UNITED STATES NEWS DIGEST
Bush Needs Paul Volcker, Claims Wall Street Journal
The Bush Administration should turn to Paul Volcker and the "supply-side" economists to set an economic agenda with "intellectual leadership" (sic), writes former editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal Robert L. Bartley, in the Journal's Nov. 11 issue. In the recent elections, the Democrats never got traction on the stumbling economy or corporate scandals, he writes, because the voters, "no fools they," knew the "Nasdaq broke in March 2000 on Clinton's watch," and likewise the "business misdeeds" were underway under Clinton too.
But now, Bush must get a "steady hand on the economic tiller," as tax cuts in a recession or "trade promotion authority at the expense of steel quotas," can't be considered a Republican agenda. Even a big half-point interest rate cut, he laments, won't "correct the real problems." The Bush economic team of Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and White House adviser Larry Lindsey are "too reverential" towards Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, and so no economic policy direction has materialized, Bartley opines.
Now is Bush's chance to get a grip, he argues. Harvey Pitt is gone at the Securities and Exchange Commission, Greenspan may retire, and O'Neill could decide to leave, so the President should seek the wisdom of "Paul Volcker [whose] sterling reputation is intact." To round out the new team, Bartley insists, "the original Reaganite supply-side economists, in Washington and out, are worth talking to in search of an intellectual spark plug."
National Governors' Association Holds Budget-Cutting Brainwashing Seminar
The NGA held a closed three-day seminar for governors-elect at the Four Seasons Hotel in Austin, Texas Nov. 15-17; the agenda was a closely guarded secret, and press were not permitted inside the meetings. However, on Nov. 9, National Public Radio interviewed Michigan Governor-elect Jennifer Granholm (D), who made very clear that the purpose of the seminar was to teach the "baby governors ... how to make sure you balance your budgets."
Granholm said that the Michigan state deficit is close to $1.5 billion, with a state general fund of only $9 billion. Therefore, she said, "right now" there are meetings going on of "budget swat teams," to see how to cut the budget, provide the most important services, without raising taxes.
In the interview, Granholm said that, as she has been telling her fellow Dems, "just because a Democrat is in office, doesn't mean that manna will start to fall from Heaven.... We are going to cut ... and it may be painful for the first couple of years, but we will get this budget in balance." We will be "lean, but not mean," she added.
Granholm then spilled the beans about the New Governors School the NGA runs every two years. This time, she said, the top agenda item is: "How to make sure you balance your budget." The NGA, when contacted, stated, "This is a closed meeting for governors-elect. We therefore do not make public the agenda." A news release states, in boldface: "All meeting sessions are closed to the media. Security in and around the hotel will be tight."
What do they have to hide?
Long Knives Are Out for Terry McAuliffe
Terry McAuliffe's days as Democratic national chairman are probably numbered, as more and more Democratic pundits call for the scalp of the man known as the DNC's moneybags, and as a surrogate for former President Bill Clinton, who was his chief promoter as DNC chair.
In a Nov. 9 Washington Post column, "It's Time for Some Primary Colors," Colbert I. King called for McAuliffe's ouster and called on blacks to run for President in Democratic primaries to force the party's attention, and bring about a shakeup. King put his finger on the nub of the "two Republican parties" insanity of the Democratic Leadership Council gang.
He recalled how Maynard Jackson, the former Atlanta Mayor, was pilloried when he dared to "reach too high" by running against McAuliffe for the party chairmanship after the 2000 elections. Blacks, it seems to King, are not supposed to seek the chairmanship or the Presidential nomination.
"So," he wrote, "McAuliffe expects to stay right where he is, schmoozing with fat cats, huddling with power brokers, playing the inside game with the next crop of presidential wannabes, and continuing to hone his strategy of winning over suburban voters while maintaining the affection of environmentalists, abortion rights advocates and gun foes. And if Democratic politics run true to form, two years from nowafter the labor-dominated primaries winnow the current field of singularly unexceptional presidential candidates to a Democratic ticket bearing a vanilla message for independent and swing votersMcAuliffe and top party leaders will turn their attention back to urban America. Its legions of preachers, pols, and party loyalists will be exhorted to get out the African American vote in time for November 2004."
