Blogs: Social Security

Like an “American Idol” reject, John McCain keeps warbling George W. Bush’s greatest flops.

The latest is Social Security privatization, a proposal so roundly rejected by the American people when Bush tried to foist it on the nation in 2005 that even a solidly Republican and sycophant Congress couldn’t swallow it. more »

Another 0-for-3 day for the Watchdog. more »

Apologies for a belated Weekend Watchdog post, as I'm back from a vacation and long flight delay. But as usual, on Sunday at 4 PM ET, tune in to Air America Radio's "Seder on Sundays" program, where I'll offer the Weekend Watchdog Wrap-Up.

For Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (ABC's This Week) and Sen. John McCain, R-AZ (Fox News Sunday): Time Magazine reported this week from Pakistan:

...as [Musharraf's] regime cracked down on lawyers, journalists and human-rights activists, it agreed to a cease-fire with a powerful militant leader who had taken 213 soldiers hostage in the lawless northwestern region. The irony was not lost on Asma Jahangir, Pakistan's best-known human-rights activist, who wrote in an e-mail from house arrest, "Those [Musharraf] has arrested are progressive, secular-minded people, while the terrorists are offered negotiations and cease-fires."

Yet, Condi Rice and President Bush have continued to describe Musharraf with kind words and have refused to take any substantive action in response to his dictatorial crackdown. And McCain has not criticized the White House for continuing to provide aid to Musharraf.

You claim your foreign policy is to defeat terrorism by promoting democracy. Isn't this further evidence that your actual foreign policy does neither? more »

There has been an effort by the enemies of Social Security and Medicare to demonize the baby boomers as a threat to country’s prosperity and the well-being of our children and grandchildren. The way to deal with scary long-term budget projections is to fix our health care system, not to gut Social Security and Medicare. more »

We were hoping to hear some tough questions asked of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain on the Sunday talk shows. more »

Did the Sunday talk show hosts pose our Weekend Watchdog questions? more »

Every Friday in our Weekend Watchdog feature, we post suggested questions for scheduled Sunday guests. You can add your own questions in the comment thread. We'll also include contact information for the shows, so we can let them know what their viewers want asked.

Then on Monday, we'll circle back and see if our questions were asked and answered. Let's take back our media!

For Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (CBS' Face The Nation): You did not claim executive privilege when you were asked to testify under oath to the 9/11 Commission.

Isn't it inconsistent to claim executive privilege now, when you've been subpoenaed to testify about the White House charge that Saddam Hussein sought uranium from Niger? more »

Yesterday, President Bush made three significant recess appointments, installing officials without Senate confirmation during the congressional recess.

The abuse of the recess appointment perhaps isn't Bush's most egregious attack on our Founders' carefully crafted system of checks and balances, since others before him have exploited this constitutional loophole.

But the implicit reasons behind each appointment are quite egregious, and each in their own way.

The one that's gotten the most attention is Sam Fox, our new Ambassador to Belgium.

It's typical, if still highly inappropriate, for cronies of the President to get cushy Ambassador gigs.

But Sam Fox wasn't just a big donor of Bush. He gave $50,000 to the Swift Boat liars that smeared John Kerry's war record.

Of course, the Bush campaign always insisted it had nothing to do with the smear merchants, even though the group had ties to Karl Rove.

But to go the extra mile after being stiff-armed by the Senate, to appoint a major backer of filthy politics to a major post, shows how politics are played in the conservative movement.

Get dirty now, get rewarded later. No consequences for your actions. No disincentive to smear again.

The second is Andrew Biggs, to become the #2 man at the Social Security Administration.

Biggs is not only committed to the dismantling of Social Security via privatization. As associate commissioner of SSA, he was behind an effort to use the agency to pump out misinformation and undermine support for the program.

He is one of the many examples of how the White House is trying to cripple the civil service, and prevent our government from providing us with objective, factual information.

Finally, we have Susan Dudley becoming administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, also known as the "regulatory czar" because it reviews regulations throughout the government.

OMB Watch explains her significance:

"Dudley's record is one of anti-regulatory extremism," said Rick Melberth, Director of Regulatory Policy at OMB Watch. "She has opposed some of our nation's most basic environmental, workplace safety and public health protections."

Dudley has falsely proclaimed ground-level ozone to be beneficial, opposed ergonomic standards to protect workers from repetitive stress disorders, and even suggested that airbags should never have been mandated in automobiles.

This is also a big part of the conservative game plan to cripple the civil service.

When civil servants try to implement laws passed by our democratically-elected Congress, like say the Clean Air Act, folks like Dudley are installed to bring the hammer down, prevent the law's implementation, and put the special interest ahead of the public interest.

The abuse of the recess appointment weakens our system of checks and balances. But the specific people appointed threaten to do even greater harm.

