Methinks They Doth Protest Too Much

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Dec 27, 1999 | by Jennifer G. Hickey

Whether it's wild and wooly street activism in Seattle, mad mothers against pagans or the vice president and the first lady inserting feet in mouth, it's called political entertainment.

It was a week in which the chaos surrounding the Seattle meeting of the 135-member World Trade Organization, or WTO, dominated the news. United in their opposition to the multinational organization that promotes tearing down trade barriers, environmentalists and labor unions managed to turn an international conference into an embarrassment for the host country but moved the free-trade debate to the front burner.

With leaders and candidates of both major parties opposed to protectionist trade policies, the Seattle meeting likely will not impact the presidential race except as it serves to warn Democrats that the rank and file of two of their core-constituent groups are restless and could jump next year to green or reform tickets. Vice President Al Gore, a free-trader, has received the endorsement of the AFL-CIO and several other unions, while former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley, also for free trade, is getting endorsements from anti-NAFTA organized labor. The free-trade-favoring GOP candidates rarely get a second look from the union leaders, but the Teamsters have yet to offer its endorsement and the GOP is still in the race for that nod. Maybe a little protectionism is in order for the Grand Old Party.

In Seattle, the attention was on street theater and marching, but in the nation's courtrooms debates on environmental and trade policy were almost as dramatic. On Nov. 29, the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments concerning the constitutionality of a law to grant states more control of their trade with nations such as China and Cuba that violate human rights. At issue is the Massachusetts Burma Law, which directs state officials to publish a list of Bay State firms doing business with that country, also known as Myanmar, and punishes them by restricting their commerce with state agencies. A lower court struck down the law, claiming it interfered with the authority of the federal government to regulate foreign commerce. A decision is expected next year.

Meanwhile, a Minnesota lawsuit may be a harbinger of things to come for Gore's greens. Partly in response to a 25 percent cut in logging permitted in Minnesota's national forests during the last four years, a coalition of loggers has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service alleging the department is allowing its logging policies to be guided by the "religion" of the Deep Ecology movement. One of the tenets of the belief, supported by Gore, posits that it is man's obligation to God to preserve nature and the forests. Despite chuckles among the state's newspaper editorialists and lawyers, the loggers have a New York court victory on which to hang their hopes.

A federal judge recently ruled in favor of several parents of children in the Bedford (N.Y.) Central School District who alleged that Earth Day celebrations advocated pagan religions and New Age spirituality when students were asked to say prayers and give offerings to Mother Earth (see waste & abuse, p. 47).

As for the greens using the WTO to stir up street activism in a surreal alliance with organized labor, it even may be a part of the Gore realpolitik, say close observers, designed to prevent revolt without being revolting and frightening less frenetic voters. Of course, these things can get out of hand. Gore could face severe backlash from his opposition to logging and his support of the Kyoto Protocol. A number of professional studies paint a dire picture for the American worker if that Kyoto screed is implemented.

A study by the CONSAD Research Corp., a private-sector think tank, estimated that it might cause the loss of as many as 1.6 million jobs. An Argonne National Laboratory study concluded that, for instance, the Gore-backed protocol would cause a 30 percent decline in the number of U.S. steel producers, with an estimated loss of 100,000 jobs in that industry. According to a report by the American Council for Capital Formation's Center for Policy Research, implementation of the Kyoto Protocol pushed by Gore would mean the average annual electric bill almost would double, from $858 to $1,166, and a draft July 1997 report by the Clinton administration itself estimates price increases of 26 cents per gallon of gas and 2 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity.

Working with the administration's estimates on electricity and gas prices, the poor would have to pay an additional $24 per month for electricity and an additional $20 for gasoline.

But there is good news as well. As a prelude to the Republican presidential debates, Texas Gov. George W. Bush outlined a seven-point plan to cut taxes by $483 billion over five years, which the front-runner claimed would make "it easier, not harder, to join the ranks" of the middle class. His proposal lays out a reduction in the rate of taxation for the top rates of 39.6 and 36 percent, as wen as a 10 percent cut in me bottom 15 percent tax bracket. Furthermore, Bush said, "No middle-class family should face a federal income-tax rate higher than 25 percent." Bush's proposal also would reduce the marriage penalty, eliminate the inheritance tax over eight years and double the current $500-per-child tax credit.