King denounced the black political leadership in equally strong terms: "The continued passivity of black Democrats in the face of such disrespect is an offense to the memory of ancestors who arrived on these shores in bondage and through sheer grit and determination survived slavery and went on to make it possible for future generations to reach the top in business, education, the military, law and science." He called on the leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus and other African American political activists to revolt, to run in the primary elections for President, based on a serious platform, addressing the needs of urban constituents.
He added, "And please don't hand me that stuff about African Americans not being qualified to run for the big one. For goodness sake, look at who's running now. John Edwards, a North Carolina newcomer to the Senate whose claim to fame is that he made loads of money as a trial lawyer. John Kerry, a Massachusetts Senator and decorated veteran with a Dudley Do-Right persona... The days of playing supplicant are over. It's time for self-respecting black Democrats to get it on with their partyor look for another home."
In the same vein, former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson, who ran against McAuliffe for the party chairmanship, wrote a bristling letter to the DNC chair, demanding the Democratic Party correct course.
In the Nov. 13 letter, Jackson told McAuliffe, "Last week, you returned my call and we discussed the Nov. 5 horror show. While I continued to agree with you that we must 'stay positive,' I asserted that our party and its leadership must accept responsibility for last Tuesday's predicted problems and, as a condition precedent to positive solutions, admit the problems and correct our course immediately....
"We need to meet, analyze what happened last Tuesday and where we are, and plan without delay where we go from here.... A Democratic victory in 2004, including key Southern states, will require that we not waste a minute."
A spokeswoman for a worried McAuliffe, told reporters that the Committee would meet by telephone in the coming weeks, and that Jackson had not indicated that he would challenge McAuliffe for the chairman's post this time around.
Budget Cut Disasters Around the Country
The process of trying to cut government functions fast enough to "adjust" to economic collapse, is creating disaster in localities, big or small:
*New York City's proposed cuts, intended to bridge its $6-billion budget gap, would include meals to poor seniors, children's clinics, and much more. Some proposals:
Close two child health-care centers on Staten Island.
Cut out some of the 9 million meals served to the elderly at the network of 332 senior centers by the Department of Aging, by shutting down 10 centers, and cutting back on meals at the other locations. (There are 1.3 million seniors in the City, and most live on a fixed income of $12,000 or less.)
Hike bus fares from $3 to $4, proposed by the Department of Transportation.
Hike tolls on East River crossings.
Raise property taxes. Reinstate the commuter tax. Enact an income tax surcharge.
*Oklahoma state cuts to schools are making it necessary to cover school expenses with "nonpayable warrants." "These [state] cuts are by far the worst in anyone's memory," said Barry Beauchamp, School Superintendent in Lawton, Okla. last month, when it was approved to use "nonpayable warrants" from banks, to pay local school teachers and vendors for the rest of this year.
The warrants are financial arrangements whereby a bank covers the school expenses, and the school later repays the money plus interest. State of Oklahoma general revenue fell 13% below estimates, for July through September, and the state financial officials cut funding for education and other functions. Beauchamp said the impact is worse than the 1980s farm state crisis, when schools had shortfalls. Worse still, there is no end in sight. "I hate to say it, but we're just at the middle of this cycle, and we're far from the end."
U.S. Catholic Bishops: 'Difficult To Justify War Against Iraq'
By a vote of 228-14, the Roman Catholic bishops of the U.S. approved a statement prepared by the International Policy Committee of the U.S. Bishops Conference led by Boston Cardinal Bernard Law. The statement reads in part that the bishops "find it difficult to justify the resort to war against Iraq, lacking clear and adequate evidence of an imminent attack of a grave nature."
