From industry bailouts to sweetheart deals and wildly skewed tax breaks, big business is taking advantage of calls to patriotism, critics complain.

This new round of "corporate welfare" has an alliance of citizens groups organizing protests through cards, letters and emails and the power of their vote.

"Under the guise of �national security� our federal treasury is being raided and our democratic rights are being taken away while Congress feeds sympathetic campaign contributors at taxpayer expense, sends working people to fight and leaves the unemployed, the disenfranchised and American families to suffer," said Ralph Nader, consumer advocate and founder of Citizen Works.

The Citizen Coalition, a group of anti-corporate organizations, charge the Bush administration�s activity fits a Wall Street Journal editorial page blueprint for taking advantage of the post Sept. 11 environment. 

The Journal said, "Now is the time to push for next generation weaponry, big defense budgets, tax cuts, judicial nominees, drilling in Alaska and more."

From the "Economic Stimulus" Plan that finances corporate treasuries to pharmaceutical price gouging to bailouts for billionaire industry, the rich are getting richer and the poor are �well, still the poor, critics complain.

Pharmaceutical industry price gouging?

When the scare of anthrax hit, the antibiotic Cipro became the drug of choice for treatment. Faced with rising protests about its expense�a 60-day supply costs around $700�the government negotiated a price reduction Oct. 24 with Bayer Corporation, instead of authorizing generic competitors to manufacture the drug.

According to Health Secretary Tommy Thompson, "The beneficial price also means that we can have more funds available to assist state and local health responders to be ready for all eventualities."

Under the agreement valued at $95 million, HHS will pay 95 cents per tablet for a total initial order of 100 million tablets. This compares with a previously discounted price of $1.77 per tablet paid by the federal government.

According to a Lehman Brothers financial analyst, the "beneficial price" as Sec. Thompson calls it, just reduces Bayer�s profit margin on the drug from 95 percent to 65 percent.

Overseas, a 60-day supply of generic Cipro costs only about $20, added Rep. Marion Berry (D-Ark.), the only pharmacist in Congress.

The pharmaceutical industry, which stands by Bayer�s monopoly, spent $197 million on campaign contributions and lobbying in 1999-2000, more than any other industry.

It has more registered lobbyists�625�than there are members of Congress. Two top members of the administration are former pharmaceutical executives. President George W. Bush is the industry�s second favorite politician, receiving $472,333 from pharmaceuticals for his presidential campaign, activists say.

These lobbyists have pushed Congress to quietly pass legislation that will give a six-month monopoly patent extension to Cipro and more than 100 other drugs, according to a new Public Citizen study.

"The drug industry has put on a cynical PR front about its patriotic efforts to fight bioterrorism," said Frank Clemente, director of Public Citizen�s Congress Watch. "Meanwhile, it has refused to sacrifice a penny�not even for children�s health�in its uncontrolled drive for monopoly patent extensions and sky-high profits."

"The pharmaceutical industry stands always at the ready to turn tragedy to opportunity, and to ensure public health imperatives do not interfere with the industry�s narrow commercial interests. Unfortunately, the Bush administration is too willing to assist the industry�s designs," commented Robert Weissman, co-director of Essential Action on Corporate Profiteering and Wartime Opportunism.

On Sept. 14, Congress approved $15 billion in airline assistance, as well as provisions to limit airlines� liability for the terrorist attacks.

"In the aftermath of Sept. 11, more than 130,000 airline and civilian aircraft aviation workers have been laid off and nearly one million people employed by the hotel industry have been either laid off or are working only one or two days per week," said Theresa Amato, president of Citizen Works. "Congress gave the airlines companies a cash and loan guarantees bailout of $15 billion. Congress gave laid off aviation workers and hotel industry workers nothing."

Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.), the only senator to vote against the bailout, opposed the airline package because it paid more than losses suffered as a result of the Department of Transportation�s flight stoppage Sept. 11.

Speaking to a group of travel industry executives and labor leaders seeking aid for the hundreds of thousands of workers, Sen. Fitzgerald complained, "The payouts to the airline industry were grossly excessive. The only people who got bailed out were the shareholders. The one million airline employees were left twisting in the wind."

