The business section of the New York Times today carries an article that runs under the headline, "Bush Is Putting Team in Place for a Full-Bore Assault on Regulation." The article reports that the Bush approach is "one that experts predict will tip the balance of power from consumer, environmental and labor groups to businesses and will lead to a wholesale elimination of scores of rules that have prevented American companies from both growing and having more flexibility in making business decisions." Later on, the article gives up the cover of "experts" and reports in the Times's own voice that "the deregulatory renaissance is largely a reflection of the pro-business agenda that President Bush campaigned on."
This emphasis by the Times on the effect of deregulation on "businesses" is misleading. The customers, shareholders and employees in businesses, after all, are citizens, voters and consumers.
At least two of the bogeymen the Times invokes in its deregulation article are not as scary as the Times makes them out to be. One, Mary Sheila Gall, was re-appointed as a member of the Consumer Product Safety commission by President Clinton, as National Review Online reported on April 27, 2001. The Times wasn't all in a froth when Mr. Clinton appointed her. Another, John D. Graham, is described by the Times as "a Harvard professor whose research on risks has been sponsored by corporations with stakes in the outcome of regulatory debates." As Smartertimes.com noted on March 25, "The Times doesn't bother to actually scrutinize the professor's study . . .to find out if the methodology was somehow flawed or the results were wrong. The newspaper reports no evidence that the funding was conditional on the study's outcome, or that the study's outcome was conditional on the source of the funding. Instead the Times simply casts aspersions. It's as if someone at the Columbia Journalism Review decided to write an assessment of the environmental reporting of the New York Times, but, rather than arguing that there were mistakes in any of the news articles, simply pointed out derisively that the Times gets advertising from big polluters." And as Smartertimes.com also noted on March 25, "It's hard to see what perfectly pure method the Times would propose the professor use to fund his research. Perhaps it could be funded solely by contributions from Maryknoll Sisters, with the size of the contributions limited to $10 each and the identities of the individual donors immediately disclosed over the Internet."
Slow Times: The off-lead story on the front page of this morning's New York Times runs under the headline, "3 Bush Cabinet Members Drop Meetings With G.O.P. Donors." The Washington Post reported on May 17 that Tommy Thompson and Spencer Abraham were "unlikely" to attend the briefings for donors. The Washington Post reported on May 22 that among Cabinet members only Evans would speak to the Republican donors. Now the Times decides it's the No. 2 story in the nation?
Homework and Equity: The "Lessons" column on the education page of today's New York Times is a classic example of the lengths the Times will go to in putting equality over liberty or excellence. "Homework may increase the gap between students from middle class and low-income homes," the column says. "With growing inequality now a greater danger than middle-class pupils' inadequate achievement, policies that widen learning differences should be avoided." The article suggests creating after-school homework help centers for the poor, and says, "it is unconscionable for educators to exacerbate inequality by assigning homework without first ensuring such programs are in place."
After-school homework help centers for the poor may well be a fine idea, but the idea of holding all teachers and students hostage to the implementation of such a program seems extreme. Why should poor students who want to do homework and learn to read and write be prevented from doing so by some Times columnist whose concern about "growing inequality" apparently outweighs his concern about growing illiteracy? Talk about "unconscionable."