The Catholic hierarchy is "deeply concerned" about use of preventive wars "to overthrow threatening regimes or to deal with weapons of mass destruction." The bishops also said a decision to attack Iraq requires "some form of international sanction, preferably by the UN Security Council." In September, the president of the U.S. bishops, Wilton Gregory of Belleville, Ill., delivered a letter to George Bush expressing disagreement with "any preemptive, unilateral use of military force to overthrow the government of Iraq."
New Woodward Book Details Faction Fight in Bush Administration over Iraq
A new book by the Washington Post's Bob Woodward, titled Bush at War, details the factional brawls inside the Administration over the Afghanistan war, and a possible war on Iraq.
According to the Washington Post, which is serializing the book and heavily promoting it, Woodward had a four-hour interview with President Bush at his Crawford ranch this past August, and had extensive access to National Security documents, and to members of the Bush Cabinet, in writing the book.
Much of what has been reported so far confirmed fully Lyndon LaRouche's own assessment of the intense faction fight inside the Administration, largely pitting Secretary of State Colin Powell against Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The latter two were the most vocal war-hawks on both the Afghan and Iraqi issues. According to the Post summary by Mike Allen, Powell ran a successful effort to establish a personal rapport with President Bush, culminating in a private dinner with Bush in August 2002, after which the President decided to work through the United Nations Security Council on Iraq.
The book also mooted some nasty shenanigans at the White House (key phrases Bush had ordered inserted into his Sept. 12 speech before the UN General Assembly were omitted from the final draftthe section in which he was to announce that he would work through the UN Security Council to secure a new resolution against Iraqso that he had to ad lib that section, when he saw that it was missing from the teleprompter).
Train Buffs: All Aboard For Asian Rail!
The Nov. 10 edition of the leading paper in Virginia's capitalthe Richmond Times Dispatch featured nearly a full-page article on plans for high-speed rail in continental Asia, reviewing a lot of material familiar to EIR readers, but generally kept out of the American press.
Could it be that the article is linked to the just-concluded Senate campaign by LaRouche Democrat Nancy Spannaus, who ran as an independent against Republican John Warner in the Nov. 5 election? Spannaus's campaign posters featured the map of Eurasian Land-Bridge as developed by 2004 Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche, along with a picture of LaRouche.
The Times Dispatch reviewed the northern and southern routes of the Eurasian Land-Bridge, including on the southern route, a tunnel under the Bosphorus, which will make the link to Western Europe. It also highlighted implications of the rail connections, emphasizing that the railways cut through former war zones, some of which, like Laos, haven't even a single foot of rail, or Cambodia, which has 267 gaps in its colonial-era railways.
The article reviewed some of the history of the projects, which were proposed in 1960, and then in 1995 Malaysia proposed the 3,344-mile line from Singapore to Kunming, Yunnan Province, China. UN Transportation expert Barry Cable says that "past cooperation has been slow, but now there is more political will and interest," pointing to the recent rail link between the Koreas, and the fact that 24 countries support the projects.
The project is seen as a vehicle to better bind the economies of the region and provide southern China with easier access to the sea and to regional markets. On the northern route, freight now takes only 10 days to Europe instead 25 days by sea.
Interestingly, the article reported that in the last decade emphasis was on road construction in Asia, but UN expert Pierre Chartier reports planners are increasingly aware of "congestion costs" from roads, while rail offers greater safety, lower fuel consumption, and less pollution. Honorio R. Vitasa at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta said the major challenge facing the Singapore-Kunming line, which will take a decade to complete, is attracting the $2.5 billion in funding, but from 2001-2006, some $73 billion will be spent on rail in Asia, with China accounting for $45 billion. The article concluded with the report that both China and South Korea are planning high-speed rail. Korea's link between Seoul and the port of Busan will have trains travelling at 186 mph, and is due to be finished in 2004.
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