Robin Hood In Reverse

Beth Shulman

October 24, 2005

Beth Shulman is the author of The Betrayal of Work: How Low Wage Jobs Fail 30 Million Americans (The New Press, 2003) and works with the Russell Sage Foundation’s Future of Work and Social Inequality Projects.

The Gulf region flattened by Hurricane Katrina is turning into yet another stage for the Bush administration’s reverse Robin Hood act: taking from the poor to give to the rich.

First they suspended the Davis-Bacon laws, so that federal contractors could pay whatever wages they like to the cleanup and construction workers doing the actual dirty work of hauling away the mess and starting to rebuild. Then they waived safety regulations on working hours for truckers and airline pilots carrying in relief goods. Then they suspended affirmative action requirements, and—just for good measure—they are fighting an effort in Congress to provide short-term Medicaid coverage to impoverished Katrina survivors. Behold compassionate conservatism in action!

It’s not a question of finding enough money to handle the Gulf recovery. But who is getting the checks? So far, it’s the federal contractors—and many of them got on the gravy train without having to go through any pesky competitive bidding. That process was suspended, too.
 
It should come as no surprise, therefore, that illegal immigrants are the ones who have filled most of the available job slots, or that these long-suffering workers are being exploited something fierce, as seems to be customary. According to Robin Pogrebins in the Oct. 17 New York Times , far too many such workers are living several to a room in abysmal conditions around the Gulf, working long hours at an exhausting pace without any safety equipment, and then are often not getting paid. And the contractors are getting away with this by hiding behind the “emergency” stage curtain.
 
That’s the same excuse the Bush administration is using for the finale of its reverse Robin Hood act: In the name of finding enough “emergency” money for the region, it is cutting the very programs that might benefit the poor and jobless with one hand, and with the other hand it is tossing more money at the rich. Two new tax cuts are due to take effect Jan. 1, 2006.  According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 97 percent of that money will go to households making more than $200,000, and 54 percent will go to millionaires. These tax cuts for the wealthy are going to strip the American people of an estimated $146 million between 2010 and 2019, when they fully go into effect.

But why are we surprised? The approach to Katrina relief merely reflects Bush's policies nationwide. The philosophy is quite open: Give money to those who already have too much; meanwhile squeeze the money you actually need for spending purposes out of those who are the least able to resist. The so-called Katrina recovery program is designed chiefly to ease the pain of those whose stocks wobbled—not those whose houses collapsed.

America is not so poor that we should have to choose between food stamps or Medicaid and Katrina recovery. We should instead demand the real Robin Hood solution: Close down the tax breaks for the wealthy and use the additional funds to make sure reconstruction gets done right—with wages above the legal minimum, to attract workers and residents back to the Gulf area; with competitive bidding for federal contracts that would give the advantage to struggling local firms and the hard-hit minority-owned companies who most need the work; with labor conditions and safety rules to ensure that the new construction is done right; and with full benefits so that working families who fought off Katrina and Rita don’t now have to fight off the government in trying to return to a decent life. It’s the least they— and we—should be able to expect.