Molly Ivins December 17AUSTIN, Texas — Why, Santy Claus, you sly old thing, you shouldn't have! No really, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas don't need that nice Christmas present you're about to lay on them. What's that you say? You haven't done anything for the Boeing Co. lately? Wrong, chump — your tax dollars are probably about to pay the costs of Boeing's merger with McDonnell. Your very own Christmas gift to the world's largest aerospace company. So sweet of you — most people only think of the Salvation Army at this time of year. And here's another reason to be proud of your Christmas giving: Boeing promises that "the number of displaced workers will be minimal." I like the sound of "minimal" — I'd just like to know how many thousands of people we're talking about. When Lockheed married Martin Marietta, $92 million in bonuses — or "triggered compensation," as they say in Corporateland — was handed out to executives and board members. The U.S. government (that's us, sucker) picked up $31 million of that. A mighty minimal 30,000 workers lost their jobs in that deal, according to "Take the Rich Off Welfare" by Mark Zepezauer and Arthur Naiman. To date, the Pentagon has spent at least $300 million subsidizing corporate mergers of defense contractors and plans to spend $3 billion more during the next three years, according a column by Lawrence Korb in The Christian Science Monitor. That's not counting Boeing's expected application for "restructuring costs." In theory, these subsidies "promote the rational downsizing of the defense industry." This prize idiocy, payoffs for layoffs, was rejected by the House last session, but the Senate refused to go along. Now, while we're meditating on Christmas gifts, let us consider who got coal and switches this year. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 93 percent of all the entitlement reductions passed by Congress in 1995 and 1996 were in cuts for programs for poor people.
Of course, not all the news is bad. Michael Ovitz, for example, will receive at least $95 million in compensation for leaving the Disney Co. after 18 months of what is widely regarded as an unsatisfactory performance. What does this have to do with cutting programs for poor people? Just part of the Zeitgeist, friends, the tenor of our times. Remember when it was not considered incredibly quaint and dated to be concerned about economic and social justice? Columbia University's study of children and poverty provoked some seasonal clucking last week. Let's try a new approach. Since the reality of one in four American children growing up in poverty does not seem to bother our GOP-controlled Congress, or even our New Democrat president, let's stop trying to wring tears from those stones. Let's hit 'em in the bottom line. A child born in poverty is more likely to be a low-birth-weight baby, meaning health problems from then on. Lots of increased health-care costs there, fellow citizens. Then, if that child doesn't get adequate nutrition, his brains won't develop properly, so he won't do well in school and is far more likely to drop out. Stop thinking poor, hungry children with big, sad eyes, like those kids in Keene paintings. Think of millions of feral teen-agers loose on the streets, getting into gangs, killing innocent bystanders, dealing drugs, robbing — and then think of the cost of incarcerating them for years at a time. I give up on trying to get Republicans to feel sympathy for poor children; it just can't be done. We'll have to go with the bottom-line argument and augment that by scaring them to death. Remember, feral teen-agers! Wild in the streets! Another 1.1 million children thrown into poverty by welfare reform! If we don't pay one way, we'll pay another. *** Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. COPYRIGHT 1996 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.miv
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