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Rep. Virginia
Foxx was one of 11 members of the United States House of Representatives
to vote against the $51.8 billion supplemental aid package for Hurricane
Katrina victims.
Immediately
after that vote, Rep. Foxx instructed her spokesperson, Amy Auth,
to explain that her boss voted against the bill because there was
no “accountability” in it. Simultaneously (or thereabouts),
her official website posted suggestions to contractors on how to
seek FEMA contracts arising out of the Katrina relief she had just
voted against.
When criticism
of and embarrassment about her vote arose from numerous quarters,
Rep. Foxx, again through employee Amy Auth, slightly revised her
statement about accountability (there’s “not enough,”
rather than none). “Auth said Foxx did support relief efforts
and had voted for the initial $10.5 billion supplemental relief
bill the week before.”
In other words,
Foxx wanted everyone to know she voted for Katrina relief before
she voted against it.
And good for
her, bringing up “accountability.” There’s never
enough of it, Lord knows, but the question arises: Did Rep. Foxx
vote against supplemental Katrina relief because she knows well
the un-accountability of this particular administration, and dreads
it?
Forget the now
notorious lack of qualifications of FEMA head Michael Brown. Look
at what else the cronyism of this president has installed in key
positions, like ex-lobbyist David Safavian, appointed chief federal
procurement officer by President Bush, to oversee some $300 billion
in federal spending. Safavian was arrested a few days back and charged
with lying to investigators and obstructing an investigation into
Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
The cronyism
of this president also installed Wall Street tipster Scott Gottlieb
to a high up office in the Federal Drug Administration (FDA), where,
according to Time, he is aggressively promoting the best interests
of the pharmaceutical industry and not necessarily the public safety.
(See “How Many More Mike Browns Are Out There?” 25 Sept.
2005, for details on Gottlieb and many more examples of Bush cronyism.)
Foxx is silent
on accountability for appointments like this.
In the hurricane
zone on the Gulf Coast, no-bid contracts are being granted at a
blinding speed to a swarm of private contractors who’ve come
to feed on $62.3 billion (so far) appropriated by Congress (some
of which, as we’ve seen, Rep. Foxx voted for, and some, against,
though she’s helpful on all of it, giving private enterprise
directions to the trough). Halliburton, Bechtel, Blackwater Security
… all the favs are down there, and a bunch you’ve never
heard of. The president, in further accommodation to these boys,
obligingly lifted the Davis-Bacon Act, to let them pay non-union
wages.
So … accountability,
yes! We’re all for it.
We just don’t
see any of it in Rep. Foxx’s general vicinity. On those other
occasions recently when she could have said “enough is enough,”
Rep. Foxx:
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voted YES on the $286 billion transportation bill, stuffed with pig-on-the-hoof.
-
voted YES on the $82 billion supplemental defense spending bill (for Iraq and Afghanistan), where Halliburton and the others are also sucking it down by means of, yes, no-bid contracts.
-
voted YES on the $14.5 billion energy bill, a collection of tax breaks, direct subsidies, and other perks for energy producers who are currently enjoying positively embarrassing historic profits.
No visible clamoring
for accountability from Rep. Foxx on those votes, but she decides
to go all rigid and judgmental when Katrina strikes, and thereby
hangs more than one tale of deep moral import.
While many of
us have been unwillingly confronted by a disturbing undercurrent
of poverty in our fair nation – the spectacle in New Orleans
-- which “pricked our conscience,” Rep. Foxx rather applies
“accountability” like a sledge hammer on the heads of
poor people.
Now, Rep. Virginia
Foxx grew up poor. She in fact has made a political point of that.
A Foxx fundraising appeal in 2003 on official N.C. State Senate
stationary was accompanied by a press release describing her as
“raised in an extremely poor Avery County family” (though
she was actually born in The Bronx, New York). How poor was she?