Today's NY Times reports that Bush issued a new executive order intended to undermine our civil service:

...each [government] agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president's priorities.

This strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules that have, in the past, often been generated by civil servants and scientific experts. It suggests that the administration still has ways to exert its power after the takeover of Congress by the Democrats.

The Bushies sought to spin this power grab as just "a classic good-government measure that will make federal agencies more open and accountable."

Hilarious. Especially on the same day that Dem Rep. Henry Waxman and GOP Rep. Tom Davis hold a public hearing on how Bush's political appointees pressured our civil servant scientists to downplay climate change ... and the White House refuses both of their requests to release relevant documents.

This is classic secret and unaccountable government. Classic bad government. Classic conservative government.

This power grab is not simply a feature of George W. Bush's personal, monarch-esque tendencies.

It is the foundation of how Washington conservatives believe our government should be managed, or more accurately, mismanaged.

In January 2001, when Bush was assuming the presidency, the right-wing Heritage Foundation issued a white paper: Taking Charge of Federal Personnel.

That report effectively counseled Bush to suffocate the ability of our civil servants to provide objective and factual information, making it impossible for the public to make informed decisions and communicate our will to policymakers in Washington.

It sniffed at the "Public Administration Model" of government as "emphasiz[ing] the Progressive ideal--a value-free 'scientific' program of government administration."

Instead, it preferred the "Political Administration Model" which it defined as "providing presidential leadership to committed top political officials...holding them and their subordinates personally accountable for achievement of the President's election-endorsed and value-defined program."

We've seen Bush implement Heritage's vision of conservative government for six years. We've seen his political appointees:

Last night's State of the Union address revealed that the state of this president is still delusional. He can't level with the American people because he can't or won't recognize the reality that we face.

The best part of the speech wasn't anything the president said. It was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sitting over his shoulder, signaling the change that Americans voted for. The president also got a lift from the "ordinary heroes" that he recognized at the end of the speech. But when it got to substance, the president seemed bored with his own words as he trotted out his pledge for more of the same.

For this president, the economy is great and we need to stay the course. The Democratic response by Senator Jim Webb offered a glimpse of the reality that the president doesn't get - that this economy isn't working for most Americans. No wonder less than a third of Americans think the president has any clue about the problems they face.

For this president, we have a strategy for moving forward in Iraq, and we're garnering global support for our foreign policies. Maybe he's back on the sauce - he certainly isn't reading his briefing papers or listening to his own generals. The president called for bipartisanship, apparently not aware that Senators from both parties are already coming together - in bipartisan opposition to the president's escalation of the war in Iraq. Again, Webb offered a dose of reality in his response, stating flatly that it was time to bring the president's war to an end, and that if he couldn't understand that, "we will be showing him the way."

Even where it has dawned on the president that there is a problem to be addressed, his proposals are gestures, if not mockeries. The health care system is broken. The president's reforms, by his own exaggerated numbers, might provide health insurance for maybe 3 million of the 47 million that now go without, while taking a whack at workers who have decent plans (read unions) and public hospitals (read Hillary Clinton's New York which takes 40% of the hit).

Catastrophic climate change and our dependence on foreign oil are a clear and present threat to our security. The president recycles his ethanol enthusiasms (substituting "woodchips" for last year's "switch grass" as a potential source). But his plans won't even cover the projected increase in US oil demand for oil over the next decades. He still defaults on the imperative for a dramatic national drive for energy independence - like that called for by the Apollo Alliance, which can generate jobs even as it helps address global warming.

Our education system is not providing the basics - children with the nutrition and health care to be ready to learn, universal pre-school, smaller classes in the early grades, skilled teachers, affordable college and advanced training. The president offers only to continue the No Child Left Behind reforms that he has failed to fund.

Immigration reform is a vital necessity. The president calls for comprehensive reform, in the face of growing right-wing opposition. But he insists on a guest worker program, simply a subsidy for exploitative employers, insuring them a pool of second class workers.

The president's speech was more striking for what it omitted than for what it contained. No mention of our unsustainable trade deficits, the loss of 17% of our manufacturing jobs, the growing indebtedness to foreign creditors, particularly the Chinese and Japanese central bankers. No talk of the worst corporate crime wave in modern history, with executives cooking the books and plundering their own companies. Not a word about the worst inequality since the Gilded Age, the rise of families in poverty. Obscenely, the president said not a word about the beleaguered survivors of Katrina, who having weathered Katrina's winds, now must struggle to survive the administration's broken promises.

Speaker Pelosi's presence and Senator Webb's response offered the only solace for Americans watching last night. This president remains in his bubble, divorced from a reality he can't see, committed to a course at home and abroad that won't work. But it matters less and less. Americans have already tuned him out, and the Congress no longer dances to his fancies. From now on, it is the new leadership in Congress that "will be showing him the way."