Greens See Apparent Deal Between Dems and Repuds

[Jay Berner]

Greens See Apparent Deal Between Democrats and Republicans to Tolerate Ethics Violations.
Thursday, April 1, 2004

Contacts:
Nancy Allen, Media Coordinator, 207-326-4576, [e-mail]
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, [e-mail]

Bipartisan 'gentlemen's agreement' to ignore bribery shows the breakdown of democratic accountability in a two-party system, say Greens.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Greens pointed to an apparent bipartisan 'gentlemen's agreement' to tolerate ethics violations in Congress as evidence of the failure of the two-party system in the U.S.

According to recent stories in Roll Call and other periodicals, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will not authorize investigations of alleged ethics violations by Republican members of Congress, and as the ranking House Democrat, prohibits fellow Democrats from filing complaints with the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.

"There's no greater indication that two-party dominance is the enemy of democracy and accountability," said Charles Shaw, media coordinator of the Illinois Green Party.

"Democrats and Republicans -- who are already awash in money from corporate lobbies -- have made a deal to look the other way when bribery and other crimes are committed by members of Congress who belong to the two establishment parties. The only solution is the election of candidates from parties, such as the Greens, who refuse corporate money. Greens, free from the influence of corporate money and the authority of Pelosi and [House Majority Leader Tom] DeLay (R-Texas), will hold themselves and their colleagues in Congress to higher standards."

The most recent and blatant case involved threats and alleged offers of bribes directed at Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.) on the House floor to persuade him to vote with the Republican leadership on the Medicare prescription drug bill in November 2003. An investigation was launched in February, after Democrats initially ignored the incident.

"If evidence shows that yea votes for the prescription drug bill were the result of bribery -- as well as lies from the Bush Administration about the cost of the bill -- then the bill must be invalidated, and Congress members and Bush officials who committed bribery or deception should be removed from office and indicted on criminal charges," said Greg Gerritt, secretary of the Green Party of the United States. "House Democrats, in tolerating Republican abuses, have made themselves just as responsible for the drug bill, which financially burdens millions of older Americans while transferring public money to private drug firms." (The Green Party of the United States strongly opposed the bill <http://www.gp.org/press/pr_11_21_03.html>.)

In 1997, the House voted to prohibit outside groups from directly filing complaints with the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.

"Ever since 1997, watchdog organizations like Congressional Accountability Project, Judicial Watch, and Common Cause have expressed great frustration with the refusal of Democrats, especially Ms. Pelosi, to hold Republicans accountable for violations," said Marnie Glickman, co-chair of the national party. "It's one of many examples of Democrats enabling the worst practices and policies of the Republican Party. If we want to stem bipartisan corruption, let's allow outside organizations to file complaints, and let's start electing Greens to Congress."

[Moses]

No question there is collusion to defraud the American public.

Hollings talks about this in his speech re: the Fixed Trade Act.

I posted some of his speech in another thread on this board.

Here's another:

Dividing the national debt is a fraud . Worse, ten-year economic projections, or budgets, give President Bush running room for a $1.6 trillion tax cut and a $25 billion increase in spending--Reaganomics II! The President's plan is contingent upon spending cuts that he knows Congress will reject, and the Democratic alternative of a $900 billion tax cut is no more than Reaganomics Lite. Under each plan, deficits, on the decline for the past eight years, will increase. The national debt and interest costs will soar, the dollar weakened. To meet the demand for higher yields to offset the decline in the dollar, Greenspan will have to raise interest rates which will guarantee a hard landing.

   There is no education in the second kick of a mule.

[Moses]

More Hollings:

Mr. HOLLINGS. Madam President, I thank my colleague from North Dakota. If the Senate had been in session listening and heard the persuasive argument made by the distinguished Senator from North Dakota and we had a vote, we would vote his way immediately because he has presented the case.

   The only thing is, he has not presented the case in the stark reality that it really is. We are talking to a fixed jury. As an old trial lawyer for some 20 years, where I made enough to afford the luxury of serving here, I know how to talk to a fixed jury. Specifically, the contention in the trial of this case is that we have to give the President negotiating authority that cannot be amended; it is on a take-it-or-leave-it basis; and that the trading nations, some, let's say, 160, 170 trading countries, just will not enter into an agreement unless the President has fast track.

