[NYTr] Big Biz to Bush: A Parting Pinata, Please

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Progreso Weekly - Dec 6, 2007
http://progreso-weekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=259&Itemid=1

Business to Bush: A parting piñata, please

By Max J. Castro

The last seven years have been an unending gravy train for business
interests, especially for big corporations and friends of Bush, Cheney
and the Republican Party. The decimation of agencies charged with
policing business, lax enforcement of health and safety laws, a
rollback on existing regulations and a near moratorium on new ones,
no-bid contracts, and the virtual privatization of major portions of
the Iraq war: this and more has taken place under this administration,
which has been a dream-come-true for business and a nightmare for
workers, consumers, and the public.

And the worst may be yet to come, according to a December 2 New York
Times story (“Business Lobby Presses Agenda Before ’08 Vote”), which
reports that “business lobbyists…are racing to secure final approval
for a wide range of health, safety, labor and economic rules, in the
belief that they can get better deals from the Bush administration than
from its successor.”

Not sated by the generous benefits that the Republican administration
has granted them during its two terms, various business interests are
working hard to make the last year of the Bush presidency an orgy of
greed and social irresponsibility.

According to the Times, businesses hoping for farewell gifts from the
Bush administration include:

 * Poultry farmers seeking an exemption for the smelly fumes produced by
tons of chicken manure.

 * Businesses lobbying the Bush administration to roll back rules that
let employees take time off for family needs and medical problems. 

 * Electric power companies pushing the government to relax
pollution-control requirements. 

 * Automakers trying to persuade officials to set less stringent
standards for the strength of car roofs than consumer advocates say are
needed to protect riders in a rollover. 

 * Trucking companies trying to get final approval for a rule increasing
the maximum number of hours commercial truck drivers can work.

 * Coal companies lobbying for a regulation that would allow them to
dump rock and dirt from mountaintop mining operations into nearby
streams and valleys.

The push by business is driven by greed and fear, namely the desire to
get in one last time on the buffet Bush has provided business since the
first day of his administration and apprehension that a new Democratic
administration might actually weigh the interest of ordinary working
Americans and the environment when it comes to regulations.

Business has some reason to worry. Take family leave. By the standards
of other rich nations, the 1993 Family Leave Act is an exercise in
minimalism. That is why Democratic candidates for president have
offered proposals to expand the law. But business opposes this; even
the meager protection provided by the Family Leave Act is too much for
the business lobby. In fact, business wants the Bush administration to
cut back family leave. It knows it needs to prevail now because it
won’t get its way under a Democratic administration.

Beyond getting the current administration to lock in pro-business rules
before Bush vacates the White House, business already is scheming to
blunt the actions of a potential Democratic government. Plan B consists
of pouring money into the campaign of leading Democratic candidates,
especially that of business-friendly Hillary Clinton, and hiring
Democratic lobbyists to carry water for the corporate lobby in case of
a victory by the Democrats in November 2008.

Congress and the public must rise up to prevent the Bush administration
from giving business all remaining item in its wish list in 2008. And,
given that the leading Republican candidates for the presidency are if
anything farther to the right than Bush, in the American electorate
must choose whether it wants a government that can serve as a check on
the wishes and excesses of business or one that facilitates and enables
every item on the corporate agenda.