Odds and Ends from the Summer of 2003 –

It’s long been known that power corrupts, and as the ancient adage goes, "absolute power corrupts absolutely." This is being shown again in the GOP dominated U.S. Congress, where the following recently took place:

- This summer of 2003, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, (R - California), pushed his autocratic manner further than usual by substituting a last minute 90-page alteration to a 200-page bill overhauling the pension system. He refused a request for a delay from the Democratic members of the committee, and when all but one of them walked out, he called police to try to have them removed from an adjacent Congressional library. And while the police were trying to sort out how to handle that knotty problem, Rep. Thomas derailed a Democratic attempt to have the new bill read aloud by a procedural maneuver whereby he asked for unanimous consent and then slammed his gavel down before anyone could answer. This to the GOP’s Thomas served as unanimous consent. Meanwhile the DC Police turned over the issue of the absent Democrats to the office of the Congressional Sergeant of Arms, who promptly announced he saw no problem necessitating action. All of this served to illustrate one thing: The GOP has no interest in any bi-partisanship, it is interested in unilateral action in support of its own policies and goals. Rep. Thomas is quoted in The Washington Post making that point perfectly clear by observing that "in the House (of Representatives) the minority can delay; they cannot deny."

- In June, the Democrats tried to trim part of the recently passed tax break for the nation’s 200,000 plus millionaires from $88,000 each to $83,000, thus creating a fund of an incredible $1,000,000,000 that the Democrats wanted to spend for increased national security under the Homeland Security Act. As David Broder report in The Washington Post, the GOP dominated House Appropriations Committee and later the House itself soundly defeated this initiative. The millionaires will get their full $88,000 tax break.