The Hightower Report

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GROVER'S GOOD BUDDY JACK

Am I the only one who's noticed that there's not much loyalty among thieves these days?

Take the odd case of Jack Abramoff and Grover Norquist. Abramoff is the slick, $750-an-hour lobbyist and well-connected Republican operative who now finds himself butt-deep in several stinky ethics cases. He's long been in the top circle of Republican power elites, working closely over the years with the Bush White House, Tom DeLay, Newt Gingrich ... and with his old college buddy Grover Norquist.

Grover is not exactly a household name, unless your house is the White House. He's also a GOP insider and strategist who has plotted the passage of much of Bush's agenda to fatten the rich and starve the rest of us. Grover and Jack have worked like a tandem team of cat burglars since 1980 to pull off the Republican/corporate takeover of Washington.

But now that there's a stench emanating from Jack – golly, Grover says he hardly knows the guy. "I knew him when we were in college," says Grover, "but there's no business or financial relationship."

Uh-huh. So, why has Abramoff billed some of his lobbying clients for thousands of dollars for "discussions" he had with Norquist on their issues, and why has the lobbyist paid for the foreign travel of staff members of Norquist's organization? Also, why did Jack instruct one of his biggest clients to give $1.5 million to Grover's organization, and to give $250,000 to another corporate front-group created by Norquist?

If these transactions smell like a "business or financial relationship" to you, you're not alone. The justice department is investigating the relationship, and a Senate committee has now subpoenaed Norquist's records. The stench of insider corruption is spreading.

Come on, Grover, at least have the integrity to hug your buddy! This case shows why Harry Truman said, "You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog."

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SAVING THE DAY FOR CORPORATE POWER

Thank God we have Republicans in charge of several state governments, as well as our national government, because we can always count on them to take care of our country's big problems, such as making sure that the wages of America's workaday majority stay low.

Of course, George W. and the congressional GOP have done their part on this score, rejecting an effort earlier this year to hike the national minimum wage, which has been stuck since 1997 at a paltry $5.15 an hour. That's $10,500 a year gross for full-time work – a poverty wage that mocks moral decency.

But I was particularly impressed by the extraordinary move recently made by Republican leaders in Georgia to enforce this low-wage ethic on their state's people. Gov. Sonny Perdue has now signed HB 59, barring any city in the Peach State from requiring that corporations that get city contracts have to pay higher wages than the poverty pay set by the federal government.

How peachy of him! This means that the state's so-called conservative leaders have come out flat-footed against local control, forcing Georgia's duly-elected local officials to comply with a federal, low-wage standard.

Of course, the governor and his gang are corporatists, not conservatives. They were acting at the behest of contractors that were apoplectic that the city of Atlanta has been considering a living-wage ordinance that would set a $10.15-an-hour wage floor to be paid by corporations that profit from government contracts. That's hardly lavish pay – about $21,000 a year – but it would allow working families a middle-class possibility, and would restore some integrity to the promise of America's work ethic.

Luckily for the corporate powers, they've got stalwarts like Sonny Perdue ready and willing to abandon any pretense of conservatism, usurp local authority, stiff his state's working families, and save corporations from having to mess with matters of basic economic fairness.