The Hammer Is Nailed

Robert L. Borosage

April 05, 2006

Robert L. Borosage is co-director of the Campaign For America's Future. For more on CAF's "No More DeLays" campaign, click here.

“He has served our nation with integrity and honor,” House Majority Leader John Boehner said in reaction to the news that his predecessor Tom DeLay—under indictment for money laundering with two of his former aides singing to federal prosecutors—had decided to cut and run. “It’s driven by hatred and politics far more than substance,” lamented Rep. Jack Kingston, vice chair of the House Republican Conference. Yes, the Hammer got nailed—but his system lives on. And no one should be fooled: not much will change in Washington unless voters decide its time to hold their own legislators accountable.

DeLay’s power came from systematically yoking the money of corporate lobbies to the passion of New Right conservative movements in order to discipline Republicans and batter Democrats. The infamous K Street project was essential to organizing the corporate lobbies, trading access and legislative action for money for campaigns. That money helped pay for the conservative movements and was used both to reward Republicans for loyalty and punish them for independence. This is why—despite dozens of Republicans advertising themselves as moderates and independents to their constituents—DeLay could ignore Democrats and consistently rally the Republican votes he needed to pass the legislation he wanted, despite a thin majority in the Congress.

The corporate lobbies made out like bandits, literally writing their own subsidies into law. Big Pharma got hundreds of billions in a prescription drug law that prohibited Medicare from using its buying power to lower prices. Big oil got billions in subsidies while gouging Americans at the pump. As the Financial Times reported, earmarks in legislation—special favors that often ducked the normal legislative process—expanded to $62 billion last year. The tax code expanded from 40,506 pages in 1995 to 66,498 pages 10 years later, as legions of tax breaks and dodges became law. Since the “conservative revolution” came to power in 1994, the number of lobbyists exploded four-fold to 36,000. Of these, 29 are former DeLay staffers, not counting the two who have now pled guilty in the corruption probe.

The right consolidated its control on both houses of Congress and the presidency. The tensions between selling out the store to corporate lobbies and keeping the loyalty of conservative activists were managed well. Republican strategist Karl Rove could envision building a governing party for the next decades.

It is Americans—and America—that pay the cost of this corruption. As the DeLay machine hums on dispensing corporate favors, the rest of us suffer the highest drug prices in the world; soaring home heating and gas prices while the nation grows more dependent on foreign oil; and wasted billions in corporate subsidies while vital investments— in schools, in child health and nutrition, affordable college, public health systems, even in homeland security—go unmet. And an ugly politics of division—Terry Schiavo, stem-cell research, creationism in the schools, gay bashing, attacks on family planning—all to provide red meat to the right.

Now the Hammer is gone, but his successors, if less feral, are cut from the same mold. The perpetually tanned House majority leader, John Boehner, describes himself as the “last man standing” from the 1994 leadership of the Gingrich revolution. He famously came to public attention by passing out checks from the tobacco lobby to members on the House floor, before learning that this was only done in the backrooms. His first act upon becoming majority leader was to stymie the corruption reform efforts, moving immediately to protect junkets on corporate jets—which he is famous for enjoying.

As chair of the House Committee on Education, Boehner consolidated his leadership role by building a large leadership PAC, mostly funded by lenders profiting from the student loan business. Last December, he gathered his grateful donors together and reassured them that they shouldn’t worry about the higher education reauthorization bill; he had them in “his trusted hands.” The provisions that finally passed stripped $12 billion from the student loan program even as interest rates shot up to 6.8 percent.

And the House Majority Whip, Roy Blunt is, if anything, worse. He was the Republican Party’s official liaison to the K Street project.

Boehner and his gang hope that DeLay’s departure will placate disaffected voters. They’ve blocked any real reform of the system of corruption. The lobbyists in town don’t believe anything fundamental will change. Money and reapportionment make it virtually impossible to beat an incumbent who isn’t under indictment. They’ll batter the Democrats as traitors on the war, promise more tax cuts, and rouse the right with the threat of gays, immigrants and Hillary. DeLay’s departure doesn’t mark the end of the system he created. Americans will keep paying the cost of corruption until they decide that it is time to clean out the stables.