Working with Senator Jon Corzine (D-N.J.), he added a provision to the airline bailout bill to protect U.S. taxpayers, who would otherwise be asked to shoulder the full burden of bailing out the troubled airline industry.

The Fitzgerald-Corzine provision would ensure that taxpayers share in any airline profits or financial gains generated by federal assistance to the industry. In exchange for federally guaranteed loans to financially troubled airlines, the taxpayers�represented by the U.S. Treasury�would be entitled, under the Fitzgerald-Corzine plan, to negotiate an equity stake in the airlines.

"If the federal government is going to guarantee $10 billion in loans to the industry, the taxpayers deserve something in return," Sen. Fitzgerald said.

President Bush wants to build a missile defense system and withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty with Russia.  On Oct. 24, the House Appropriations Committee approved missile defense spending up to $7.9 billion.

According to retired Rear Admiral Eugene J. Carroll Jr., Americans should care deeply about the decision to deploy a national missile defense system. "By such an action we will signal to the world that we are willing to pursue illusory defenses against non-existent threats even though we subject all nations to continued nuclear competition and increased risks of a future nuclear war," he warns.

The Bush administration also made an appeal to the Senate on Oct. 26 to approve his proposal to boost domestic energy supply and production, including a plan to allow drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge.

The average American is so focused on handling their mail carefully so as not to get anthrax, wondering whether or not to fly for the holidays and whether or not their son or daughter is going off to war, that most of these things go right by them without notice, activists said.

According to journalist Bill Moyers, corporate marauders are "counting on your patriotism to distract you from their plunder. They�re counting on you to be standing at attention with your hand over your heart, pledging allegiance to the flag, while they pick your pocket."

Economic Stimulus Plan

Bush administration officials said the government expects to spend more than $1 billion a month on the war in Afghanistan, even as the administration pumps billions more into the economy to stimulate the economy. Mr. Bush�s economic stimulus package plans to repeal the corporate alternative minimum tax, accelerate tax cuts scheduled for 2004 and 2006, enhance write-offs for business investment and rebate checks targeting lower income workers.

"The Alternative Minimum Tax law requires hugely profitable corporations to pay at least some federal income tax each year, no matter how many loopholes they can exploit. If this law is repealed, some multinational companies will be able to pay little or nothing in U.S. income taxes forever," said Rev. Jesse Jackson.

"The companies will also receive full refunds of all the Alternative Minimum Tax they�ve paid for the last 15 years. These corporations will receive rebate checks under the stimulus plan approved by the House."

Rev.Jackson detailed the amounts corporations would receive, "IBM $1.4 billion, Ford $1.0 billion, GM $833 million, GE $671 million, Texas Utilities $608 million, Chevron $572 million, Enron $254 million and American Airlines $184 million. This is robbing the poor to pay the rich."

The Senate Finance Committee passed a $66.4 billion Democratic economic stimulus package on Nov. 8. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) has defended the plan, saying it included unemployment provisions and subsidies for laid-off workers� health insurance. The plan gives low-income workers, who did not benefit from the previous income tax rebates, cash payments of $300 for individuals, $500 for single heads of households and $600 per couple.

The Democratic plan faces a Republican Senate, which wants a plan that provides greater business tax cuts and helps laid-off workers indirectly by giving federal grants to states. The states could use the money to expand unemployment benefits and help with health insurance costs.

Activists want Congress to help more people with unemployment insurance, implement a foreclosure/eviction prevention plan to prevent families hurt by the bad economy from being forced out of their homes and $5 billion in immediate funds for the HOME Investment Program to build affordable housing.

They also want the Bush administration to stop holding up $300 million in emergency funds Congress appropriated for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. Medicaid should be expanded to provide coverage for unemployed workers and the minimum wage raised from $5.15 to $6.65, activists argue.

"None of these proposals line up with what major corporations are instructing the Republicans to produce. It�s hard to fathom which is worse, the greed of a company that would ask for corporate welfare at a time like this and at the expense of proposals like the ones we�ve suggested or the cowardice, dishonesty and opportunism of a government that would play along," said Mildred Brown, of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

Photo: Nearly 70 protesters in front of Boeing Corp. World headquarters at 100 N. Riverside Plaza who opposes the war and inordinate corporate power.