ABC News� political blog, �The Note,� pointed out last week
that Paris Hilton is issuing policy statements while John McCain nominates his
wife for a topless beauty contest. The world�s turned upside down. Who could
blame a person for thinking that chronicling such oddness is beyond the skills
of simple journalists? This is a job for the novelists.
Here, for example, is something straight out of Tom Wolfe�s
Bonfire of the Vanities. Are you ready for this? The Wall Street Journal
reports that, �At a time when scores of companies are freezing pensions for
their workers, some are quietly converting those pension plans into resources
to finance their executives� retirement benefit and pay. In recent years,
companies from Intel Corp to CenturyTel Inc. collectively have moved hundreds
of millions of dollars of obligations for executive benefits into rank-and-file
pension plans. This lets companies capture tax breaks intended for pensions of
regular workers and use them to pay for executives� supplemental benefits and
compensation.�
Everyone knows we�ve been living through one of the great
redistributions of wealth in American history -- from the bottom up. But this
takes the cake, because our tax dollars are subsidizing this spectacular round
of robbing the poor to pay off the rich. Sad to say, it�s not fiction.
And how about this: On the campaign trail, John McCain has
been sounding like Sinclair Lewis� Elmer Gantry, preaching the gospel of oil
drilling. Sure enough, like all other evangelists, who promise heaven and pass
the collection plate, the offerings roll in. The website Campaign Money Watch
reports that companies lusting to drill off shore have been raining dollars on
McCain ever since he saw the light. Earlier this summer, John B. Hess, of Hess
Oil, no less, convened his cronies at the ritzy 21 Club here in New York City
and collected $285,000 for McCain and the Republican National Committee. And
you thought those rallies recently staged in Washington for more oil drilling
were just spontaneous gushers of affection from politicians who give billions
in subsidies to . . . big oil companies. Edna Ferber, those strike-it-rich
Texas tycoons in your novel Giant would feel right at home.
Barack Obama�s more the Horatio Alger dime novel type, with
his rags-to-riches backstory and his emphasis on the little people who�ve
funded his campaign. But not so fast. This is one little David who�s got a lot
of corporate Goliaths on his side, too. Big oil has greased the wheels of his
campaign machine -- albeit far less than John McCain�s -- and a third of his
contributions have come from donations of $1,000 or more. That translates into
112 million bucks -- more, in fact, than John McCain has raised from his rich
pals. And although he boasts that he won�t take cash from lobbyists or
political action committees registered with the Feds, two thirds of Obama�s
high rollers come from sectors with a keen interest in what government can
giveth and taketh away -- entertainment, real estate, law and securities and
investments. Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers; Obama�s been ringing
some platinum plated doorbells.
Finally, here�s one to send Ayn Rand spinning: The White
House projects next year�s federal budget deficit at a record $482 billion, and
that�s not counting a possible $25 billion bailout of the mortgage banks Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac. Or the total costs of fighting in the Middle East, largely
kept in the bottom drawer where they�re hard to find. Yet this week, our
Government Accountability Office issued a report concluding that by year�s end,
the Iraqi government -- the regime in power because we put them there -- may
have a budget surplus as high as $79 billion.
Iraq, as in �war torn� Iraq. A surplus! Seventy-nine billion
after we�ve poured $100 billion a year into that country and more than 4,100
American lives -- so far. Seventy-nine billion based on the record prices we�re
paying at the gas pumps, and they�re not spending it on rebuilding, on getting
their electrical systems back on the grid, constructing schools and hospitals
and housing, making sure everyone has food and clean water. Between 2005 and
2007, the GAO report says, only 10 percent of the Iraqi budget went toward
reconstruction of their own country, which means that once again, American
taxpayers have been picking up the slack -- $48 billion US allocated for
reconstruction costs since we rolled into Baghdad more than five years ago.
By the way, that includes $33 million for a new hotel,
office complex and shopping mall at the Baghdad airport. Admittedly, a lot of
those billions doubtless line the pockets of American contractors who�ve done
little if any of what they were hired to do -- and endangered Iraqis and our
own troops with shoddy, dangerous workmanship. But remember what former Deputy
Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told Congress back in 2003, before the war?
�We�re dealing with a county that can really finance its own reconstruction,�
he said, �and relatively soon.�
Remember, too, what Colin Powell told President Bush before
we invaded Iraq -- you break it, you buy it. Julius Caesar came, saw and
conquered. George W. Bush broke and bought, and we just keep paying, in money
and blood, while billions of oil profits pile up in Iraq as �surplus.�
Bill Moyers is managing editor and Michael
Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers
Journal, which airs Friday nights on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The
Moyers Blog.