BUDGET DEAL
Democrats, Republicans agree on repression
By Greg Butterfield
It seems Democratic and Republican leaders have agreed to a
plan for coping with the world economic crisis.
The plan is to increase repression against poor and working
people.
On Oct. 21, the Congress and President Bill Clinton approved
the final portion of a $1.7 trillion federal budget for
1999.
It includes the biggest peace-time increase in military
spending since 1985, when Ronald Reagan was president and the
Cold War against the USSR was at its height.
Both parties overwhelmingly supported the measure.
The Pentagon will get an additional $8.1 billion in
"emergency funds," on top of an already approved budget of $270
billion. The new funding includes money for the occupation of
Yugoslavia and further research on a "Star Wars" missile
program.
The Central Intelligence Agency will see its biggest budget
increase in 15 years. CIA Director George Tenet secured the
money with a promise, made in a secret speech, "to mount
increasingly complex and expensive operations" at home and
abroad, according to the Oct. 22 New York Times.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Federal
Bureau of Investigation will get millions to boost "anti-
terrorism" measures. In addition, the budget promises million
of dollars to build courthouses to complement the booming
prison industry.
Money for war, not for jobs
The budget law passed Oct. 21 was 4,000 pages long. One
senator said, "There's no living person who knows everything
that's in this bill." The bill's sheer heft helps to keep
people in the dark about its true aims.
The budget is just as notable for what it doesn't
include:
• No extension of unemployment
insurance.
• No minimum-wage raise.
• No new protections from layoffs.
• No money to restore welfare programs.
• No health care for millions of uninsured
families.
•No curbs on corporate polluters.
Strengthening the repressive forces of the state is the
budget's most prominent, but not the only, feature. The
agreement was hammered out in a most undemocratic fashion by a
handful of top leaders from both parties.
All the rhetoric about balancing the budget was forgotten.
Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich agreed to skim $20
billion from the budget surplus to grease the wheels. This
money was put under the heading "emergency spending."
Much of it will go directly to Gingrich's Georgia neighbor
and close ally, Lockheed Martin, to build military planes.
The International Monetary Fund will get $17.9 billion to
bail out banks and other big investors that have lost money in
Southeast Asia, Russia and Brazil.
Both parties compromised in the interests of preserving the
status quo in the Nov. 3 congressional elections.
Democrats got money to hire more teachers so they can sell
themselves to parents on election day. But they gave up
billions of dollars to fix overcrowded, crumbling schools.
Republicans dropped their plan to make it harder for workers
to file bankruptcy. But they got to stop an AIDS-preventing
needle-exchange program in Washington.
Democrats failed to stand up against corporate polluters.
"Just two weeks ago, President Clinton got a standing ovation
from 200 environmental leaders when he promised to block
anti-environmental provisions attached to the budget," said Ken
Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group. "The
legislation Mr. Clinton is signing and praising as
pro-environment deserves a Bronx cheer."
Once again the United States failed to pay its
billion-dollar debt to the United Nations, which mostly affects
UN development projects. Republicans want to prevent the UN
from using any of the money to provide women's health services,
including abortions. Both parties want to keep the UN on a
financial string as a form of political leverage. Rather than
put up a fight, Clinton simply vetoed the measure.
This pattern of Republican assault and Democratic
capitulation has created the climate that emboldens far-right
elements like those who murdered James Byrd Jr., Matthew
Shepard and Dr. Barnett Slepian.
Bosses demanded action
In mid-October, after months of partisan fighting over
Clinton's extramarital affair, both parties dropped the issue
and came to a quick compromise on the budget.
What caused the sudden turnaround? Wall Street demanded
it.
In "The Communist Manifesto," Karl Marx and Frederick Engels
wrote, "The modern capitalist state is nothing more than a
committee for managing the common affairs of the whole
bourgeoisie."
The super-rich are worried. A global economic crisis is
upsetting the profit system. The widening gap between haves and
have-nots is spreading unrest.
Now is not the time to let partisan battles disrupt the
important business at hand - like financing the
military-industrial complex and the banking system. Both
parties have again proven, with this budget, that their
loyalties lie with the rich.
With a budget deal cut, both parties are pumping millions of
dollars into advertising to convince poor and working people
they have a stake in voting for one or the other capitalist
party.
The working class must answer with its own united,
independent fight-back movement that demands real emergency
measures to protect jobs and incomes, and to end racist,
anti-woman and anti-gay terror.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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