After months of filibustering and bickering the James Zadroga Act has passed through the Senate.  The bill which, when signed into law by President Obama, will provide 9/11 first responders with much needed compensation for heroically risking their lives, and in some cases giving their lives, in service of those in need. The original $7.4bn package that would have lasted ten years had to be scaled down to a $4.3bn package lasting only five years.  This was on top of the extension of the Bush era tax cuts that the Senate Republicans prised from the Democrats in return for support on this and the passing of the latest START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty).

The extension of the Bush era tax cuts will give all Americans, including the top 2% of earners, a freeze on all tax increases for the next two years.  This was the price the Republicans asked for the passing of the James Zadroga Act before the end of the lame duck Congress.  The tax cuts are said to cost the taxpayer a total of $858bn in the next two years when the federal budget deficit is already at $1.3 trillion (2009-2010).  This means that the deficit will balloon to over $2 trillion in the next two years.  The sheer cost of these tax cuts come at a time when other countries are cutting their expenditure by about 20%.  The Republican Party has had a tantrum about the levels of expenditure in the USA since Obama came to office in 2008, yet the Republicans still want tax cuts that will burden tax payers further in the years to come.  Lest Republicans forget, their beloved President Bush was the main reason the federal budget went from a surplus under Clinton to a $1.42 trillion deficit in 2008/9 under Bush.

This is the price America’s first responders have had to pay in order that they might get some proper compensation for their heroic work on that day and the days that followed.  The $7.4bn package that the bill framers had in mind was not going to add to the federal deficit though.  The bill was to be paid in full by closing a loophole that currently benefits big businesses.  However, the Republicans got it reduced to $4.3bn because they believed that there were a few irregularities in the bill.  As I have argued in a previous article (Americans Outraged at Failure of 9/11 First Responders Bill) I believe it is shameful that any political party could posture to score some points against the other on such an issue as this.  Jon Stewart revisited the Act on Friday the 17^th by getting several firemen who served on 9/11 to come on to the show and respond to the failure, then, of the James Zadroga Bill – at the time the bill had failed by three votes to get the required 60 vote supermajority – and how dismayed they were that they might die and leave their families saddled with medical bills.  The firemen all have some form of cancer or respiratory disease and are likely to pass away in the next two to three years.  Luckily the bill passed, but in its current watered down form it is likely that many families will go on to suffer further in the years to come.

Surprisingly though this bill has had little media attention since it failed in the House a few months ago.  It was revived in the House after the recess and passed with well over the required two thirds majority, but it entered the Senate after the November election which has had many a Republican Senator threatening to repeal most Acts passed since 2008 and block any bills going through the Senate at the time.  This childishness received no attention from the main news networks and only a brief mention on Fox News.  Somehow the Beatles getting on iTunes is more important than a bill to compensate 9/11 first responders.  This I think sums up the gobsmacking ignorance and political manoeuvring that has led ordinary Americans to suffer and will continue to do so until the partisanship ends and bipartisanship rules in Congress. John Boehner praised the tax extensions as being a “strong bipartisan vote”, but then went on to pledge to destroy “the job-killing health-care law”. What a wonderful sign of bipartisanship yet again threatening to harm others.  I like to compare this squabbling to that of toddlers that lose their toys, except this squabbling and inaction can actually harm others.  At least some form of the James Zadroga Act passed, even a watered down version, because from January I doubt anything even slightly progressive or fair will pass.

By Harry J. Angers