Steal from the Poor, Give to the Rich

Recent headlines this week bring us yet another indication of how fucked up and broken our political and governmental system has become.

The James Zadroga 9/11 Health & Compensation Act of 2010 has been an ongoing legislative action since last year, despite the currency of its title from the latest revisions. The bill seeks to provide compensation to first responders at Ground Zero who have been afflicted with debilitating diseases, mostly respiratory in nature, as a result of their service at the WTC in the wake of 9/11. It would seem that it would be a purely moral, just, and obvious choice to provide proper compensation and access to healthcare for those among us that sacrificed their well-being (and in some cases, their lives) in our nation's hour of need. However, that very notion belies the fact that this is America - a nation where nothing purely moral and just happens automatically, and where perverse moneyed interests and their legislative stool pigeons fight viciously to protect the plutocracy at any cost.

This insistence upon the welfare of the few at the expense of the many manifested itself most recently when Senate Republicans issued their intent to block any and all legislation until the Bush tax cuts were extended in their entirety. The oddly termed Obama-McConnell tax cut/unemployment benefits package ultimately flew through both houses of Congress, because Republicans never met a tax cut that they didn't want to take home to their mother. The total package is estimated to cost about $858 billion, with $125 billion of that cost coming from tax cuts for those with incomes over $250,000, and the newly gutted estate tax. All of this, of course, goes straight to the deficit and is not paid for by any means, but as our Republican establishment always tells us, tax cuts pay for themselves by way of magic unicorn dust and their overt fiscal detriment is a figment of our collective imagination.

Our very own Senator Kyl leads the asshole brigade, levying typical Republican whine charges of process, that the bill was rushed, that amendments weren't allowed, and of course - cost:

KYL: This has been a moving target since day one. … This is something that they came up with to just put directly on the floor of the Senate, without any hearings, without any opportunities to figure out what it should be like. [...]

I have no idea how this thing would work. So they reduced it from $7 billion to $6 billion — I have no idea whether $6 billion is a reasonable figure. … But the question is who’s responsible? Who’s at fault? Do they have the money? Is the insurance adequate to cover it? Wasn’t the previous settlement adequate? Why would they need $6 billion?

KYL: First of all, they should have peace of mind when it comes to health care. The question is what and how? And when you try do it, as you said in your introduction, in a hurry, in a lame duck session, without a hearing, without understanding what the ramifications are and whether we can amend the bill, you’re doing it in the worst way. For example, there has already been a settlement for a lot of these people, a fund that’s been set up for them to receive funding. Will the people who are supporting this legislation be able to participate in that fund? Nobody has been able to say. Why $7 billion? What will the requirements for qualification be for the money?

Nobody wants to deny care to people who, and by the way these are primarily people who helped to clean up the site in the aftermath of 9/11 and there weren’t enough adequate precautions taken in some cases to deal with potential health issues and to the extent that they’ve become ill they do need to be taken care of. It’s one thing to make an emotional appeal to say we need to care for someone who did something good. It’s another to do it in a sensible way. And that’s all we’re asking for. You bring it up in the lame duck session with no opportunity to amend it and you’re probably going to make bad legislation. All this could have been done earlier I might add.

To summarize the Republican position, $125 billion in tax cuts for people who genuinely don't need the money is worth holding the lame duck session hostage to secure its passage. But a mere $6 billion to provide solvency to emergency workers that risked their lives in the wake of an attack on American soil is something that must be done Correctly, Properly, and Deliberately. Of course they need health care! No one denies that, but it must be done the Right Way, even though none of these bullshit rules or provisos applied when we were busy fellating the rich with tax cuts. As Jon Stewart astutely notes, this posturing is ironic coming from a party that made 9/11 their pet catch phrase during the Bush years.

But the Republican bile does not end there. Since Republicans have spent the last two years vehemently insisting upon pay-as-you-go (or paygo) rules for any legislation (except tax cuts, of course), Democratic sponsors of the bill ensured that it was fully funded and deficit neutral. This was accomplished by ending a corporate tax loophole. Enter the US Chamber of Commerce, which in my opinion, is rapidly giving Goldman Sachs a run for its money for the dubious honor of the great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity. The Chamber lobbied against the bill, spewing ad hominem and red herrings in an attempt to scare lawmakers into doing the bidding of their corporate masters. And much like the income tax cuts for the wealthy, corporations don't need them either:

Investors around the world say President Barack Obama is bad for the bottom line, even though U.S. corporations are on track for the biggest earnings growth in 22 years and the stock market is headed for its best back-to- back annual gains since 2004.

It remains to be seen what will happen to the first responder bill, but with the Senate tied up with passing START and possibly DREAM during the lame duck session, it's unlikely that it will come up for a vote, let alone break cloture. And the Republican-controlled House next year and slimmer Democratic margins in the Senate only further compound the bill's path to passage. But that's okay - I'm sure all those tax cuts will trickle down to the 9/11 workers and the free market Jebus and invisible hand will cure them of all that ails them. Or something.