Claim
vs. Fact: 2003: A Year of Distortion for the American People
Posted December 28, 2003 at the
thepeoplesvoice.org
By the Center
for American Progress
On December 13, the White House
issued a document entitled "2003: A Year of Accomplishment for the
American People." The document made various inaccurate and deceptive
claims about the Administration's record over the last year. This report by
the Center for American Progress seeks to correct those distortions,
matching the White House's rhetoric with facts. Please note, blue text below
is hyperlinked directly to the original source material.
HEALTH
CARE |
Drug
Coverage, Drug Costs, Health
Saving Accounts |
ECONOMY |
Deficits,
Tax Cuts |
ENVIRONMENT |
'Healthy
Forests', Power Plant
Emissions, Mercury Emissions |
EDUCATION |
Consumer
Protection, Veterans,
AIDS |
IRAQ |
International
Financing, Military Help,
WMD, Saddam-Al Qaeda
Ties |
AFGHANISTAN |
Military
Support, Funding |
HOMELAND
SECURITY |
Terrorist
Financing, First
Responders, Cyber Security |
Produced by the Center for
American Progress, 12/13/03.
Get this document in Rich
Text Format
DRUG
COVERAGE
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "The
historic legislation the President signed will create a modern Medicare
system, providing seniors with prescription drug benefits."
FACT: "The new law gives
private insurers the authority to ration access to drugs funded by Medicare.
Beneficiaries will have to choose a drug insurer without knowing exactly
what drugs that insurer will cover. Premiums will be higher in areas
with older or sicker seniors." - American Progress Fellow Jeanne
Lambrew, 12/4/03
FACT: "The Congressional
Budget Office projects that 2.7 million retirees are expected to lose the
drug coverage they currently receive through their former because their
employers will drop such coverage when the Medicare drug benefit becomes
available." - Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 12/11/03
FACT: "[T]he insurance
plan would provide little relief for about 3 million people with moderate
assets and incomes near the poverty level and would cost seniors with drug
expenses under $835 a year more than they currently spend." - Boston
Globe, 11/18/03
FACT: "A substantial
number of the 6.4 million low-income Medicare beneficiaries who also are
eligible for Medicaid and currently receive prescription drug coverage
through Medicaid would be made worse off under the Medicare conference
agreement." - Center of Budget and Policy Priorities Report, 11/21/03
FACT: "The Congressional
Budget Office estimates about 2.7 million seniors could lose benefits that
may be more generous than those that will be offered under Medicare." -USA
Today, 11/25/03
DRUG
COSTS
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM:
"Beneficiaries who lack coverage will cut their yearly drug costs
roughly in half, in exchange for an approximately $35 monthly premium. The
more than one-third of seniors with low incomes will be eligible for even
greater drug savings, paying as little as $1 per prescription."
FACT: "[U]nder the new
plan, seniors in the middle income quintile will pay an average of $1,650 a
year in out-of-pocket expenses for prescription drugs in 2006. This figure
is nearly 60 percent more than they paid in 2000, even after adjusting for
inflation. Expenses are projected to continue to rise so that by 2013
middle-income seniors will be paying more than two and a half times as much
for prescription drugs (adjusting for inflation) as they did in 2000." –
Ctr. for Economic and Policy Research, 12/04/03
HEALTH
SAVINGS ACCOUNTS
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "The
historic Medicare legislation that the President signed included a
provision establishing Health Savings Accounts (HSAs)...These HSAs will
allow more Americans to save for health care needs, and will allow more
small businesses to help workers secure health coverage."
FACT: The creation of
"Health Care Savings Accounts" provides an "incentive to
shift more costs to workers, who may be asked to 'match' their employer's
contribution to a HSA with its high deductibles and high co-payments."
Urban Institute economist Len Burman said HSAs will become "a boon to
the healthy and wealthy and a bane" to older, sicker co-workers left to
confront higher costs and premiums in traditional health plans. - Scripps
Howard News, Scripps Howard, 12/3/03
FACT: According to major
studies conducted in the past by RAND, the Urban Institute, and the American
Academy of Actuaries, "premiums for comprehensive, employer-based
coverage could more than double if such accounts became widespread." -
CBPP, 11/18/03
ECONOMY
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM:
"President Bush's economic leadership is producing positive
results."
FACT: "More than 2.2
million jobs have been lost since Bush took office. Bush is still on pace to
be the first President since Herbert Hoover to have a net job loss over his
four year term." - BLS
Data
FACT: In July 2003, the Counsel
of Economic Advisors predicted that the President's latest round of tax cuts
would produce 1,530,000 jobs would be created in the first five months. In
fact, only 271,000 jobs were created over those five months for a cumulative
shortfall of 1,259,000 jobs. - Economic
Policy Institute
FACT: "Twenty five major
American cities saw a 19% increase in the need for emergency food last year
alone." - UK Guardian, 11/3/03
FACT: "New jobs created
during the 2004-05 period are forecast to pay an average of $35,855, far
lower than the $43,629 average pay of those jobs lost between 2001-03."
- U.S. Conference of Mayors, 11/10/03
FACT: "Only 14% of CEOs
are planning to increase the pace of hiring." - Business Council
Poll, 10/9/03
FACT: Poverty levels have risen
for the second straight year in a row – the first time in more than 13
years. - Economic
Policy Institute
DEFICITS
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM:
"Maintaining Fiscal Discipline: [The President has] continued to
restrain spending."
