Paramount Pictures’ 2004 remake of “The Manchurian Candidate” described the efforts of a sinister corporation to place a brainwashed candidate in the White House. In November 2004, George W. Bush was elected to a second term as the President of the United States. Now, President Bush is trying to push a $2.57 trillion budget past Congress while cutting 150 federal programs and catering to the desires of big business by increasing corporate tax cuts and privatizing Social Security.
Ties to industry and political cronyism are hardly novel trends in the White House. Teddy Roosevelt, an American icon, almost single-handedly laid the foundation for the construction of the Panama Canal in an effort to advance American financial interests. Warren G. Harding, generally regarded as the most corrupt president in the history of the United States, allowed members of the corporate elite to tap into publicly owned oil wells in the American West for personal financial gain. As late as the 1980s, Ronald Reagan played to corporate interests with substantial tax cuts and an aggressive American economic policy.
Even in light of this remarkably lax historical standard of presidential objectivity, the Bush administration has pushed the bedroom relationship between the executive branch and the Fortune 500 to an all-time low. President George W. Bush is a former Texas oil magnate who once served as the managing partner of the Texas Rangers. Vice President Dick Cheney is the former CEO of multi-billion dollar Halliburton Corporation, an American multinational that deals heavily in energy production, especially petroleum drilling in Eurasia. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is the former CEO of two Fortune 500 companies with interests as varied as broadband communication and pharmaceuticals. Wily presidential aid Karl Rove served as an advisor to tobacco companies from 1991-1996 before re-entering the political fray. Lest we forget, former President George H.W. Bush is a senior advisor to the Carlyle Group, a $20 billion titan with a large investment in the aerospace and defense industries.
Does anyone else see a conflict of interest here?
Had President William McKinley been heavily invested in the corporations providing military equipment for the Spanish-American War, citizens surely would have questioned his motives. If Gen. Douglas MacArthur had been one of the primary stockholders in the company that manufactured the M1 carbine, people might have been interested to know that millions of American troops were outfitted with that rifle in the ’50s. The situation that lies before us today is a glaring example of the very same trend, but time and again the general public meekly submits to the wishes of an executive branch beholden to American corporatocracy.
The point is not that powerful members of the Bush administration are financially beholden to various Fortune 500 companies. As realists are quick to point out, that’s simply political reality. What’s terrifying about the current administration is their complicity with big business on a level unprecedented in the wide scope of American political history.
The practical policies of the Bush administration reflect this disturbing trend. The president signed a $136 billion corporate-tax cut bill on October 22 that received virtually no media coverage. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans (read: CEOs) are now taxed 26.7 percent of their income, as opposed to 33 percent in 2001. Nevertheless, we lament over a skyrocketing deficit. Media consolidation has risen to an all-time high, with a single corporation having the ability to control up to 39 percent of any given media market.
The brilliant Athenian political philosopher Aristotle tellingly remarked in his Politics that “every state should be so administered and so regulated by law that its magistrates cannot possibly make money.” Instead, America has entered an era of increasing corporate unaccountability. The energy industry has created an Enron. The accounting industry has created an Arthur Andersen. Now, as Congress considers the fiscal year 2006 budget, we as voters should ask one crucial question: did we elect a man based on his foresight, leadership abilities and character, or on his stock portfolio?
Gabe Cohen ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in journalism.