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Jewish World Review March 16, 2001 / 20 Adar, 5761
James Lileks
desire to fold
Unfortunately, that's also the Republican notion of bipartisanship.
The GOP's inexplicable desire to fold was on display this week, as
clay-footed Senators quailed at the details of the Bush tax cut. Makes you
think that the only reason the GOP support the second amendment is to
ensure they'll always be able to shoot themselves in the foot.
Perhaps GOP timidity is best for us all. This Bush tax plan does smack
of rash mad imprudence, when you think about it. It needs to be phased in
slower. Enough of this irresponsible talk of a ten-year phase-in; why,
people get windburn just contemplating such breakneck speed. And it must to
be pegged to the surpluses. No surplus, no tax relief. We simply cannot
put the needs of taxpaying Americans ahead of the needs of tax-levying
government. Sure, some people yearn for a topsy-turvy, upside-down,
land-where-men-walk-on-their-hands world where government budgets are cut
before family budgets. But such talk breeds McVeighs, you know. Let's not go
there.
No, let's go to Santana High School, where we learn a valuable lesson
about the lean state of the federal budget. Santana, you'll recall, was thed
scene of a recent school shooting. As news reports detailed the story of the
lonely twisted shooter, we learned the cause of his eruption: he'd been
bullied. Kids called him names. Bullies - swaggering, sneering meatbrains
who delighted in taunting the geeks of the world - called him names, made
threats. And no doubt you're asking: why didn't the federal government DO
something?
They did. CNN.com ran an AP story with a headline that sums up precisely
the state of modern American political culture. "Santana got federal help to
deal with bullying." How? AWACS planes located the bullies as they huddled
on a corner for a smoke, and a carrier group sent in Tomahawks to blow them
into lunchmeat? No. Three years before the shooting, the school applied for
a grant from the Justice Department. Attorney General John Ashcroft said the
school wanted help in dealing with an "onerous culture of bullying." The
school got $137,000 to study the bully problem. Among the bright ideas that
money produced: students were encouraged to report incidents of bullying.
Okay, that's $4.00 in photocopying charges; what did the rest of the
money accomplish? Not much, apparently: the shooter never came to report the
bullying. Students who witnessed the bullying never reported it, either.
In the world of Washington, this means that the program is obviously
underfunded.
Really. Obviously, the program is a good idea - what, are you opposed to
students reporting bullies? Since it's a good idea, it must be funded. Since
current funding levels have achieved nothing, then funding must be increased
- and every year's failure to achieve the goal will only be proof of
underfunding. That's the way things work. No Republican senator wants the
Washington Post to ask him why he voted to eliminate federal funding to
clamp down on bullies - is he in favor of school shootings, then?
Some might say that this grant is just a tiny peek into a vast and
glittering storehouse of wasted treasure. Some might say that the very
notion of a federal program to eliminate high-school taunting is proof that
the government can stand to slim down. Lose an ounce or a pound. Or a few
thousand tons. Some, like Ashcroft himself, might note that solving some of
our problems "takes more than what the government can do." But they wouldn't
be acting in the spirit of bipartisanship. Only an extremist would want to
cut the program and give the money back to parents. Not, let's increase
anti-bully efforts at twice the rate of inflation instead of four times.
That's a sensible compromise.
Look - bipartisanship is moving! It's alive!
Ahh . . . guess not. Gephardt was kicking the body
02/23/01: Will the Jeb Bush administration attack Saddam in 2011?
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