How Corporations
Cashed
In On Katrina
By Ralph Nader
27 September, 2005
Counterpunch
Historians
like to speak of special times when leaders "seized the moment"
to enact or implement their priorities. Giant hurricanes make these
"special times," and no one is moving faster to exploit them
than the corporate powers.
Urged on by the
Wall Street Journal's editorials, corporate lobbyists are demanding
of the federal and state governments
(1) taxpayer funded
subsidies;
(2) more tax reductions;
(3) waivers from
worker pay protection laws;
(4) a host of waivers
from environmental health and land use regulations; and
(5) immunity from
certain liabilities for harmful conduct. Even the shoreline gambling
casinos are pushing for federal monies and getting support from more
than a few so-called conservative Republicans.
After every national
tragedy, large corporations move to cash in. They arrange for no-competitive
bid contracts so that their cronyism can get them large government contracts
awarded with few safeguards to prevent waste, fraud and abuse.
Of course, these
companies have their favorite politician in the White House and a Republican
Congress marinated in business campaign contributions. Such indentured
servants further encourage the corporate supremacists' grab of greed.
This is the President
who is supposed to be preparing for mass evacuations in case of attacks
or natural disasters. So what did he demand of Congress earlier this
year. That the federal budget contribution to AMTRAK be eliminated.
Recall the televised
100-mile traffic jam out of Houston, Texas, fleeing Hurricane Rita,
along with all other exiting roadways. Did you see any trains? Unlike
Western Europe and Japan, an adequate, modern national railway system
that can lessen congestion on the highways during daily commutes and
serve to evacuate efficiently large numbers of people during emergencies
does not exist for large, populated areas of the United States. Billions
of tax dollars have gone to the troubled mismanaged airlines, especially
after 9/11, but passenger railroads are expected to find their capital
expenditures (upgrading roadbeds and equipment) on their own.
On the other side
of the political aisle, the forces in Congress for the people can also
"seize the moment." They can "seize the moment"
for expanding both intercity rail systems and modern in-city mass transit.
This will provide more transportation for emergencies, allow lower-income
people to get to their jobs or find jobs better, reduce gasoline usage
and air pollution, and create good paying construction jobs building
a very useful public service.
These forces can
also "seize the moment" by opposing all the repulsive privileges,
favoritism and freeloading by corporate executives exploiting devastations
to innocent people.
There is not much
of any forcefulness on these two objectives yet on Capitol Hill. But
Congressman Edward Markey (D-MA) and a coalition of Democrats and supportive
Republicans, have introduced a very modest proposal to increase the
average fuel economy of motor vehicles from the current absurdly low
average of 24 miles per gallon (the lowest since 1980) to 33 miles per
gallon by the fall of 2015.
Why so little, since
MIT's Technology Review reported that SUVs themselves could reach 40
miles per gallon by 2010? The very modesty of the proposal, at a time
of $3 plus per gallon of gasoline perilous reliance on imported oil,
and oceans of gas guzzlers on the highways, is a test of just how arrogant
and stagnant are the auto industry's domestic leaders.
Sure enough, the
Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers immediately attacked the Boehlert/Markey
amendment with specious assertions, imperiously assuring that the industry
can do the job by itself.
Sure just the way
the industry has been doing going backwards into the future with
declining average vehicle fuel economy year after year.
Even the hot selling
oversubscribed Hybrids by Toyota and Honda for about five years cannot
get the lead out of the rear end of General Motors and Ford Motor Company.
They are making announcements in newspaper ads that they intend to awaken
from their technologically stagnant slumber, however. That's a verbal
start. But not anywhere near fast enough for motorists, commuters and
the national interest.
Good members of
Congress just "seize the moment."
Ralph Nader is the
author of The Good Fight.