So poor that she “grew up in a dilapidated house and did not
experience the luxuries of interior plumbing or electricity until
almost an adult.” So poor that in order to afford the “bare
necessities,” she served as the high school’s janitor
at the same time that she was a student. “In what little spare
time she had, she helped grow food for her family.”
I relate personally
to those details. Many of us grew up poor in the South, and we like
to think it made us better people. But Foxx’s assertions of
former poverty, as a key to personality or political philosophy,
opens a door rather to a striking hardness of heart toward the poor.
She’s now
quite rich, according to the Winston-Salem Journal, the richest
member of the N.C. delegation in Congress. But the former peasant
does not seem to suffer peasants gladly. She’s been described
often as “dismissive and condescending,” especially to
people who don’t agree with her. She told a student reporter
from ASU’s Appalachian newspaper that he just needed to get
over higher tuition costs: “I haven’t seen the latest
figures on the average income for students at Appalachian, but it’s
rather high. So I’d see no problem with raising tuition a little
bit.” (She does understand, we trust, that “average”
means there are an equal number below that income level, as above
it.) She remarked in a Sept. 2003 state senate debate on medical
malpractice lawsuit reform, “The worst thing we can do is to
get government involved in solving problems.” Most recently,
she was one of 35 members of Congress who signed the letter to President
Bush asking him to suspend the Davis-Bacon Act in the hurricane
zone. Best way to help poor, desperately unemployed people is to
lower their wages! She would know that from experience, right?
As a member
of the Republican Study Committee, Foxx has recently signed on to
“Operation Offset,” a plan to make draconian cuts to federal
programs to pay for the Katrina aid. Guess what gets cut the most?
Yep, programs to help the poor.
Rep. Foxx’s
choices in deciding that pet bridges to nowhere in Alaska and the
continuing Iraqi boondoggle and direct federal subsidies to oil
companies are just fine by her, but giving federal money to poor
people blown away in a storm sticks in her constricted throat.
Rep. Foxx’s
protestations that she cares, she really cares about those poor
people and prays for them on a daily basis does not ring true. It
rings hollow, like a metal gong.
J.W. Williamson
is secretary of the Watauga County Democratic Party. He writes a
daily blog, Watauga
Watch
SOURCES
Foxx’s
votes on numbered legislation can be searched and confirmed by bill
number at http://clerk.house.gov
H.R. 3645,
$10.5 billion Katrina aid
H.R. 3673, $51.8 billion “supplemental” Katrina aid
H.R. 3, transportation bill
H.R. 1268, supplemental defense spending
H.R.
6, Energy Policy Act of 2005
Foxx
press statement (Auth), no accountability, Raleigh News &
Observer, 9 Sept. 2005
Foxx official
website, “FEMA
Contracting Opportunities”
Auth statements,
not enough accountability, Watauga Democrat, 12 Sept. 2005
Bush administration
cronyism, “How
Many More Browns Are Out There?” by Mark Thompson, Karen
Tumulty, and Mike Allen, Time, 25 Sept. 2005,
“pricked our conscience,” Jonathan Weisman, “GOP
Leaders Try to Soothe Conservatives,” Washington Post,
27 Sept. 2005
Foxx fundraising
letter & accompanying press release, dated November 26, 2003,
in the possession of the author.
Foxx
born in The Bronx, Washington Post
Foxx
richest member of N.C. delegation, Winston-Salem Journal, 16
June 2005
Foxx, “dismissive
and condescending,” David Forbes, “Foxx:
Bad choice for students,” The Appalachian, 30 Sept. 2003
Foxx’s
interview with The Appalachian, ibid.
Foxx, “The
worst thing we can do is to get government involved in solving problems,”
Matthew Eisley, “Senate
Forecast: Windy,” Raleigh News & Observer, 18 Sept.
2003
Foxx signature
on
letter to Pres. Bush requesting suspension of Davis-Bacon Act
(including text of letter)
“Operation
Offset”
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