American Politics Journal

Golden Lawbreakers Revisited
Even David Broder Calls Usurper Boy on His "Stealth Partisanship"
By Tamara Baker

Jan. 4, 2001 -- SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA (APJP) -- Remember how, not quite a year ago, I described how the incoming unelected junta had decided to scrap Clinton-era rules preventing the Federal government from awarding contracts to known environmental, labor or equal-employment scofflaws?

Well, guess who's using "the fog of war" to make it official! As David Broder says in his 01/01/02 Washington Post column:

It was a classic stealth maneuver -- and it worked. Two days after Christmas, with President Bush at his Texas ranch and most of official Washington on vacation, the White House announced the rejection of regulations that would have barred companies that repeatedly violate environmental and workplace standards from receiving government contracts.

Yupper.

This was so stinky a trick that even David Broder, who like most of the WP scribes usually goes out of his way to give Usurper Boy and his crew every benefit of every doubt, had to mention it.

But here -- let me let Mr. Broder tell you, in his own words:

Few in the press noticed, and those papers that printed anything about the decision buried the stories on inside pages. But this was no trivial matter. A congressional report had found that in one recent year, the federal government had awarded $38 billion in contracts to at least 261 corporations operating unsafe or unhealthy work sites. The regulations Bush killed were designed to stop that.

Which is exactly why he killed them.

And, as Broder says:

This is a classic example of the difference between the parties. These particular rules were issued at the very end of the Clinton administration, after being published in draft form 18 months earlier. Former vice president Al Gore had publicly promised organized labor he would see that they were finished before he left that office.
Business opposed them, and Bush suspended them barely two months after he moved in, finally killing them last week. The move was a companion to the earlier 2001 action by the House and Senate, both then controlled by the Republicans, in setting aside Clinton administration regulations on ergonomics, designed to protect workers from repetitive motion injuries. The Chamber of Commerce and similar groups led the fight to spike them, too.

Of course, back in March, Usurper Boy's people promised that "more reasonable" regulations would soon be set forth by the Bush Junta. But guess what Mr. Broder found?

A phone call to the Labor Department last week elicited the information that no new regulations have been issued, and no one could say when they will be.
That is the game: Kill the rules you don't like quickly and quietly, then take your sweet time writing new ones. Don't worry about how many strained backs or stiff wrists people suffer in the meantime. And now, don't worry if the companies that tolerate unsafe conditions are getting fat government contracts at the same time.

As Mr. Broder later goes on to say, this is why it matters which party holds the White House.

Something to contemplate, when you can't tell the difference between Dems and Reps.