   He doesn't want to go through the negotiation period and then find that his particular trade agreement has been amended on the floor of the Congress.

   If you refer to the 2001 Trade Policy Agenda and 2000 Annual Report, which is the most recent, issued by the U.S. Trade Representative, turn to page 1 of the list of trade agreements. You will find, in essence, five trade agreements as a result of fast track, and thereafter some 200 agreements without fast track. The contention that you can't get an agreement unless you have fast track is totally absurd.

   We have had the Tokyo round, and the United States-Canada Free Trade Agreement. Incidentally, this Senator voted for that because we have relatively the same standard of living. We have the labor protections. We have the environmental protections. When you have a level playing field, I am delighted to vote for trade, and so-called free trade. But now, we have fixed trade.

   That is what we are debating. This jury is fixed. We also had the United States-Israel trade agreement, which I also supported; NAFTA, which I opposed; and the Uruguay Round with WTO. Those are the five so-called trade agreements under fast track. But then turn the pages and continue turning, and there are some 200 trade agreements without fast track.

   When I first got here, we had SALT I, and it was very complex. We had reservations and amendments on the floor of the Congress. We had a vote on that. We didn't have fast track for SALT I and fast track for SALT II and fast track for the chemical weapons treaty. The contention of the White House is you can't get trade agreements, but the President needs to look at his own book.

   Mr. BYRD. Will the Senator yield?

   Mr. HOLLINGS. I am delighted to yield.

   Mr. BYRD. Is he telling me that trade agreements can be negotiated without this fast-track mechanism?

   Mr. HOLLINGS. Yes, sir.

   Mr. BYRD. Is that what he is saying?

   Mr. HOLLINGS. I tell the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, they literally have almost a dozen and a half pages of all of these agreements, right here in the President's report, that were obtained without fast track.

   Mr. BYRD. I thought the President was saying to the country that he has to have this fast-track thing that we will vote on today in order to negotiate trade agreements. Is the Senator from South Carolina telling me he doesn't have to have that?

   Mr. HOLLINGS. No, sir, he doesn't. I can tell you now he wants the fast track for the fix.

   That is the point I want to make. I can tell you right now. Let's look at the result of the so-called trade agreements. Look at 1992, and you find that the Foreign Trade Barriers of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is 267 pages long. Oh, we had WTO, we had GATT, we had NAFTA, and we did away with all the barriers. Why then is this year's Foreign Trade Barriers--458 pages long?

   Like the monkey making love to the skunk, I cannot stand any more of this. I can tell you that right now. For Heaven's sake, don't give me any more free trade agreements or fast tracks. This would be the end of the argument, if you didn't have a fixed jury. What is better proof? I am using the President's proof. No. 1, he doesn't need fast track and, with fast track, we are actually going out of business.

   Mr. BYRD. Will the Senator yield for a question?

   Mr. HOLLINGS. Yes. ([Page: S7780] GPO's PDF)

   Mr. BYRD. What I have been hearing the administration say is that this is trade promotion authority. Does the Senator mean to tell me here in front of the eyes of the Nation, the ears of the people, that the President doesn't need fast-track in order to negotiate trade agreements for the United States? Is that what the Senator is saying?

   Mr. HOLLINGS. There is no question, Senator----

   Mr. BYRD. That is not what the President has been saying, is it?

   Mr. HOLLINGS. No. You bring out the point that this is bipartisan. President Clinton said he had to have fast track for NAFTA.

   Mr. BYRD. We didn't give it, did we?

   Mr. HOLLINGS. That is right. They said if we pass NAFTA we would get 200,000 jobs, but we lost 700,000 textile jobs. In the State of South Carolina, since NAFTA, we have lost more than 54,000 jobs.

   Now, this farm crowd, they get their $70 billion bill, and they come here blinking their eyes and talking about free trade, free trade. They get all the subsidies and protection--the Export-Import Bank, support payments, and everything else of that kind--and they run away with some $80 billion. The poor, hard-working people, such as your mine workers and my textile workers--

   Mr. BYRD. Yes.

   (Mrs. CARNAHAN assumed the Chair.)

