In recent days, it has become clear that the Neoconservatives who continue to control the Republican Party have not lessened their allegiance to the sponsors of the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce from whom they derive their support. They have, in fact, strengthened their relationships with these lobbying organizations and those other groups, such as coalitions to prevent reasonably priced health care programs for all Americans and coalitions to retard the growth of renewable energy sources in this country.
Where is the support by Neoconservatives for the average American family? Where is the concern–not even compassion, merely concern–for their fellow citizens? It does not exist in any measure by any Republican currently in Congress. We hear, for example, that Senator Judd Gregg, laughably referred to as a moderate, as the ranking member on the Budget Committee in the Senate, spends his time complaining that the budget creates a condition in which the government cannot sustain itself. He points to the complaints of the Chinese and others that we are spending too much money in the budget, which creates a $1.7 trillion-dollar deficit. It is a deficit caused not by President Obama, but by imbalances in the economy created by Republicans inattention to markets. But of course Gregg was not worried during the last 8 years while he and the other Neoconservative senators pushed and rammed through budgets that raised our national debt to $10 trillion!
We now have a country divided by region and by political philosophy. In the north and the Midwest and the west, the country is moving towards a more populist government. The people are alternatively outraged over the recklessness of the financial and insurance firms and heartened by the unwavering plans of President and the Speaker of the House to finally institute some kind of affordable universal health care.
But Neoconservative Republicans in the South, even though a tiny percentage of the electorate, hang on to the failed Reagan-Bush doctrine. And why would they do such a thing? Because their goals are to stay in office by any means possible. And the support for that objective comes from one place…international corporations. Under the mask of “free markets” and “American enterprise” the international corporations use intermediaries, like the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute and the Cato Institute to facilitate the flow of people and propaganda to and from government.
How can a small segment of rural and low-income businesses connect with New York and Washington corporate and financial institutions? One would think that it would be large-state legislators such as Senators Schumer of New York and Menendez of New Jersey who would pander to the big financial interests. But it is not. It is the Republicans in Congress who have supported all the hedge fund and derivative securitization that created this calamity. Now they say–yes–it has been a mess, and try to blame it on the Democrats. That may seem preposterous, but it is their current political line. Obviously, it is the opposite of what actually happened.
After the ascension of the Democrats to political plurality in Congress after the 2006 elections, the tide of favorable treatment, lax oversight and downright collusion between the Republican controlled congress and the crazies on Wall Street was diminished. But the Democrats in the House offered bill after bill only to be stymied by a total of over 90 separate Senate filibusters, preventing legisation from even reaching the President’s desk…where it most certainly would have been vetoed anyway. Remember, the Democrats were basically tied with the Republicans in the Senate. Consequently, the Republicans simply turned to the filibuster rule to prevent any progressive legislation from being passed.
The Republicans are relentless in their lies. Yes, lies. They accuse the Democrats and, in particular, Barney Frank of voting against regulatory legislation for the financial community. (Barney Frank, even though he is not black, as are most of their key targets, is still worthy of special attack by the Neoconservatives because he is gay. In fact, in 2005 Frank and Republican Michael Oxley, then Chairman of the Financial Services Committee wrote a bill to INCREASE REGULATION of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Democratic committee members all voted for it.
The Neoconservative-Republican-controlled House of Representatives, however, added a poison pill amendment concerning issues on non-profit institutions with religious affiliations. So the bill was defeated by the Republicans and the White House. The point is that the Republicans simply wasted everyone’s time and did nothing. And now, to add insult to injury, they use the very trick they used then to blame the Democrats for holding up the bill. They do not mention that they, rather than the Democrats, held the controlling votes in those days, and it was their trick amendment that caused Republicans, not Democrats to vote against financial regulation.
So what did the Neoconservative Republicans do to strengthen legislation that would have prevented our current economic disaster? In 1999, they controlled Congress. President Clinton was ineffective because of the impeachment. So they passed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which–over Democratic opposition votes–overturned banking regulations. They later passed more legislation loosening regulations on derivatives trading…the very problem that caused our current depression. So where was the Neoconservative outrage while they were passing the very bills, over Democratic opposition, that caused the problem?
