Ron Suskind’s recently wrote a book regarding former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill’s service in the Bush administration. O’Neill was troubled about the prospect of another round of upcoming tax cuts and visited Vice President Dick Cheney to express his concerns. But the Vice President cut him off by saying, “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter. We won the midterms. This is our due.” Those last four words speak volumes!

A few months later, Cheney was to cast the tie-breaking vote on the next round of tax cuts. According to analysis by Newsday.com, Cheney’s taxes would be reduced by $257,774 for the next two years. The image that appears in my mind is one in which the Vice President is seated at a poker table in which he has just won a big hand. With both hands and a big smile on his face, he rakes in the pot, while saying, “This Is My Due.”

But when Cheney used the phrase, “This is our due,” he used it in the plural sense. This must include, first of all, his buddies in the energy field. You know, the ones he refuses to name who helped him formulate our proposed energy policy. There are also the large corporations, lobbyists, big campaign contributors and of course the rich who benefited most from the tax cuts.

When President Bush questioned the additional tax cuts for the rich by saying, “Haven’t we already given money to rich people… Shouldn’t we be giving to the middle,” Karl Rove reminded him to “stick to the principle.”

I wonder if a similar discussion took place at the Enron Corporation. When someone questioned the continuing deceptive accounting practices, someone else probably quickly reminded that we must do whatever is necessary keep the price of the stock high. Never mind the disaster looming in the future, take what we can now, “This is our due.”

Corporate greed and self-centered politics seem to have a lot in common.

I remember back in the days when Lyndon Johnson was President. He was the consummate politician. He knew better than anyone else how the game was played, but somehow beneath it all there was the concept of the “greater good.” I can almost hear him say to those who benefited from the passage of the Civil Rights Act and to those whom he tried to lift out of poverty, “This is your due.”

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