The personal blog of David Sirota
FYI - I have a new regular column for In These Times magazine. This edition is one called "Being Dick Cheney." It analayzes some recent statements from our Vice President which display just how divorced from reality he has become.
See the column here and let me know what you think by commenting on the blog or emailing me.
FYI - I just figured out how to add an RSS/Atom feed to my site. For those of you who use RSS/Atom readers, you can find it at http://www.davidsirota.com/atom.xml
Bush today is doing a photo-op at a children's hospital, even though he tried to cut funding for children's hospitals...then he is immediately going to a $2000-a-plate fundraiser at a health insurance executive's house:
CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL PHOTO-OP DESPITE CUTTING CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL FUNDING: Bush's budget this year proposes to freeze funding for grants to children's hospitals. He also proposes a $94 million cut to the Community Access Program, which makes grants to children's hospitals, and proposes a $158 million cut to training grants for specialties like pediatrics. Last year, Bush proposed to cut $86 million out of grants to children's hospitals. And in 2002, he proposed to cut $35 million out of grants for children's hospitals to train pediatricians.
THEN ATTENDING FUNDRAISER AT INSURANCE EXECUTIVE'S HOUSE: The President is expected to attend a fundraiser at the house of Clay Jackson. Jackson is a major Bush/Republican contributor, and an executive at BB&T, a company which provides, among other things, health insurance services. Bush's Medicare bill provides private insurance companies a new $130 billion subsidy.
This is classic Bush - use a populist message to hide a policy designed to enrich the wealthy fat cats he's spent his whole life surrounded by. In this instance, he sounds like he's talking about cutting health care costs for average workers, but he's really talking about cutting health care costs for Big Business, as they reduce worker benefits, and raise their premiums/deductibles.
CLAIM:
"We've passed what's called Health Savings Accounts...It's a good way to help control costs."
– President Bush, 5/25/04
FACT:
"Sharply higher health insurance deductibles may hit workers in the next two years as employers embrace newly created tax-free Health Savings Accounts...widespread adoption of the plans could drive up the annual deductible paid by workers.”
– USA Today, 4/25/04
The Denver Post this Sunday ran a great expose on the scores of lobbyists and industry spokespeople President Bush has appointed to now oversee the industries they once worked for.
Though the story was stellar, the Post forgot to mention the fact that President Bush himself was an executive in the oil industry his Energy Bill would reward, and that he was an original investor in a drug card company that his Medicare bill now rewards. It also forgot to note that Vice Preisdent Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, the company bilking U.S. taxpayers on no-bid contracts in Iraq. Here are a few others troubling ones the Post did not touch on:
BEEF LOBBYISTS OVERSEE MAD COW POLICY AT USDA:
Why is the Bush Administration doing everything it can to fight American ranchers who want every cow tested for Mad Cow? Knight-Ridder reported "the Bush Administration's Department of Agriculture is staffed with former executives of the meat industry, now in charge of regulating their former employers." USDA "Chief of staff Dale Moore, senior adviser Elizabeth Johnson, and Chuck Lambert, deputy undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs, all came from the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. Deputy Undersecretary James Butler joined USDA after serving as partner in Butler & Son Charolais Ranch, a Texas cattle company, while Deputy Secretary James Moseley was managing partner of Infinity Pork L.L.C., an Indiana hog farm. Donna Reifschneider, the agency's administrator of inspection is the former president of the National Pork Producers Council." Former Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman "said regulators with industry backgrounds are unlikely to fight for much-needed enhancements to the USDA enforcement powers" – and more susceptible to lax oversight. For instance, at the same time USDA employed an assistant secretary and chief information officer who used to work for ConAgra and its subsidiary, USDA acknowledged it had allowed ConAgra "to continue operating when inspectors knew of 34 E. coli samples in the Greeley, Colo., plant." That led to 47 people being sickened and one dying from E. coli poisoning.
LABOR DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN FOR OVERTIME CUTS WAS INDUSTRY SPOKESMAN PUSHING FOR OVERTIME ROLLBACK:
Earlier this year, the Bush Labor Department began giving Big Businesses official, government-sanction "tips on how to avoid paying overtime" to workers under the Administration's new overtime rules (which would cut off 8 million workers from overtime protections). One suggestion was to "cut workers' hourly wages and add the overtime to equal the original salary." The official spokesman for the Labor Department's overtime campaign is none other than Ed Frank, who was formerly the spokesman for the so-called "National Federation of Independent Business" - the main special interest group pushing for the Bush overtime rollbacks.
I am a fellow at the Center for American Progress, and a twice-a-week guest on the Al Franken Show. I am currently writing a book for Random House's Crown Publishers. I also write a bi-weekly section for the Nation Magazine called Permanent Minority vs. Towards the Majority about Democrats failures and successes. And I write a regular column for In These Times. For more on what I do, see this Washington Post story about my blog, this Molly Ivins column about my work, or this Newsweek profile about me. Feel free to email me at david@davidsirota.com with any thoughts/criticism. Note: this blog represents my personal views, and not the views of the Center for American Progress.
