Prometheus 6   

I may be traveling by bus in the near future

Muscling government out of air safety

By Thomas Oliphant, 9/3/2003

WASHINGTON

IN THE EXPANDING annals of President Bush's duplicitous misleadership, turning high school civics on its head in the service of corporate buddies is at least a new wrinkle. I seem to remember a distant summer school's worth of the civics stuff, along with a riveting course in driver's ed, in which I was taught that on Topic X, if the Senate passes A and the House passes B, they get together to resolve their differences in a conference committee, at which point the president decides to sign or veto the result.

Of course, my summer school long ago was in California, so maybe I got it wrong, but imagine my surprise to discover that late last month the Senate actually did pass A, the House actually did pass B, but they then got together to do the exact opposite of what each had already done, all under the veto-threatening gaze of President Bush. A final confrontation could come any time now that Congress is back.

The topic was an ideological favorite of Bush's -- turning governmental functions over to private, for-profit interests. In this case, it was a significant chunk of the country's air traffic control system. On one level, this is an interesting debate topic -- on which I happen to be a passionate believer in the odd notion that government should perform functions relating to public safety and health -- but what should fascinate everybody is how President Bush chooses to do his business.

He could not prevail if the privatization issue were put to a specific vote in Congress. In fact it was put to a vote in the Senate two months ago as part of the process of reauthorizing the functions of the aviation-supervising Federal Aviation Administration. With 11 Republicans joining in, the Senate in a 56-41 vote specifically forbade any privatization. In the House, a ban of only marginally less sweeping nature was made part of the legislation it approved.

But when representatives of the two bodies met to iron out differences, the White House went to work to undo what each had already done. Promising a veto for reauthorization legislation that restricted his agenda, Bush insisted that the final version allow for-profit air traffic control to proceed in stages. Rubber-stamp Republicans on the conference committee then folded like cheap suits and the result was legislation that permitted what each house had forbidden.