests prevailing over the people’s interest.'”
Gimme Shelter.
True to form, “House Republicans are working to eliminate or dilute provisions in a new corporate tax bill aimed at cracking down on illegal shelters.” This despite the fact that a “study last week by Citizens for Tax Justice, a liberal research organization, reported that 82 of the nation’s most profitable companies paid no corporate taxes in at least one of the last three years.” Say what they will about Dubyanomics, it is patently obvious once again that the Republican Party does not represent the best interests of you, I, or the vast majority of this nation. Vote ’em out, already.
Kerry v. Bush?
The NYT‘s Linda Greenhouse and Slate‘s Thomas Baker preview the coming Supreme Court term, which we already know won’t involve appeals by Roy Moore, credit card companies, or telemarketers. Update: Dahlia Lithwick talks Blakely.
The Day After Tomorrow.
“In recent weeks, federal agencies across the vast Washington bureaucracy have delayed completion of a range of proposed regulations from food safety and the environment to corporate governance and telecommunications policy until after Election Day, when regulatory action may be more politically palatable.” Apparently, the Bushies have prepared an onslaught of awful legislation that they’re hiding from us until November 3. While this tends to happen every to some extent every election year, notes Consumers Union director Gene Kimmelman, “‘[w]hat is unusual this time…is the clear pattern of holding back regulatory decisions that will benefit the largest industry players and will drive up prices and market place risks for consumers, ranging from telephones to drugs to the risks of contaminants of food. The pattern of slow rolling will ultimately benefit the largest players and hit consumers in the pocketbook.'” Oh, swell.
The Rich Get Richer.
Not content with the elements of freak-show conservatism in his acceptance speech or the flattening effect of Dubya’s giveaways to the rich in recent years, Dubya is now threatening an official flat tax (not unlike the one imposed by fiat on Iraq last November.) As even Phil Gramm attested eight years ago, “It’s not fair to say that people who work with their head or with their hands ought to pay taxes, but people who earn their living with their capital ought not to.”