WP: Cost of Soc.Sec. Drive Cited (Appropriations Comm. Repubs, Waxman)

[DeepModem Mom]

Cost of Social Security Drive Cited
Democrat Waxman Seeks GAO Accounting

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 7, 2005; Page A29


The Bush administration's ongoing Social Security blitz is unusual in scale in the selling of a domestic policy, mobilizing the president and vice president, four Cabinet secretaries and 17 lesser officials, down to an associate director of strategic planning for the White House budget office.

It also may be one of the most costly in memory, well into the millions of dollars, according to some rough, unofficial calculations.

House Appropriations Committee Republicans have quietly asked the administration for an accounting of its "60 Stops in 60 Days" blitz. And yesterday, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Government Reform Committee, formally asked the Government Accountability Office not only for the cost but also "whether the Bush Administration has crossed the line from education to propaganda."

"No one disputes the right of the President to make his policy recommendations known to Congress and the public," Waxman wrote in a letter to U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker. "Yet there is a vital line between legitimately informing the public, as the President did in his State of the Union address, and commandeering the vast resources of the federal government to fund a political campaign for Social Security privatization."

Administration officials do not deny the Social Security campaign constitutes an extraordinary legislative push, certainly the largest since President Bill Clinton rolled out his national health care plan. But, they say, the issue of Social Security's solvency demands no less. Besides, White House and Treasury officials said, the president and his Cabinet travel all the time. For these 60 days, they will simply have a common theme....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32389-2005Apr6.html

[grytpype]

1. Cost? This picture is going to cost Duhbya his presidency:

"See these here pieces of paper? The ones that say "full faith and credit on 'em?" Well, we ain't gonna pay 'em. We just ain't gonna do it."

[truthisfreedom]

10. the Constitution of the United States clearly states:

Am.XIV, Section 4: "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."

sounds to me like questioning the validity of the public debt when bush smirked as he said our future retirement security was only "in a filing cabinet."

[katsy]

2. Isn't that his plan?

Bankrupt the country and all social programs disappear.

Who's going o make a fuss about this? No one.

[rodeodance]

3. i talk to many people and they are tired of listening to SS reform

[katsy]

4. Me too.

But I still believe that if he can't privatize SS with our blessing, he'll bankrupt the country and force the issue.

[UpInArms]

5. also from the article:

The Treasury Department has hired four full-time employees to help run the show, including establishing a new Web site, www.strengtheningsocialsecurity.gov, and a war room, dubbed the Social Security Information Center. Yesterday, Treasury held a first-ever "radio day," opening its ornate Cash Room and 28 administration officials to nearly 30 radio talk-show hosts.

I wonder how much was paid to those talk-show hosts to spread the propaganda?

and holy moley!

In 2000, when jet fuel prices were lower, the GAO estimated that flying Air Force One cost $54,100 per hour, or $60,250 in today's dollars. So far, the president has traveled to Indiana, New Jersey, Kentucky, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, Florida, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa and West Virginia. That is enough, by commercial schedules, to take at least 30 hours, or $1.8 million.

$1.8 million so that they can toss anyone with a dissenting opinion out and get their "special" audiences??

:argh:

[DeepModem Mom]

6. Thanks for adding, UpInArms -- what an outrage! nt

[UpInArms]

7. you're welcome DeepModem Mom

I didn't see your post of this article 'til after I had duped yours - but this one definitely gets under my skin (well, but then, doesn't everything this maladministration does?)

I just hate that they are wasting money hand over fist - they will create a "no tomorrow" scenario just by their profligacy.

[calimary]

15. Truly. I wonder what they're squandering, just on this, might do to

shore up some of the "problems" they whine about Social Security having in the first place?

All this jackass knows how to do is wreck things. Businesses. Countries. Safety nets. Long-running social programs. Our national treasury. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights. America's reputation around the world (did you hear that cardinal from New York - I think - who said an American would not be chosen as Pope mainly because of how the rest of the world feels about America, in general?!?!?!?). I wonder what his room looked like when he was a kid, and how many of his toys survived unbroken? The Train-wreck pResident. And we've got three more years of this asshole?

BTW, it's refreshing to see Henry Waxman back in business. I HATED watching him waste his time and energy on that STOOOOOpid baseball steroid crap. We need him focused on FAR more important things.

[DemBeans]

18. 1.8 million - huh

Isn't it an outrage that OUR tax dollars are going to fund this ridiculous traveling circus that WE are not allowed to attend?

If Clinton had pulled this crap, my god, they'd still be squealing. It's amazing, just amazing, what this oaf is allowed to get away with and there's barely a whimper from the press or the public.

