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

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (498660)	11/25/2003 5:37:08 PM
From: John Carragher	Respond to of 769670

I wonder many different ways we will hear this is great , this bad. It will take some time to work out.. Best i can tell is low income win and that was the purpose. Second was to try to open up medicare to private competition.. Next session in congress should be very interesting.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (498660)	11/25/2003 7:14:39 PM
From: Thomas A Watson	Respond to of 769670

Consumer Confidence Jumps to 14-month High The Conference Board today announced that its Consumer Confidence Index jumped 10 points in November to 91.7, up from a revised 81.7 in October. This is the highest level since September 2002 -- and more good news for the strengthening economy: Consumer confidence is now at its highest level since the fall of 2002,” said Lynn Franco, director of the board’s consumer research center. Perceptions of the current economy improved, Franco said, a sign that “consumers believe a slow but sure labor market turnaround is underway. The rise in expectations is a signal that consumers will end this year much more upbeat than when the year began.” Economists closely track consumer confidence because consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of U.S. economic activity. The overall rise in confidence reflects an increase in the Conference Board’s index measuring consumers’ appraisal of current economic conditions. That measure, the Present Situations index, surged to 80.1 from 67.0 last month. georgewbush.com

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (498660)	11/26/2003 12:45:32 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 769670

Democrats have owned the Medicare issue for nearly 40 years. But this week, the Republicans climbed into the driver's seat and mashed the gas pedal. In closed-door sessions that excluded nearly all Democrats, through rule-bending roll calls, dishing out goodies to friends and twisting arms of the recalcitrant, the Republicans passed $400 billion worth of changes. Democrats spent the day picking carpet fibers out of their hairdos and sorting out their reactions. Should they be outraged or envious in the face of Republican audacity and discipline? Disheartened or energized by President Bush's latest victory? This inability to choose a voice, to stick to one path, was a worrisome sign for many Democrats -- especially after such a disorienting year for the party. They have been ousted from power at every level from statehouses to governor's mansions to Congress to the White House; divided over Bush's decision to invade Iraq; unable to coalesce early behind a presidential challenger. Democrats do not have a unified position on Bush's tax cuts, or on his education policy, or -- when crunch time came -- his Medicare initiative. This at a time when the Republicans are demonstrating almost unprecedented discipline. "When you lose the political initiative, things like this happen," said Will Marshall, director of the centrist Progressive Policy Institute. "The other party steals your ideas and advances them in somewhat bastardized form. It's a result of Democrats not getting their act together and getting behind an agenda that can help rebuild their majority in Congress." Democrats fretted about the possibility that they will be stranded in the congressional minority for years to come. They also talked bravely of the public streaming to their side. They were not sure whom to blame more: GOP leaders or Democratic defectors. "I think it's one part completely horrified, and another part completely energized," said Laura Nichols, a vice president of the Center for American Progress, a Democratic think tank, summing up the mixed feelings. Start with horrified: Longtime party strategist Harold Ickes was at a loss to see any upside to a Republican victory in an area Democrats have always owned. He said he was flabbergasted that key Democratic senators, led by John Breaux (La.) and Max Baucus (Mont.), went along with it. "It's totally beyond me," Ickes said. "I think it has seriously undermined our ability to change occupants of the White House next year. Republicans will make it sound like they invented Medicare. That's a big piece of political real estate to give up." He paused. "I don't know," he said. "We just don't have the discipline on our side that's needed." Robert Borosage of the Campaign for America's Future blamed Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) for the collapse. In the House, he said, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) managed to hold the line so effectively that Republicans had to hold open their middle-of-the-night vote for nearly three hours on Saturday -- the longest flouting of the 15-minute rule in House history -- just to eke out a win. After which the Democratic filibuster in the Senate swiftly collapsed. "There's clearly an absence of forceful leadership at the top of the Senate," Borosage said. "In the Senate we saw the difference between the other side's discipline and our lack of it, and I think Democrats are disappointed in the extreme." For some, the experience was another milepost in the process of coming to terms with life outside of power. That old friend of many decades, the muscular AARP, entered the Medicare battle -- on the other side. The wily and experienced Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) had his pocket picked. It was humiliating. "It's an odd dynamic," said Eric Hauser, a strategist on the party's liberal wing. "When I came to Washington in the mid-'80s, the idea that Democrats ran things was just like the sun coming up in the east. Now, with each passing year, Democrats are less relevant." Kennedy's experience with the Medicare bill was repeatedly cited as both pivotal and highly instructive. Earlier this year, he joined with Republican sponsors to get a prescription drug benefit moving, hopeful that the details would become more to his liking during the conference to iron out differences between the House and Senate versions. "What Kennedy didn't realize is that the tide has changed," said James A. Thurber, an expert on congressional politics at American University. Instead, GOP leaders shut Kennedy out of the conference, stiffened the spines of their own party and enticed Breaux, Baucus and a few others with a few targeted tweaks to the bill. Is this a sign of resignation to a long stretch in the minority? "Maybe," Thurber said. "These interest groups and some lawmakers may already be thinking there will be more Republicans in the Senate and the House next Congress and Bush will be reelected. And they think this is the best they're going to get." washingtonpost.com