The Senate and the Fury

Dorothy Parker once dismissed Oakland, California, by saying "there's no there, there." The same can be said of the Contract with America. For 100 days, Americans were treated to a tale told by a demagogic second-rate history professor "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." For America, this is a very sad situation. The Republicans were given the control of Congress last November by an American people horribly frustrated with a does not respect their ideals and interests, and does not make the tough decisions necessary to put this country back on the right track.

Unfortunately, the Republicans decided to play to the same old game of politics. With gimmicks like the balanced Budget Amendment, Congressional term-limits, and anti-United Nations legislation, the House of Representatives has postponed the real work of governing and squandered the momentum for change they had upon assuming power. Now they have no choice. The United States needs an operating budget, and the U.S. Congress will have to write it.

The day of reckoning is at hand. Now comes the true test of Republican resolution: Will the Republicans put the money where their mouth is? Will they make the real changes necessary to ensure a brighter future? Or will they allow cowardice and expediency to let this opportunity for fundamental change slip away? We will know soon enough. There is a consensus growing among members of both parties that one of the key elements on the road to a real and lasting solution to the problem of the budget deficit is an attack on welfare. Not the welfare that is normally attacked under the guise of reform, that which offers payments to poor women and children, but the welfare offered to big corporations in tall glass buildings: corporate welfare. These subsidies place powerful agribusiness, oil and gas corporations on the public dole, along with a plethora of other companies and individuals. It has been estimated by think tanks on both the left and right that the elimination of these subsidies could save hundreds of billions of dollars.

These provisions not only place other companies at a disadvantage, but also create a drug-induced stupor where industries do not need to make the changes necessary to stay competitive and productive. And most importantly, the subsidies raid the public purse to benefit narrow interests. At a time when we are told that the government does not have the money to fully provide for Head Start, the Americorps, Charter Schools, and real welfare reform, a budget that authorizes a $600 million tax credit for cattle-raising is an insult to all Americans.

This gets to the heart of the question of whether the Republicans are really serious about cutting unnecessary government or whether their rhetoric is just a veiled attack on the poor and working class for the purpose of scoring political points. Just last month, the Republicans blocked a move by Congressional Democrats to cancel one of the most repugnant tax loopholes on the U.S. books. Through a specially crafted provision, a small number of mega-billionaires renounce their American citizenship every year in order to avoid paying U.S. taxes. These individuals take citizenship in St. Kitts, the Bahamas, Belize, or other low-tax countries that wouldn't mind having a billionaire or two to double their tax revenues. However, they and their families maintain residence in America. Only about a dozen people a year try to skirt their tax responsibility in this manner, but the bipartisan Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that if a surcharge were applied on this wealth it would net $3.6 billion. That's a lot of school lunches.

Yet the Republicans refused to touch a hair on the head of these economic Benedict Arnolds. Perhaps it was because they donate millions to the Republicans' campaign coffers. It could also have something to do with the fact that these men and women, who evidently decided that being American was not worth sharing in the common burden, hired high-priced lobbyists, including ex-congressmen, who roamed the hallowed halls of the house of democracy convincing our representatives that it was in the national interest to debase the idea of citizenship.

Politics as usual is not what America voted for last November. Unfortunately, it's what we're getting. Newt Gingrich's House of representatives has had its fifteen minutes in the sun. Now the Senate has the chance to prove whether it really is "the world's greatest deliberative body."

Upon returning from France, Thomas Jefferson asked George Washington why the Constitutional Convention had provided for an upper chamber. "Why did you pour milk into your saucer?" asked Washington. "To cool it," said Jefferson. "Just so," replied Washington, "we pour legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it."

Now the Senate has the chance to cool the excesses of the House. But more importantly, the senate must take real action to put aside partisan politics and take up real legislation that will have a positive impact on people's lives. Very few outside the rabid right-wing will fault the Senate for breaching the Contract with America The Senate should put aside the Republican rantings and take up an American agenda.