HIGHTOWER: GOP Kisses High-Tech Butt

Jim Hightower
April 26, 2000

Time for today's Hog Report [hogs]!These are your high-powered, high-tech hogs like Bill Gates of Microsoft, Lou Gerstner of IBM, and other corporate heavies who waddled into Washington for a three-day "High Tech Summit" convened on Capitol Hill by the joint economic committee. It was billed by the committee's Republican leaders as [quote] "a substantive dialogue with the high tech community."But the substance turned out to nothing but political pap and high-tech hype, with Gates and gang rambling on about the wonders of consumerism their industry was developing, and with Republican lawmakers vowing repeatedly to get government off their backs. Off their backs? Good grief! Washington has bent over backwards to stuff billions in subsidies into the back pockets of these so-called "self-made" entrepreneurs. Start with the fact that the internet and computer technology itself came from government funding, then add in such favors as the special tax breaks they've been given and the special low-wage labor subsidy they get.The GOP's dog & pony show was not about policy, but about kissing the computer industry's collective butt in an effort to get more campaign dollars from high-tech hotshots like Gates. Indeed, Haley Barbour -- a Microsoft lobbyist and Republican fund raiser -- says he and other lobbyists had attended a meeting with Senators to discuss the upcoming summit, and the fund-raising staff for Senate Republicans was involved in planning the summit. Just coincidentally, GOP leader Trent Lott scheduled a senate vote on a multibillion-dollar legal loophole for the industry on the very day that Gates made his appearance at the summit. It passed. The week before, Microsoft had been a "table sponsor" for the Republican Congressional dinner, apparently making a down payment on legislative favors to come.This is Jim Hightower saying . . . What the GOP is doing with the high-techies is not a "dialogue" -- it's legalized bribery.Sources: " Gates testifies, and the GOP seeks to forge closer links" by David Sanger. New York Times: June 16, 1999. "GOP aims to show it's a friend to high-tech" by Edward Pound and Jim Drinkard. USA Today: June 14, 1999. "Tech Titans crow before Congress." ABC News web site: June 15, 1999.

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