From: nyt%nyxfer%igc.apc.org@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu (NY Transfer News)
Subject: Clinton's First Pick Has Deep Pockets
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: The NY Transfer News Service
Resent-From: "Rich Winkel" <MATHRICH@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 08:06:59 GMT

Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit


CLINTON'S FIRST BIG PICK HAS DEEP POCKETS

By Andy Stapp

For weeks now, President-elect Bill Clinton and his transition
team have bragged about "the most uncompromising ethics rules
ever seen in Washington." So naturally, the first big appointment
to the Clinton Cabinet has to be someone famous for a degree of
political depravity that would have astonished even President
Warren G. "Teapot Dome" Harding.

This is not to say the selection of Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen as
secretary of the treasury has no redeeming merit. Over the
decades he has won the universal admiration and acclaim of his
colleagues from both parties on Capitol Hill. They fondly refer
to him as "loophole Lloyd," a tribute to the many tax breaks he's
bestowed upon large corporations, especially real estate, oil and
gas interests.

Senators still speak in awe about how, after taking over that
body's Finance Committee in 1987, Bentsen invented something he
called the Chairman's Council, a work of true genius. The
Chairman's Council had only one purpose. It offered breakfast
get-togethers to lobbyists who contributed $10,000 for Lloyd
Bentsen's re-election campaign. Ten thousand dollars per
breakfast session, that is.

Why hadn't some Finance Committee boss thought of this before?
Perhaps they feared scandal and censure, even prison.
Nonetheless, "Eggs McBentsen" soon became a celebrated Washington
institution, particularly for the top agents of the lords of
petroleum.

When the Chairman's Council was summoned to assemble, the skies
over the District of Columbia would darken with Lear jets flying
in from Dallas and Houston. One enterprising journalist counted
more than 90 lined up wingtip to wingtip at a private airfield in
northern Virginia on a morning Bentsen's breakfast club was
meeting.

Yes, Lloyd Bentsen was always there for the folks with generous
cash donations for him in briefcases or even plain old brown
paper bags. Born a multi-millionaire, he grasped all their
desires and dreads. Did Lockheed need an advocate to get funding
for the B-1 bomber? Who better than Lloyd? After all, he himself
once sat on the Lockheed board of directors.

Bentsen has also forged a record of unflinching patriotism
stretching all the way back to the Korean war. He gamely pressed
President Harry Truman to lay waste the Reds' cities with atom
bombs.

HOPE MEETS WALL STREET

When Bill Clinton, "the man from a place called Hope," named
Bentsen for the Treasury post, he cited the senator's ability "to
command the respect of Wall Street." Oh, Wall Street respects
Lloyd, alright.

The Stock Exchange and banking community know full well what he
has had to suffer for them as a politician in the public eye.
They remember how as vice presidential candidate in 1988, he was
compelled to resign from two Houston country clubs--River Oaks
and Ramada--which are restricted to white Christians.

But they also recognize Lloyd is a comeback kind of guy. He
rejoined those clubs in 1989 and this time has vowed to keep his
memberships.

In any case, Bentsen has performed other deeds to authenticate
his racist credentials within the old-boy network--from fighting
against civil rights legislation in the late 1940s, all the way
to his recent meeting with the South Africa-backed terrorist
Jonas Savimbi.

Clinton's selection for treasury secretary has been condemned in
some quarters for lavishing government favors on the few who have
everything, while voting against extending Social Security
benefits for those in real need and against Medicaid assistance
to help impoverished women terminate unwanted pregnancies.

The senator's defenders, however, point to a growing sensitivity
on his part. On Dec. 11, the New York Times noted: "Mr. Bentsen
has been known occasionally to exit from parties by hoisting his
wife over his shoulder and carrying her out. But last year he
broke one of her ribs doing that and has said he has given up the
practice."

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if
source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 W. 21
St., New York, NY 10010; email: ww%nyxfer@igc.apc.org; "workers"
on PeaceNet; on Internet: "workers@mcimail.com".)


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