Page A 4 |Jn rtlan b (Ohsmu? September IS. 2004 Opinion articles do not necessarily reflect or represent the views of The Portland Observer O pinion There is No Shame in Bush’s Game Major corporations win and average Americans lose behind to sc ra m b le fo r jo b s , healthcare and quality education. The Bush adm inistration has repeatedly championed causes that primarily benefit corporate America. His immigration plan to permit ille gal immigrants to work in America was designed to provide corpora by J udge G reg M athis tions with a steady supply p f cheap As we approach the end of labor. Last year, on the advice and G eorge W. B ush's presidential proddingofcorporate leaders. Bush term, a close look at his record will pushed a $383 billion corporate tax reveal that major corporations have cut through Congress - reducing been the primary beneficiaries of taxes on corporate dividends and his policies. On the other hand, stock sales. average Americans are being left The Cato institute, a conserva tive think tank that usually sup ports Republican policies, com plains that the Bush administration has spent more than $90 billion a year on grants, subsidies, and loan guarantees and other forms of cor porate w elfare. Perhaps the biggest corporate btxin of all has come from the invasion of Iraq. There, war contractors and energy companies have made tens of billons o f dollars in profits in less than 18 months. Halliburton, the energy com pany where Vice President Cheney served as chairman immediately prior to taking office, has made the most profits from the Iraq invasion. Currently there is a bi II pending that would provide $31 billion in tax breaks and subsidies to energy companies. There is obviously no shame in their game. When it comes to average Ameri cans, 1 cannot think o f one major Bush policy that has primarily ben efited them. Indeed within the first three years of the Bush adm inistra tion our Federal budget went from a $250 billion surplus to a half a trillion-dollar deficit, nearly three million people lost their jobs, and the No Child Left Behind Act was the list w ould have led to the w rongful disenfranchisem ent o f many black voters-w ho as a group o v e rw h e lm in g ly v o te D e m o lition. These machines are the way cratic-w hile allowing a significant that more than half the Florida elec num ber o f H ispanics convicted torate will have to vote this Novem o f a felony to vote. ber. Florida election officials blamed An even more serious matter is a "methodological flaw” for the the state’s process o f purging its glitch. Perhaps. But many critics lists of convicted felons. Florida subscribed to the view implicitly doesn’t allow those convicted of a expressed by “New York Times” felony to vote without them peti tioning to restore that right. In 2(XX). th o u san d s o f F lo rid ian s w ere turned away from the polls because they had been misidentified as be ing on the state's list o f convicted felons; many of them were African Americans, who as a group over whelmingly vote Democratic. This year, Florida officials hired a private com pany to develop its felons list, but refused to make the d o c u m e n t, w h ich to taled som e 47,000 nam es, available to the m edia until aju d g e ordered its release. Then, it d id n ’t take jo u r nalists and others long to dis cover several egregious errors. O ne was that the nam es o f 2,100 Floridians who had been granted clem ency, and thus w ere eligible to vote, w ere on the banned-voter list. A nother was that ju st 61 of the entire list were Hispanic. Thus, Voting Denied ‘Déjà Vu’ by M arc H. M orial W e h a v e n 't y et reached the final lap of the presidential cam paign. But one can say with a gloomy confi dence that America is on course to endure an other scarring contro versy over whether some Americans are in danger o f being wrongly denied their right to vote. The stunning aftermath of the 2000 election proved that voting con cerns cannot be taken lightly. A Harvard study found some 1.9 million Americans' ballots were dis carded as spoiled, and other re ports suggested non-whites cast half of those votes. Congress has enacted legislation and established a new federal agency, the Election Assistance Commission, to fix the flaws and ensure this year’s voting goes smoothly. But at this most critical tim e in the n atio n ’s history, N ovem ber’s elec tio n could, as the saying goes, be déjà vu all over again. C ertainly, the news about the vot ing-process in the state of Florida, w here four years ago the most w idespread and eg re g io u s v o tin g b r e a k dow ns occurred, casts serious doubt that its system has been cured o f th e p o te n tia l fo r w holesale violations of vo ters' rights. R ecent d isc lo su res No American election fo r any office, especially the highest one in the land, can afford the suspicion o f electoral skullduggery. have called into question the tech nological capability of the new touch-screen machines installed in Miami-DadeCounty. Election offi cials there knew a year ago the machines had malfunctioned, but didn't publicly acknowledge the problems until two months ago — af ter they were forced to do so by pressure from a citizens' group, the M ¡ami-Dade Election Reform Coa passed but not fully funded for success. Even when Americans citizens have a chance to do something about our healthcare crisis by im porting cheaper drugs from other countries, the Bush administration has sided with the pharmaceutical com panies, ordering the Justice Department to sue any state that tries to sell its citizens cheaper pre sc rip tio n d ru g s p u rc h a se d in Canada. With these facts in hand, Ameri cans must go to the pol Is in Novem ber and side with the candidates columnist Paul Krugman: “It es caped nobody’s attention that in Florida, Hispanic voters tend to support Republicans.” No American election for any office, especially the highest one in the land, can afford the suspicion of electoral skullduggery. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights was right last month to ask the Justice Department to investigate whether Florida’s process of purging its Ju d g e Greg M athis that have sided with us. Otherwise, we deserve what we get. Judge Greg Mathis is chairman o f the Rainbow PUSH-Excel Board and a national board member o f the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. voter rolls violated provisions of the Voting Rights Act. Black America, and America, struggled mightily to expand the fundamental right o f citizenship- access to the ballot. Everything possible must be done to prevent this November from being compared to November 2(XX). Marc H. Morial is president and CEO o f The N ational Urban League. lati-jwaw ! It’s Safeway for Great Values! I Visit Safeway's Web site at www.safeway.com Pork Loin Rib Half Sliced Bone-in All natural. SAVE up to $1.91 lb. Northwest Grown Red Delicious or Gala Apples. Card Price: $2.00 ea. SAVE up to $6.98 on 2 Captain s Choice Cooked Shrimp General Mills Cereal Tail-off. 91 to 110-ct. O r Raw, 51 to 60-ct. per lb. 12 to 18-oz. Selected varieties. Card Price: $2.00 ea. Available at Safeway: M ONEY TR A N SFER PRICES EFFECTIVE SEPTEMBER 2004 SAVE up to $4.00 lb. 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