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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (438228)	8/4/2003 11:46:37 PM
From: d.taggart	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

yo lizzard can you say dem backed terrorism!That is why our economy is shaky,but it is better here than anywhere else in the world, so stop whining!

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (438228)	8/5/2003 12:20:40 AM
From: laura_bush	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Dear Ms. Tudor: Paul Krugman makes precisely your point. Courtesy of Stockman Scott: Message 19178649 Everything Is Political _________________________________ By PAUL KRUGMAN OP-ED COLUMNIST THE NEW YORK TIMES August 5, 2003 The agency's analysts find that they are no longer helping to formulate policy; instead, their job is to rationalize decisions that have already been made. And more and more, they find that they are expected to play up evidence, however weak, that seems to support the administration's case, while suppressing evidence that doesn't. Am I describing the C.I.A.? The E.P.A.? The National Institutes of Health? Actually, I'm talking about the Treasury Department, but the ambiguity is no coincidence. Across the board, the Bush administration has politicized policy analysis. Whether the subject is stem cells or global warming, budget deficits or weapons of mass destruction, government agencies are under intense pressure to say what the White House wants to hear. And the long-term consequences are likely to be dire. Traditionally the Treasury, like the C.I.A., stands somewhat above the political fray. Externally, it is supposed to provide objective data that Congress and the public can use to evaluate administration proposals. Internally, long-serving Treasury analysts traditionally ride herd on political appointees, warning them when their proposals are ill conceived or irresponsible. But under the Bush administration the Treasury takes its marching orders from White House political operatives. As The New Republic points out, when John Snow meets with Karl Rove, the meetings take place in Mr. Rove's office. To the general public, the most obvious consequence of this subservience has been Treasury's meek acquiescence in an economic policy that hasn't produced any jobs, but has produced a $450 billion deficit. Insiders, however, are if anything even more dismayed by the erosion of Treasury's intellectual integrity — an erosion exemplified by its denial and deception on the subject of tax cuts. Here's the story: Treasury has an elaborate computer model designed to evaluate who benefits and who loses from any proposed change in tax laws. For example, the model can be used to estimate how much families in the middle of the income distribution will gain from a tax cut, or the share of that tax cut that goes to the top 1 percent of families. In the 1990's the results of such analyses were routinely made public. But since George W. Bush came into power, the department has suppressed most of that information, releasing only partial, misleading tables. The purpose of this suppression, of course, is to conceal the extent to which Mr. Bush's tax cuts concentrate their bounty on families with very high incomes. In a stinging recent article in Tax Notes, the veteran tax analyst Martin Sullivan writes of the debate over the 2001 cut that "Treasury's analysis was so embarrassingly poor and so biased, we thought we had seen the last of its kind." But worse was to come. For his June 22 interview with Howard Dean, Tim Russert asked the Treasury Department to prepare examples showing how repealing the Bush tax cuts would affect ordinary families. Presumably Mr. Russert thought Treasury would provide a representative selection — that is, like many in the media, he doesn't yet understand the extent to which Treasury has become an arm of the White House political machine. In any case, the examples Treasury provided to Mr. Russert and others in the media were wildly unrepresentative. To give you a sense: the Treasury's example of a "lower income" elderly household was one receiving $2,000 a year in dividend income. In fact, only about one elderly household in four receives any dividend income, and only one in eight receives as much as $2,000. Not surprisingly, the "Russert families" gained far more from the Bush tax cuts than a representative sample. As Mr. Sullivan put it, "If this continues, the Treasury's Office of Tax Policy may have to change its name to the Office of Tax Propaganda." As I've said, this is only one example of a broad pattern. Still, why does politicized analysis matter? One answer is that it undermines democracy: how can Congress or the public make informed votes if both are fed distorted information? And even if you aren't bothered by an administration that systematically misleads the public, you ought to be worried about the decisions of an administration that systematically misleads itself. A leader who is told only what he wants to hear is all too likely to make bad decisions about the economy, the environment and beyond. nytimes.com

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (438228)	8/5/2003 12:20:59 AM
From: Johannes Pilch	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Oh please. The economy is not dead and the use of such inflammatory language here will not kill it, undoubtedly much to your chagrin. (grin) Firstly, Bush is just a bit player in the larger scheme of things - a big bit player, but a bit player nevertheless. He had to enter Iraq; and now that he is there, he has to stay there until the clean-up job is done. It simply won't do to call us to make the sacrifices we've made only to abandon the entire effort because we are too weak and stupid to see it through. Secondly, because he is a bit player, Bush cannot really 'turn a jobs situation' anywhere. He can either help government get out of the way so we can turn it, or shift fake money around by force, from my hand to yours, just like Clinton did (or tried to do). With the latter "solution" the problems and terrible inequities would yet persist. Indeed that is exactly why things are as they are. Many people simply are not interested in being vulnerable to those who would force them to give money to unworthy causes. You can't get something for nothing, Lizzie-- a thing you Californians would do well to learn for a change. Thirdly, I cannot see how Bush's tax cut was truly damaging to growth companies. Surely, some investors will turn an eye toward a dividend bribe, but not all. Very many investors will want to avoid the luster of dividends for the even brighter prospect of returns due to the innovations of growth companies. Lastly, the abolishment of double taxation on business income is really just a matter of fairness. If "growth companies" were benefiting from this unfairness, then they need to lose the benefit and make a buck the honest way.