[UpInArms]

19. well, the "press" have become "press-titutes" and the public

is fed Chandra Levy-Samantha Smart-Lacy Peterson-Michael Jackson-Kobi Bryant-Scott Peterson-Steroids in Baseball-Terri Schiavo-Pope-A-Rama as snews.

There appears to be a common thread there.

hmmmm

infotainment

The Fairness Doctrine was killed by RayGun in 1986 (with the help of Robert Bork)

Until the people of this country actually feel personal pain and loss and then take that to the streets, we will remain the minority (those who know the facts).

[harlinchi]

8. Solvency? SOLVENCY?

But, they say, the issue of Social Security's solvency demands no less.


Which administration official said this? I'm wonderin' 'cause the president's outline (I cannot bring myself to call it a plan) does nothing to address the solvency issue, other than to exacerbate it.

Why is this administration spending money to promote an no-details outline? In my view, any so-called journalist who refers to the president's Social Security "plan" has declared their intent to deceive the American people.

[FreeStateDemocrat]

9. AP/ Bush plan may end Social Security checks Report::

Higher-wage earners would no longer qualify
The Associated Press
Updated: 1:36 a.m. ET April 7, 2005
WASHINGTON - Future high-wage earners could see their traditional Social Security checks replaced by the proceeds of the personal investment accounts proposed by President Bush, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service, the nonpartisan research agency used by Congress.
The traditional checks would disappear as the result of two factors: the cut in benefits the president has proposed for all people who open private accounts, and a change that would diminish checks by linking their growth to prices instead of wages, an option the president has said he would consider.
Both trends would have the effect of eliminating the Social Security check for a hypothetical group: someone born next year who goes on to a career as what Social Security considers a “scaled high earner,” which this year is a person with annual average earnings of $56,091.
(contd)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7409401/

[Vincardog]

11. Linking increases to inflation might not be all bad.

Wages are falling and when the dollar crashes hyperinflation will set in. Thanks george

[satya]

12. He's spending millions of OUR tax $$ to tell us he's cooked the books...

"borrowed" OUR money, which President Gore would NOT have spent on other programs (the much-maligned "lockbox")...

telling the world OUR t-bills are worthless and he has no intention of repaying OUR money...

and the fiscal conservatives aren't screaming for his head?

Gimme a freakin' break...

[Rose Siding]

16. And to hold "public" meetings from which we are banned

:grr:

[satya]

13. Wanna do something?Cut SS w/h on earnings up to $90K, raise ceiling to $1M

(million) or whatever it takes to make the program solvent.

That's my plan, it has more details than his AND it'll work. If anybody wants to give me millions of $$ to go sell it, I'll do it. And I don't have to fly AirForce I at $30K per hour.

I think the REAL reason he's in this travelling dog and pony show is because the neocons are planning 9-ll, the Sequel, and they've gotta keep him out of the way.

[rocktivity]

14. You mean like this, Satya?

http://www.syntheticniche.com/ss/

:headbang:
rocknation

[UpInArms]

17. related: Tough sell from Cash Room

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0504070236apr07,1,4673703.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

(I think this is a free registration site or try www.bugmenot.com)

WASHINGTON -- Live, from the historic Cash Room of the magnolia-framed Treasury Building in Washington, it's "Mickelson in the Morning," booming throughout Iowa and beyond on the 50,000-watt clear-channel voice of WHO.

That garrulous Des Moines radio host, Jan Mickelson, is here with Treasury Secretary John Snow, who is pitching President Bush's plan for overhauling Social Security. They also have a cast of such West Wing characters as Karl Rove, the president's political chief, for a 12-hour media fest featuring 30 radio talk-show hosts from around the nation to help tout Bush's agenda.

It's a tough sell. Just ask Mickelson, who happens to support the president's plan for personal retirement accounts but has read those opinion polls showing people aren't buying Bush's campaign.

<snip>

The Bush administration has assembled local broadcasters on the red Lisbon and Italian Carrara marble floor of this Cash Room that actually served as a bank for "the transaction of the government's financial business" when it opened in 1869. On Wednesday, it was an electronic trading floor for a concerted White House media campaign to convince Americans of the merits of Bush's program for Social Security.

"Remember," said Rove, roaming from radio table to table with a 28-man-and-woman team of high-level White House aides, Cabinet members and other administration figures, "our purpose in this, at least in the first phase, is to heighten the sense that this is a problem and heighten the belief on the part of the American people that the Congress ought to deal with it."

...more...

What is Rove doing instruction radio personalities what their mission is?