[ALBSA-Info] NYTimes.com Article: Shame in the House

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Shame in the House

October 29, 2001 

By BOB HERBERT


 

Ask not what your country can do for you . . ." 

It has been 40 years since John F. Kennedy, standing
hatless and coatless in the bitter cold of a snow- covered
capital, delivered the lines that turned out to be the most
stirring and most famous of his presidency. 

If you listened closely last week, you could hear an echo
of that moment on the Senate floor. On Wednesday morning,
in an address to his colleagues, Senator Edward M. Kennedy
said: "Now we have seen, perhaps more clearly than ever
before in our lives, how we are all in this together - how
if even one of us is hurting, all of us hurt. Our first
thoughts on September 11 were about others, not ourselves."


Senator Kennedy, now 69 years old, spoke movingly of the
acts of extraordinary bravery and selflessness exhibited by
Americans both at home and abroad in this sudden war
against terrorism. And he called on the nation as a whole
to adopt that spirit of selflessness as the new standard
"by which we measure everything we do." 

"The standard is clear," he said. "To seek what is right
for our country, and not just for ourselves." He said it is
essential that Americans not "strive for private advantage
in a time of national need." 

Not everyone is listening. 

Senator Kennedy's speech was, specifically, a call for
fairness and common decency as Congress moves ahead with
its effort to help revive an economy that was faltering
before Sept. 11, and has since been thrown into very
serious trouble by terrorism and war. 

But last week, as the House narrowly passed its version of
an economic stimulus package, the dominant motive at work
appeared once again to be greed. The Republicans who
control the House thumbed their noses at the ordinary
Americans who will absorb the brunt of the economic
downturn and shamelessly gift- wrapped yet another bundle
of tax cuts for the very well-to-do. 

In Senator Kennedy's words, the House proposal, which
contains more than $100 billion in tax cuts for
corporations and individuals, "merely repackages old,
partisan, unfair, permanent tax breaks - which were
rejected by Congress last spring - under the new label of
economic stimulus. The American people deserve better." 

With Americans fighting and dying both at home and abroad,
we are understandably in a season of patriotism. That
patriotism should not be soiled by wartime profiteering. 

The House package is a breathtaking example of cynicism and
chutzpah. The bill's primary author, Representative Bill
Thomas, a Republican from California, piously proclaimed
that there is an urgent need to help businesses because
they are the nation's employers. "They're the hardware
store," he said, "the diner down the street, the gas
station on the corner." 

And then you look closely at the legislation and find that
it overwhelmingly favors the giant corporations, with tax
breaks approaching $1.4 billion for I.B.M., more than $800
million for General Motors and $670 million for General
Electric. 

It's a stimulus package in name only because the Americans
who are the most strapped - the consumers who would take
any relief that they received and immediately pump it right
back into the economy - get the least. The package has very
little to do with economic recovery. It's about using the
shield of war and economic hard times as a cover for the
perpetual task of funneling government largesse to the very
rich. 

Nearly $2 trillion in tax cuts were passed just a few
months ago, but that was not enough. True greed knows no
bounds. 

The political analyst Kevin Phillips, in a commentary on
National Public Radio, said: "Neither house of Congress has
ever passed this kind of major tax bill in wartime, and no
one in the House assumes that the Senate will accept it in
whole. But the more extreme the House bill, the further
that will drag the eventual compromise in that same
inexcusable direction. The only real solution is a public
outcry, tens of millions of pointing fingers and voices
saying, `Shame.' " 

Forty years after the inauguration of President Kennedy,
the most favored and least needy among us are proving
themselves to be masterful at finding what their country
can do for them.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/29/opinion/29HERB.html?ex=1005384873&ei=1&en=6eb94ac4d058e0cf



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