OpinioNet Contributed Commentary - Timothy Rollins <tim@opinionet.com>
Date: January 7, 2002
"Beneath the Surface"
One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward
In the wake of 911, much legislation was introduced and passed by the Congress in an effort to help the people of the United States “feel safe”. The Senate, in their perpetual lack of wisdom and on a 100-0 vote, passed a measure that effectively federalized all airport security and baggage screeners. Eventually signed into law by President Bush, the bill required all airport personnel covered by the bill to be high school graduates as well as United States citizens.
Democrats as well as others knew that the actions of this bill would involve massive layoffs, as many of those working at many of the nation’s airports were in a word, unqualified for pretty much anything else in the labor force. It is reported that as many as three-quarters of the aircraft cleaners, baggage handlers and security screeners at Washington’s Dulles Airport alone would have been let go on the grounds that they either:
- (a) did not have U.S. Citizenship;
- (b) did not have high school diplomas – or worse,
- (c) had felony criminal records for a variety of offenses.
Those of you who read my columns on an even semi-regular basis know that I thought then (as I do now) that it was and still remains bad law (10th Amendment grounds), not to mention unconstitutional, even though an argument can be made that supports the Feds’ position on that issue.
The fact that there were so many people up for layoff only went to show how lax and pathetic airport security had become at America’s airports, and for that, I do not blame the government, but rather, the airlines that were more interested in flying people on the cheap than in safety. Clearly, this was a case of satisfying the stockholders over the safety of their passengers, and for that, the airlines have only themselves to blame.
I firmly believe that had Logan International Airport in Boston, like so many of the rest – to include Washington’s Dulles and Newark, not been so penny-pinching in using that joke of a firm Argenbright Security (because of their submitting the lowest bid) to protect their passengers and crews, but rather, a proven performer in airport security that actually knew their jobs and took them seriously, that the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Center might still well be standing today. If the Feds were to hold the CEO and the Board of Directors of Argenbright Security criminally liable and put them on trial in federal court for Hazarding a Vessel Resulting in Death – a CAPITAL OFFENSE under Federal law – they could then justifiably be put to death upon conviction.
Now, in his latest effort right out of the Clinton playbook, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD, pictured, left) is seeking to remove from the bill the very provisions that were designed to reduce the risk of another potential terrorist getting into an aircraft or onto a tarmac. Clearly, the influence of Bill Clinton – a castrated ex-President is unfortunately alive in Washington. The fact that Daschle is a former Air Force Intelligence Officer makes you wonder if the Air Force made him check his intelligence at the door when he left active duty.
In his effort to gut the bill, he would seek to drop the high school diploma requirement and allow a year of experience to substitute for it. There is also waffling on other requirements that were put in place, and when you get right down to it, there is only one reason for it and one reason only – votes, and more specifically, Democratic ones at that – to do underhandedly what they could not do legitimately. No sooner than Daschle, the Hildebeast and the other Senate Democrat critters claim victory, they seek – in an under the table maneuver – to quietly reverse what was done to “improve airport security.”
As for improving airport security: What a joke! Many airports in the United States are still as unsafe as they were September 10th. As to the added security, well, it goes like this:
The “politically correct” idiots are so “terrified” of offending anyone, that instead of abiding by legitimate profile guidelines, such as twenty-something males of Middle-Eastern or Pakistani descent (in other words, suicidal loners with nothing to lose), they are profiling everyone from 84-year old grandmothers to five-year old little boys sucking their lollipops, thus creating long, burdensome and unnecessary delays. Confiscating fingernail clippers and a key chain with an old bullet with a hole drilled rendering the round useless (re: columnist Ann Coulter) is yet another example of just how anal our government gets when it comes in its knee-jerk reactions whenever something goes wrong. This is clearly a case of too little, too late and we have the government engaging in CYA – both in full bloom as well as in overdrive.
Why are the Democrats so eager to gut the provisions of the bill they championed only 60 days earlier? The same reason they champion statehood for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. Let’s look at these issues a little more closely, shall we?
Puerto Rico has a population between three and four million persons, most of who speak Spanish, which is not really a problem to me personally, given that I love the language and speak it somewhat. Drop me in the streets of San Juan and I could follow the conversations, given that I learned the language in Los Angeles back in the 1980’s.
The political situation there is different in that if granted statehood, Puerto Rico would pick up six seats in the House. Given that the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico has a lower per capita income than their counterparts, and the lower the income, the more likely they would vote Democratic. Daschle and House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-MO, pictured right) know this, and are seeking to use this as a means to wrest control of the House from the GOP, who has maintained control of the House since the seismic midterm elections of 1994.
In addition, Puerto Rico would gain two Senators, and you could count on them both being Democratic as well. Since 1911, the law has precluded adding seats to the House of Representatives and as such, we are limited to 435 seats in the lower chamber, which is why the seats are reapportioned by the state legislatures every ten years following the constitutionally required taking of the census. To more effectively serve the needs of their constituents, America needs to eliminate unnecessary government agencies that provide a duplication of services and increase the number of seats in the House in order to reduce the apportionment count that currently exceeds 647,000.
As for the District of Columbia, the same situation exists there as well. Approximately the same size of Fort Worth, Texas, the District – if granted statehood, would get one Democratic Member of Congress (at large) and two more Democratic Senators. As one can clearly see by now, the agenda of the Democrats becomes even more clearly obvious to the educated. As for the remainder, they will continue to go on their way fat, dumb and happy voting the way they always have done. This is especially true since the District has not voted Republican since FDR in the 1930’s.
For the uneducated, it becomes clear that the Democrats are seeking to undermine the legitimate will of the people in an effort to steal control of the House in much the same underhanded manner they stole control of the Senate last year with the enticement, seduction and subsequent defection of Senator James Jeffords (I-VT). Dollars to donuts says that if Daschle hadn’t promised Jeffords he could keep his Senate committee chairmanship, the defection would have never taken place.
Let us hope that President Bush (left) will have both the backbone and courage to stand up to Congressional Democrats, and that Republicans in Congress will follow his lead in letting the Democrats know that the American people are in charge and that their choice of putting Republicans in charge needs to be respected until such time as a viable alternative of pro-growth and lower taxation is presented by the Democrats in much the same manner as was presented by President Kennedy in 1961. Perhaps then, the American people will see fit to give the Democrats another chance to govern. After all, it was their complete and utter failure to govern suitably that led to the Revolution of 1994 that led to the GOP gaining control of both the House and Senate with a net gain for the GOP of 54 seats in the House, generating shock waves I had never before seen in my lifetime or since.
With the death of Kennedy in 1963 and LBJ’s vision of “The Great Society”, taxes soared and the rich were made to subsidize many who were more than able to take care of themselves. Daschle seeks to do this not only with gutting the airline security bill by seeking to stack yet another federal bureaucracy with more federal workers that are statistically likely to vote Democratic, he also seeks to gut the tax cuts passed last year in order to keep the pork projects rolling into select politicians’ home districts. Enough already!
So now that the holidays are over and with an election coming up in just under ten months, we can expect the usual posturing and grandstanding as another class of Senators (33 or so) and the entire crop of 435 House members sucking up to the American voters looking to keep their jobs for another two years for the House, or six for the Senators.
Let the groveling begin.
Timothy Rollins
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Sen. Daschle (D-SD)
Dick Gephardt (D-MO)
President Bush