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Like Enron, White House misleads its shareholders - us
Posted on Fri, Jun. 06, 2003
Like Enron, White House misleads its shareholders - us
By Arianna Huffington
TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES
Has there ever been a clearer, more irrefutable example of our
political leaders' lack of a moral compass than the clandestine,
11th-hour elimination from the new tax bill of a promised child tax
credit for almost 12 million of America's poorest children?
It's a move that is so coldhearted and so profoundly dishonorable
that it could only have been made by people who have lost all moral
direction.
A magnetic compass should always point north; a moral compass should
always point out what is moral - and immoral. Heaping billions on
the rich while ensuring that one out of six American kids doesn't
get a penny is dead wrong.
This is not a right/left issue. It's a right/wrong issue. But the
GOP's self-appointed morality czars have been deafeningly silent on
this bit of economic indecency. I guess Bill Bennett was too busy
shaking the hands of every one-armed bandit in Vegas to notice.
Adding to the obscenity is the fact that while the congressional
hatchet men were hacking up the $3.5 billion child tax credit in the
name of keeping the total tax cut under $350 billion, they let stand
billions in corporate tax dodges and accounting cons, including the
use of offshore tax havens.
The White House labeled this particular piece of supply-side porn
the Jobs and Growth Act. I guess the Leave No Corporate Loophole
Behind Act didn't focus group as well.
The last few years have shown us what happens when an entire
subculture loses its moral compass: Enron, Tyco, Adelphia, WorldCom,
et al. And it's becoming increasingly clear that the current
administration has embraced the unethical ethos of the corporate
oligarchy from which so many of its members came - and which all of
them continue to serve. The same inability to distinguish right from
wrong that characterized the corporate scandals is now dominating
public policy.
It's the Enronization of Washington.
Want more proof? How about the unprecedented aircraft-leasing deal
currently being put together by the Pentagon and Boeing - a plan
that uses the same kind of accounting sleight-of-hand popularized by
the gang at Enron. Here's how it works: Instead of the Pentagon
buying the 100 new jets it wants to use as aerial refueling tankers
directly from Boeing, at an up-front cost of $138 million per plane,
a special-purpose entity created on Wall Street will purchase the
planes and lease them to the Air Force.
That way the Pentagon gets to acquire the planes without having to
dip into the Air Force's limited procurement budget, and Boeing gets
to reap billions in new military contracts without having to show
the debt associated with the shady deal on its balance sheet. It's
an off-the-books win-win deal for them both - but a losing
proposition for taxpayers, who'll end up forking over an additional
$8 billion to cover the interest payments on the leases.
Like many disgraced companies, the White House has proven adept at
playing fast and loose with the numbers in order to mislead its
"shareholders" - the American people. Take the administration's
shifty use of "averages" to make it seem like the new tax cut
benefits everyone - claiming that "91 million taxpayers will
receive, on average, a tax cut of $1,226," when, in fact, the
majority of households will receive a tax cut of $100 or less. It's
the kind of economic book cooking that would do ol' Kenny Boy Lay
proud.
© 2003 Tallahassee Democrat and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.tallahassee.com
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