“Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties:(1)Those that fear and distrust people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes.(2)Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depository of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist; and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves.”

In an editorial in today’s LA Times, The U.S. Dept. of Transportation is using an absurd set of rules to deny Richard Branson’s Virgin airline from flying domestic flights in the U.S. although two-thirds of the board of directors are U.S. citizens as are the CEO and the chairman. I’ve been told while travelling in England that Virgin Air & Rail(in the U.K.) are profit neutral. That is, most if not all profits are put back into the operational budget of the company. This is Branson’s little way of resisting Margaret Thatcher’s privitization policies of state owned enterprises. U.S domestic carriers don’t want low cost outside competition. If an airline owned and operated by a Morman(JetBlue) can fly in the U.S., why not Virgin?

Some humor but the more I think about it the more it makes sense…

The orgy of deal making that proceded the House of Representatives vote on NAFTA illustrates just how little the mercenary culture of Washington has changed since the arrival of a democratic administration.
Estimates of the total cost of the deals around NAFTA vary widely. Gary Hufbauer, a trade expert who has written favorably about NAFTA for the Institute of International Economics, told the AP that the last-minute deals cost in the “tens of millions of dollars.” Public Citizen, the consumer organization founded by Ralph Nader, estimates that the deal cost at least $4.4 billion. The Nation magazine which has been critical of NAFTA and “Republicrat” Clinton, says the total cost of the eleventh hour wheeling-and-dealing might ultimately amount to $50 billion.
Hyberbole aside, the quantifiable cost to the taxpayer of the NAFTA deals will be at least $300 million. American consumers will also pay higher prices on a wide variety of goods because of special interest tariff agreements reached during the NAFTA bazaar. Rep. Dick Zimmer(R-N.J.), who voted for NAFTA, is disgusted about the “presidential giveaways,” and he plans to introduce legislation in January to repeal the various NAFTA deals, arguing that “such sordid behavior debases the legislative process.”
But good luck trying to figure out what deals were made. Many of the particulars of what transpired have disappeared like steam into the air. Normally loquacious members of Congress are tongue-tied or unavailable to comment about their NAFTA votes, while White House officials dismiss the subject as sour grapes. But many of the details of numerous deals have been documented and confirmed. They illustrate the financial forces that shaped Congress’s voting and may have tipped the balance in favor of aggreement.

…After the NAFTA vote, Bill Clinton was compared in these pages and elsewhere to LBJ, for his aggressive, unabashed use of political power in dealing with Congress. The comparison implies that pork-barrel politics, while unfortunate and unseemly, is necessary to achieve success, and always has been.
Perhaps. But LBJ, even in his most legendary arm-twisting mode, never led a domestic lobbying campaign as lopsided as Clinton’s NAFTA effort. Forget the testimonials elicted from Nobel laureate economists, the former secretaries of state, the former presidents, Lee Iacocca and Bill Gates. Consider the Clinton persuasion tactics in the larger context of the NAFTA lobbying effort.
Ross Perot, labor unions and other NAFTA opponets spent less than $10 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. Mexican government and business interests, by contrast, retained scores of lobbying, public relations and law firms in Washington at the cost of $30 million. And the leading pro-NAFTA lobbying group, USA*NAFTA, and individual U.S. corporations with factories in Mexico spent another $10 million to promote the pact. Add to these two figures the $300 million in government funds that the Clinton administration committed for the sake of passing NAFTA, and it seems likely that NAFTA proponents outspent their opponents by a margin of more than 30-1….