Tantrum Ted sees Red

This week, high-ranking Republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska climbed down from his highchair to throw a tantrum about changes to the latest spending bill, but to no avail. Democrats and moderate Republicans filibustered the legislation to force removal of an item permitting drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Stevens, a big-business, big-money puppet, best known for his screaming fit on the Senate floor when his two-hundred-million dollar “Bridge to Nowhere” boondoggle came under attack, would love to open the ANWR to oil companies even though the amount of oil expected to be found there amounts to a tiny, meaningless fraction of our needs. It is important to Stevens that we risk spoiling a national treasure to keep the people who pay for his Senate campaigns happy.

Like a toddler, Stevens bangs his fists and rails at anyone opposing his greed, but he has become the latest poster boy for all that is wrong with Congress, especially all that is wrong with the Republican party. Yes, Democrats are beholden to businesses and special interests, but Republicans like Stevens, Tom Delay and Dick Cheney have taken favors and payola to new, unimagined levels.

They make no excuses for doing the bidding of their deep-pocketed corporate masters, and seem to operate on the fundamental notion that the needs of corporations outweigh the needs of average citizens. Indeed, they seem to believe that because corporations are staffed by people, their best interests are automatically aligned with the interests of average citizens. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Corporations have no obligation to benefit the general welfare, and the vast majority feel little concern for anything but the bottom line. Their objective is to maximize profits in the interest of shareholders who own the company. And of course, many of the largest shareholders are often their own executives.

The maximization mindset has yielded highly efficient, productive and profitable industries, but history demonstrates that corporations are unable to conduct business and respect the environment at the same time. When faced with the prospect of polluting, corporations ask the following question: will we make more money by polluting and risking an expensive cleanup down the road, or by using a cleaner, more expensive process up front? This calculus is, in a sense, immoral. It does not reject pollution outright, considering it unacceptable on its face. Rather, pollution is a potential cost.

America has scores of examples. In fact, our nation still contains hundreds of chemical dumpsites that were supposed to be cleaned up long ago. But our government didn’t have the will to enforce its own laws. Indeed, once the Bush Administration took office, it stopped litigation against Ohio Valley power plants polluting the air with nasty chemicals like mercury--the same plants who gave millions to Republicans in battleground states like Ohio.

Which brings us back to the problem. Because big business cares more about profit than people, Government needs to be a strong watchdog. Federal agencies need to have an adversarial relationship with corporate America. But in the Bush era, the watchdog turns out to be a fox, and the fox has been raiding the henhouse for five years.

This week, despite tantrums from Ted Stevens, the general public and the environment had a small victory. And this victory highlights the shameful way conservative politicians fail to protect the public while scurrying to protect big business. Our government is for sale, and, like many others in his party, Stevens is a disgrace to his office.