Warren County Report

On the bright side, Webb noted that two of his six children had attended Northern Virginia Community Colleges and that two of his four Senate interns were also products of the community college system. He cited LFCC students, including 22-year Coast Guard veteran Michael Waugh, and encouraged citizens of all ages to utilize the opportunities toward higher education provided by community colleges.

However, Webb was less than bright when he began addressing an economically crippling and rising $9 trillion national debt accumulated from a surplus inherited by the Bush Administration seven years ago. Webb questioned Republican economic strategies that have increasingly burdened America’s working middle and lower classes while allowing the corporate rich to continue accumulating unprecedented wealth.

Navigating through questions from his audience, Webb addressed a variety of related issues, including drug prescription pricing and health care, million-dollar CEO bonuses issued in the wake of corporate bankruptcies that have gutted employee retirement plans, global warming, and the proposed TrAIL power line through northwestern Virginia to accommodate projected future energy needs along the east coast.

Crisis of government

Now entering his second year in office, the Democrat whose 2006 victory over incumbent George Allen swung control of the U.S. Senate to the Democrats for the first time since 1994, said a historically unprecedented Republican strategy of filibustering Democratic initiatives in the past year, particularly on foreign policy, had created the greatest crisis of leadership in the nation since the Great Depression lead into World War II.

“We’ve got a similar combination of events happening right now, with an economic crisis staring us in the face which are the results of some very bad decisions in terms of our trade policies, our [economic] vulnerabilities to other countries because of the balance of trade, our currency and those sorts of things. And we’ve got foreign policy considerations that go well beyond Iraq.”

Webb said Middle Eastern stability and the health of the U.S. economy are directly related and achievable – BUT only by an Executive Branch willing to say “YES” to good faith negotiations with all involved parties.

“We need an environment in the Middle East where we can get our military occupation finished at the same time stabilizing the region that’s affecting everything that we do. The cost of oil before we went into Iraq was $24 a barrel – it just went over $100 a barrel – and those two issues are connected. So, we need to stabilize our trade policy and we need to reduce the incredible money drain that accompanied the occupation of Iraq. And then we can start thinking about stability.”

Webb said Republicans, now in a Congressional minority for the first time since the early 1990s, reacted to that situation by saddling the Senate with 62 filibusters last year alone. As a historical reference, Webb noted that number was one more than the previous two-year high of Senate filibusters.

“After 2006 Republicans made a decision that they were not going to allow any major political successes, particularly in the area of foreign policy, because it might make them vulnerable in the ’08 elections. So, every single issue that had any substance to it that came in front of the United States Senate last year was filibustered.”

Webb reminded his audience that filibustering is literally talking an issue to death to prevent an anticipated losing vote on the Congressional floor. Webb cited an amendment he introduced to assure the fair treatment of America’s new war veterans as an example of “how petty and divisive” Congressional partisanship has become.

“I introduced an amendment, which had no politics in it at all that basically said, look, no matter what you think about this war, no matter where your politics are … let’s come to an agreement here – as we debate this war let’s make sure that everybody who goes to Iraq or Afghanistan has as much time at home as they have in the field – one to one, not two to one, which is where we should be … We got 56 votes and if that hadn’t been filibustered that would be policy right now.”

Harkening back to his own and his son’s military service, as well as his time as Secretary of the Navy, Webb also belabored the Bush Administration for creating a new era of war veterans and then abandoning them following their military service. Webb said he viewed the lack of post-service readjustment and educational support for veterans as an Administration strategy to maintain service numbers during a non-military draft era.

Crisis of wealth

“When I was running for the Senate I said over and over again that there were three major themes that needed to be addressed in this country:

“The first was where our foreign policy is and how we need to reorient our foreign policy, our national strategy well beyond the issues of Iraq.

“The second was basic economic fairness and social justice – this country has been breaking apart along class lines as a result of globalization, trade status and what’s happened with respect to compensation. I mentioned when I gave a response to the President’s State of The Union Address a little over a year ago, that when I finished college the average corporate CEO made 20 times what the average worker made. Today the average corporate CEO makes 400 times what the average worker makes – that’s not fair, [and] that’s not the country I want to live in.

“And then the third thing we ran on was accountability. That means accountability of the Presidency and the Congress and the accountability of all of us to the people that cast their votes. Those issues are confronting us even more strongly this year and in the fiscal year coming up,” Webb stated. “I say all that because on the one hand all of us can see that the future of the country is in jeopardy, and on the other hand we’ve gone through a legislative cycle last year that basically ended up with a paralyzed government.”

Webb asked his audience to view the economic and foreign policy issues he addressed outside the prism of political partisanship because ultimately both Parties’ middle and lower class constituencies will be asked to foot the bill for the past seven years economic policies. Webb pointed to the administration of President Andrew Jackson for an example of re-established economic priorities.
 “Whatever flaws you want to put on Andrew Jackson, he shook up the entire American political process because he said we’re … going to measure the health of society not by how people are doing at the top but what is the average worker making … And the only other thing I would say is think twice when you start hearing all these emotional arguments that are going to draw you away from where the future is for those people.”

Crisis of history

Webb cited the non-partisan example of men like former Secretary of the Army Jack Marsh, who accompanied him to LFCC and whose service included terms under Presidents Reagan and Ford, and of Virginia’s senior Republican Senator John Warner.

“Jack Marsh had no trouble walking across the aisle to the Republicans, he had no trouble working for Republican Administrations because the importance of the country is higher than the way we may break down political Parties. Another good example is John Warner, the senator who will soon retire. Senator Warner and I – from different Parties – have developed a relationship from day one on those issues of national security, issues that affect Virginia, we sit down and work together … We need a lot less posturing in the United States government and more people who will step forward and lead. And as you can affect that process I would urge you to do so,” Webb told his audience.

And his audience, both on LFCC’s Middletown campus and beyond, would be well served to heed that urging. For it is they, the “we the people” cited by the Founding Fathers in the U.S. Constitution, who are ultimately responsible to see that the American Dream of inclusive representative government survives its generational assault by those privileged by extreme wealth to believe they, like the ruling class of Orwell’s Animal Farm, are “more equal” than us other animals down here on the American Farm.

(Economic postscript: On Jan. 21, Reuters London reported, “World stocks nose-dived and demand for safe-haven bonds and currencies soared on Monday as fears gripped investors that a deteriorating U.S. economy would drag others down with it.”

On Tuesday Wall Street’s DOW Jones plummeted 465 points before rebounding to regain 350 of those lost points following an unplanned Federal Reserve cut in interest rates. The Fed cut, the largest in a quarter century, was unusual coming between meetings and just a week before it was scheduled to meet. But the move was said to have created “little, if any, optimism on Wall Street” over what is now being called “the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression”)