   Mr. HOLLINGS. As the distinguished Senator from Texas always says, they are pulling the wagon, paying the taxes, keeping the country strong. We have removed 700,000 textile jobs alone. Akio Morita and I went to a seminar in Chicago almost 20 years ago, and they were lecturing about the Third World countries, the emerging nations trying to become nation states.

   Morita, then head of Sony, said: Wait a minute, in order to become a nation state, you have to develop a strong manufacturing capacity. (Of course the Straussian neo-cons want to eradicate the US as a nation-state)

   Then later, he turned and said to this Senator: Senator, the world power that loses its manufacturing strength will cease to be a world power.

   I am worried about this country. I tell you, we have over a $412 billion deficit in fiscal year 2002.

   Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that page 1 and page 60 of the Mid-Session review on the budget just issued be printed in the RECORD.

   There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

   Summary

   When this report was published last year, the nation was in the midst of a recession that, predictably, was already having detrimental effects on the government's finances. What no one could predict was that just 20 days later, a lethal attack on America would exacerbate the recession and trigger extraordinary military, homeland defense, and repair expenditures that would at least temporarily make an enormous difference in the fiscal outlook.

   By the February 2002 submission of the Budget for fiscal year 2003, the budgetary effects of the recession and the war on terror were well understood. It was also becoming apparent that the flood of revenue that produced record surpluses in the late 1990s was driven both by underlying economic growth, the traditionally decisive factor, and, in ways no yet fully grasped, by the extraordinary boom in the stock market. The markedly greater dependence of revenues on stock market developments was not yet understood by experts either inside or outside the government.

   The economic recovery appears to be underway, the one-time costs of recovery are being paid, and the expense of war-fighting abroad and new protective resources at home have been incorporated in budget plans. Taking all these changes into account, the federal government is now projected to spend $165 billion more than it receives in revenues in 2002, up from the $106 billion projected nearly six months ago. Table 1 below comparing February and July estimates shows a return to the pre-recession pattern of surpluses in 2005, and growing surpluses thereafter. Future improvements, however, depend to a significant extent on two key factors: (1) restraint of the recent rapid growth in federal spending; and (2) a resumption of growth in tax payments produced by a stronger economy and a stronger stock market.

   MOVING FORWARD AMID THE BACKDROP OF WAR

   President Bush placed two purposes above all others in his 2003 Budget: Winning the war on terror and restoring the economy to health. On both fronts, initial progress has been encouraging. Military action in Afghanistan has depleted the ranks and greatly weakened the operational capabilities of the terrorists. On the economic front, the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an impressive 6.1 percent annual rate in the first quarter of 2002, making the recession both shorter and shallower than most and the early recovery far stronger than assumed in February's budget.

   For the future, we can be certain only of the intentions of our adversaries and our own resolve to defeat them. We know neither the length of the conflict nor the budgetary expense of victory. Nor can we be certain the economy will not be weakened by further shocks. To preserve the flexibility to respond to future events while maintaining a fiscal framework that will return the budget to surplus, it is imperative that spending, .....

[RPankn]

More than that, Greg Palast wrote about this "gentleman's agreement" in his book The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. I think it was after the failed impeachment trial in 1999, but apparently Congressional Republicans had bigger dirt on Clinton than just Lewinsky; I can't remember exactly what it was right now because my mother still has my copy of this book. But the Congressional Dems had their own dirt on the Republicans, which involved the Kochs, their company Koch Industries and the Koch Foundation. The "gentleman's agreement" was borne out of this mutually assured destruction between both parties.

[RPankn]

I did some Googling and got part of the story. Palast uncovered that Republicans had learned that Clinton had taken illegal campaign contributions (I'm thinking it was from a California-based energy trading company called Entergy, but I'm not certain that was the source, so don't quote me on that) and the Dems discovered the Republicans had received illegal contributions from the Kochs. Palast said this is why Ken Starr was left rooting around in the Lewinsky story instead of investigating the illegal campaign contributions Clinton had received, which could have possibly forced him to resign.

[spikeb]

This so called "gentlemens agreement" is a perfect illustration why having a bipartisan system is a bad idea. While it COULD happen in a multipartisan system, it is less likely to.