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LaRouche Denounces 'Stimulus' as Fraud

by Carl Osgood

WASHINGTON, D.C., Nov. 28, 2001 (EIRNS)—House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), and Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R- Miss.) walked out of another fruitless meeting today with President Bush at the White House. It was fruitless at least as far as finding agreement on a so-called stimulus package is concerned, even though, all four of them tried to put the best spin on it they could. Daschle declared to reporters "I think I can speak for the four leaders in saying that there is a real interest, first, in getting this job done, and secondly, in addressing one of the real concerns shared... which is to address the unemployment concerns that we have been working on all fall." That White House meeting was simply the latest episode in a weeks long partisan drama over what to do about the economy. On Oct. 24, the House passed a bill which consists almost entirely of tax cuts designed to benefit the "shareholders," by a near party line vote of 216 to 214. On Nov. 14, the Senate took up a bill designed by the Democrats that included some tax cuts but was weighed more heavily towards spending on assistance to recently unemployed workers. It also included a $15 billion package of spending on homeland security measures. A package of infrastructure spending, originally proposed to be $20 billion, then reduced to $5 billion, designed by Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), was dropped from the overall measure entirely. That measure was denounced by the GOP as a partisan measure, and they blocked it on the Senate floor.

On Nov. 15, Lyndon LaRouche condemned these efforts as fraud. "There is currently no program to deal with the reality of the economic collapse which is ongoing, or the national security implications of any of this. There is no such operation. There is no such bill. A bill has been submitted by Reid and so forth which is not bad, but the point is, the implementation is terrible. Therefore, this is a fraud, and this is going to continue until Congress wakes up, and the Democrats in particular, stop kidding themselves, going along with Gore. And Daschle has got to correct the error he made on health-care, which he knows he made."

LaRouche, in his 2000 campaign in the Democratic Presidential primaries, and since January, in his 2004 Presidential campaign, has repeatedly issued policy outlines in multimillion-run mass pamphlets, and on his website, for dealing with the economic and security crises. He has spelled out the need for a "Chapter 11 Bankruptcy-style" approach to deal with unpayable financial claims, and to keep economic activity functioning. Internationally, there must be a "New Bretton Woods" process of creating a new, nation-serving financial system, to replace the current disintegrating speculative system. There must be multi-nation efforts for large-scale priority infrastructure, such as the Eurasian Land-Bridge development program, and others.

Over the past 12 months, LaRouche has led the national efforts for energy re-regulation, and for keeping open—and now, reopening—D.C. General Hospital as the lead fight for restoring the national public health system.

Therefore, today, LaRouche points out, "For there to come from Democrats and others at this point, as a so-called stimulus package, this thing being discussed, is a damned fraud. If you want to do something effective, ram through the Airport Security Bill. Get that out of the way, and concentrate on actually having an economic recovery program, which means—which may be one which Tom DeLay isn't going to like! Right? Tom DeLay and Associate Justice Scalia will not like it. But do it anyway."

LaRouche stressed the fraud point: "It's obvious that the Congress at this time—Democrats and Republicans alike, with a few exceptions here and there who are talking about things—but when it comes to pushing legislation, the whole discussion of a stimulus package for the U.S. economy is a fake. And it's been the kind of fakery that's been going on, ever since Daschle withdrew his support for the D.C. General Hospital. And since Gore revived himself as the biggest manure-spreader in U.S. politics.... Gore professes to be the greatest manure-spreader in American politics. And that may be true, but not in the way he means it."

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