And as far as Fannie Mae is concerned, it was President Bush who insisted that they expand their lending. He wanted what he called the “ownership society,” remember? But it was obviously simply a ploy to enable his Wall Street buddies and to force Fannie Mae to accept many of the, by then, suspect mortgages. Fanny Mae took the securitized mortgages already loaned…and even while rejecting many of those that did not meet their standards for collateralization…sold them as they are legislated to do. It was the wild speculation in derivatives, unregulated, unchecked by the Neoconservative Republican Congress and the Bush Administration…that caused the problem.
Now Judd the Dudd Gregg and others want to lay the responsibility for this disaster at the feet of a President who has been in office for three months and already done more than the previous President did in 8 years! Is it surprising that this group of hypocrites have less than a 3 in 10 popularity among the American people? Whom do they think they are fooling?
Why do they continue with this failed policy? I think it is pretty clear. First, remember who these Right Wing, lobbyist-pandering Neoconservatives are: People like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz, Gail Norton, Orrin Hatch, Larry Craig, David Vitter, Jack Abramoff, Duke Cunningham, Tom DeLay, Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, Peter King, Michelle Bachman, Virginia Foxx, Newt Gingrich and their camp followers among the media, such as Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Laura Ingraham, Joe Scarborough, Lou Dobbs, the entire Fox News Network, the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal among many lesser lackeys. These people only survive when supported by large vested interests or a fringe group of anti-middle class fascists.
Who supports them? Fox News pays the bill for many of them, full-time staffers and contributors. The Wall Street Journal supports many of them now that it is owned by anti-middle class, oligarch immigrant Rupert Murdoch. ( Why do we allow citizenship to people who want to ruin our journalism and eliminate our middle class?) The National Review is now and has been for more than 30 years supported by very wealthy Right-Wing supporters. Even with its paltry salaries and its use of hungry, true-believing interns it has never been a money-making enterprise. There is a misconception that a certain segment of the American peope support these people. They are actually supported by the vested interests of the super-rich and by some upper-middle class citizens who do not understand what is going on. The people who support these publications and those electronic media networks are the same people who support sending jobs overseas to create better margins for their already monopolistic corporations.
Support for the Neoconservatives comes from the same people who have headquarters after headquarters in the Cayman Islands, people who use the Bush tax breaks to enrich themselves beyond anything dreamed of by the average American citizen. It is the several thousand hugely wealthy families, who not satisfied with inheriting billions of dollars they never worked one day to earn, hire lobbyists to overturn inheritance tax laws and end the average of about 15% that they now pay on the income over several million that they inherit. So even a dollar and a half out of every ten is too much for these Paris Hilton Retirement Fund losers to contribute to a society that protects them, gives them a structure to live elaborate, luxurious lifestyles that they did not earn and allowed their forebears to enrich them beyond anything they remotely deserve.
The international corporations that fund the neoconservatives are corporations like Murdoch’s Newscorp with media interests all over the world and no loyalty to one country anywhere. Or Halliburton, which derives almost all of its money from American government contracts and yet has relocated its headquarter to Dubai, in the midst of an Arab Muslim society. How long before the Neoconservatives in Congress, primarily Southern, look exclusively to international corporations headquartered elsewhere for support? And how will we know what kinds of governments those supporters will have or what kind of dual loyalty this will demand of the Neoconservatives? Many of these Southern Republicans pay lip service to America, but have no real affiliation with most of American society. They fly Confederate flags and encourage foreign car companies, Japanese and Korean corporations into their states with low wages and huge tax breaks. They do not support American workers, except those that will bow down to Asian rules.
We need to know who, which international corporations, with loyalties to which countries, are supporting these Neoconservatives. We know that they lied about the actions of the government over the last 8 years, lied about the reasons for going to war, lied about torturing prisoners, lied about looting public lands for private use, lied about being “compassionate” conservatives, while seeing to it that the American people were devastated financially. We need to know who is backing the Neoconservatives who are clearly trying to destroy the lives of the American people.