Round and About

National — Our DEOs (duly elected officials) in Washington are busy condemning big business leaders for their actions in the past several months—namely Enron, WorldCom and Global Crossing, to name a few. I can't think of a good word to describe what is happening. These large corporations have had our DEOs in their pockets for years. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, 17 big companies were followed for a period of 18 months and it was determined that Republicans and Democrats shared their monetary contributions almost equally. Global Crossing gave Democrats $754,716 while giving Republicans $429,204. WorldCom gave Democrats $508,625 and Republicans $510,055. Enron gave Democrats $158,390 and Republicans $411,860. The big 17, which included the above along with Quest, K-Mart, Tyco and Adelphia, gave $2,195,087 to the Democrats and $2,938,124 to the Republicans. The Senate recently voted 91 to 4 to eliminate language from a spending bill that would have restricted government guarantees on loans for airlines. U.S. Airways is now looking for a loan of $900 million. Over the years, most Congressmen have benefited from U.S. Air—how could they vote against them?

The sacking of America goes on. Donations to election and re-election campaigns are not called bribes because our DEOs have said they are not and have passed legislation to back this up. Try offering a donation to a police officer or building inspector to act on your behalf. Remember ex-President Clinton and his Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright? At the 2000 Democratic Convention they cozied up to Gary Winnick, founder of Global Crossing, and big donations flowed.

All our DEOs and their appointees are—and there is no other word—crooks. They have to be voted out. America is being raped and no one cares. The thought, popular several months ago, concerning a national firing squad sounds better all the time. In the recent past, there have been many who should face the firing squad. To name a few: the big shots at Firestone and Ford, whose products killed many while they hid the fact. That investigation has just about faded away. How soon we forget, and our DEOs bank on our short memories. All the inner sanctum at the corporations who are making the news now—the ones who bilked their workers out of their savings and pensions—are the ones who bought our DEOs.

Our friends, Senators Dodd and Lieberman, recently voted not to repeal the so-called death tax. They, and 42 of their cohorts, felt it was unconscionable to kill this tax while the government was running deficits. Again, wow! These are the people who create the deficits—they cannot control spending and have never even tried to control spending. They give everything away, create all the pork barrel spending they can, and they will be rewarded by the votes of those who received favors, multiplied by 3.7. We must get rid of incumbents. Vote, vote, vote!

We all remember the "death tax." It started out with a $600,000 exemption. Congress passed the 10-year tax cut and the tax was scheduled to be phased out in increments, and was to be finally done away with in 2010. We now hear that it will go back into effect in 2011 with the exemption set at $675,000. Tax rates will vary between 37% and 55%. This is the tax that caused people to sell the family farm, the family business, etc. just to pay the taxes. If you have managed to save a few bucks after working all your life and would like to see your heirs get it, you would be wise to schedule your death in 2010. Don't fret about the super-rich—they will have their accountants make use of the many loopholes, trusts, shelters, transfers, etc.

President Bush made his speech concerning corporate honesty and ethics. He spoke many words and said nothing. He is beholden to the corporations he spoke of—among others there is Enron, one of his biggest benefactors. These things have been going on for years and if President Bush truly felt the way he spoke, he would have introduced legislation providing penalties in these cases—and this would have been done shortly after he took office. Congress will instead hold hearings and investigate until they feel our memories have kicked out.

State — Most of us were unhappy with the performance of the two quasi-public entities that made the news: party faithful running off with big taxpayer dollars. We didn't lose enough in the CRRA-Enron fiasco; the new board at CRRA plans to spend $940,000 more in an attempt to recover some of the losses. It is planning to spend as much as $140,000 on consultants, plus $800,000 for two law firms—one in Hartford and the other in New York. Spread the taxpayers' money around. We are dealing with so-called experts again. Isn't it sad we that hear very little from our DEOs? They are all part of the rape of our country.

Remember, in 2001 CRRA paid out $213,000 in bonuses to upper echelon party favorites. The Connecticut Lottery Corp., another quasi deal, pays $40,000 a year to a lobbying company that has a friend of Governor Rowland on the payroll: Michael Martone is employed by Murtha Cullina, who also lobbied for Enron. Mr. Martone was part of Governor Rowland's 1998 election campaign. Chris Cooper, a spokesman for the Governor, said Governor Rowland had nothing to do with the hiring of Murtha Cullina or Mr. Martone. I wonder why the Governor felt he should say anything at all.

Remember: vote, vote, vote.