Lifestyles of the Richly Evil
According to the Associated Press, over the last six years, corporate donors have paid Rep. Tom DeLay to go on "48 visits to golf clubs and resorts with lush fairways; 100 flights aboard company planes; 200 stays at hotels, many world-class; and 500 meals at restaurants". By all means, let's be conservative in our estimates, as no doubt Rep. DeLay would approve. Estimate that he played two rounds at a golf course, and the fees per round were $50. Bill the flights at a mere $500 per use of a corporate jet. Estimate the hotel costs at $200 a night for three nights, with no room service expenses, no drinks at the bar. Suppose the meals cost only $50 per person. And suppose this largess was lavished on him alone, instead of often him and a bevy of aides. That still amounts to $199,800...well over $30,000 a year in perks and luxury accomodations. And did corporations give these things to Rep. DeLay out of the goodness of their corporate hearts? No. Back in1995, when Rep. DeLay was merely House Majority Whip, insisted that no lobbyist come through his doors who had not given generously to the Republican party; soon he insisted they hire Republicans to work at their firms if they wanted access. I think it fair to expect that as Majority Leader, he probably expanded that prohibition to any lobbyist that failed to do precisely what he asked, whatever he asked. What did lobbyists get for their kowtowing? Influence over legislation. In fact, in the book Tell Newt to Shut Up, the authors David Maraniss and Michael Weisskopf detailed how Republican legislators allowed lobbyists not merely to influence legislation in return for their generous donations, but sometimes allowed them to write the legislation outright. And those were in the days when the new Republican majority was notably a great deal more ethically scrupulous than they are today.
Rep. DeLay has bribed and blackmailed corporations for a good tee time...in the Bahamas...and his champagne dreams and caviar excesses. And all the American people have had to do in return is hand out billions of dollars in tax cuts to move American jobs overseas; relax rules on cancer-inducing pollution; and see an economy damaged because corporations no longer compete to see who can work smarter and more competitively, but instead compete to see who can more effectively buy off legislators who want to be treated like fat-cat CEOs...without having to dip their toes in the free market. Next to our system, the open corruption of countries like Mexico and Syria is enviable.
And remember, please, that Rep. DeLay was accepting over $30,000 in vacations a year while at the same time opposing a raise in the minimum wage. At $6 an hour, which is above the minimum wage, a worker would have to work 8 hours a day every day for 903 days to top $30,000...and a great deal of that would go to payroll taxes. We know Rep. DeLay isn't working eight hours a day every day... he's too busy playing golf at St. Andrews and Palmas del Mar. There is class warfare in the country. The rich and the privileged are robbing the poor and the middle class, and people like Rep. Tom DeLay are just their bag men.
3:05:59 PM 
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