FACT: The House recently passed
a massive $373 billion spending bill, laden with pork-barrel spending and
controversial provisions as far as the eye could see. "The size of the
measure invites abuse. Spending set-asides for home-state projects have
grown to extraordinary levels, filling scores of pages in the Congressional
Record." President Bush issued a "personal appeal" to Senate
Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) to "push the spending package through
the Senate" without changes after the House passed the pork-laden
bill." - AP, 12/8/03,
12/5/03
FACT: "For the 2003 budget
year, which ended Sept. 30, the government recorded a deficit of $374.8
billion, according to revised figures. In November alone, the deficit
swelled to nearly $43 billion." - AP, 12/12/03
FACT: "Most observers
familiar with the budget outlook, including the White House’s Office of
Management and Budget, agree that deficits will become even larger after
2013." – American Progress Senior Economist Christian Weller, 12/12/03
TAX
CUTS
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "91
million taxpayers received, on average, a tax cut of $1,126. Since the
President took office, 109 million taxpayers have received, on average, a
tax cut of $1,544. Without the fiscal measures implemented under President
Bush, there would be as many as 2 million fewer jobs for American workers
today."
FACT: 80% of taxpayers would
receive less than $1,083, and half would receive $100 or less. The handful
of millionaires who would get about $90,000 artificially inflates the
average. - Citizens for Tax Justice, 5/22/03,
CBPP, 5/28/03
FACT: 'The economic consulting
firm Economy.com found that the tax cuts were responsible for only 13
percent of the growth last quarter – meaning that we still
would have seen GDP growth of about 7 percent without the tax
cut." – American Progress Fellow Gene Sperling, 12/11/03
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "23
million small business owners received tax cuts averaging $2,209."
FACT: "Nearly four out of
every five tax filers (79%) with small business income would receive less
than $2,209." Additionally, "52% of people with small business
returns would get $500 or less." – Urban Inst.-Brookings Tax
Policy Center, 1/21/03
'HEALTHY
FORESTS'
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "As
part of the President's Healthy Forests Initiative, he signed bipartisan
legislation to improve forest health and reduce the risk of catastrophic
wildfires while upholding environmental laws, restoring our nation's
forests, and preserving the forest economy."
FACT: The Congressional
Research service reported that the "Health Forests" bill may
actually increase the risk of fire. CRS expert Ross W. Corte said,
"Timber harvesting removes the relatively large diameter wood that can
be converted into wood products but leaves behind the small material,
especially twigs and needles" that contributes to fires. - CRS
report, 8/22/2000
FACT: In fact, the bill was
sought by the timber industry "not because they wanted to remove brush
and chaparral" which can cause forest fires but because it would
"increase commercial logging with less environmental oversight." -
CBS News, 12/3/03
POWER
PLANT EMISSIONS
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "The
Bush Administration proposed stringent new rules on power plant
emissions."
FACT: "The Bush
administration on Friday eased clean air rules to allow utilities,
refineries and manufacturers to avoid having to install expensive new
anti-pollution equipment when they modernize their plants." - CBS
News, 11/22/02
FACT: "More than a dozen
state attorneys general yesterday sought to block the federal government
from implementing a rule change they argued would lead to more air pollution
from the nation's power plants. Fourteen states, and a number of cities -
including New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. - are seeking a
court injunction to impede a measure by the Environmental Protection Agency
before it goes into effect." - AP, 11/18/03
FACT: "The chief of the
Environmental Protection Agency's civil enforcement office has resigned,
complaining the White House is undermining anti-pollution efforts at power
plants that violate clean air laws. Eric Schaeffer, a lawyer at the EPA for
a dozen years dating from the first Bush administration, said in a letter to
EPA Administrator Christie Whitman that the White House "seems
determined to weaken the rules we are trying to enforce." - CBS
News, 3/1/02
MERCURY
EMISSIONS
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "The
Bush Administration proposed stringent new rules which will result in
dramatic reductions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury."
FACT: Two separate reports
issued by the GAO and the Rockefeller Family Fund project and Council of
State Governments stated that the Administration's relaxation of pollution
rules for power plants would lead to reduced fines and pollution controls as
well as 1.4 million tons more air pollution. - CBS News, 11/6/03
FACT: "The Administration
is proposing to use a provision of the Clean Air Act never before used to
regulate toxics and setting a level of reductions for mercury emissions far
below what the Clean Air Act toxic provisions would require. Using the
[traditional] provisions of the Clean Air Act would achieve at least a 90
percent reduction in mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants by 2008. The
Administration’s proposals suggest only a 30% reduction, to the benefit of
Coal-fired power plants and utilities." – Former EPA Administrator
Carol Browner, 12/4/03
EDUCATION
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM:
"Parents, teachers, and principals are seeing a positive difference
in America's schools. The No Child Left Behind Act is raising standards
for students and putting the focus on student achievement."
FACT: "The sweeping
federal law left cash-strapped states battered and confused in 2003. More
nationwide provisions will take effect in 2004, along with the threat of
losing millions of dollars for states that don’t pass muster." -
Stateline, 12/8/03
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "The
Bush Administration is investing more money in elementary and secondary
education than at any time in American history."
FACT: "President Bush
proposed a budget that was $9.7 billion below the amount needed to fund his
own No Child Left Behind Bill. The budget eliminates 45 education programs,
and slashes another 18 programs by $1.4 billion. Specifically, he proposes
to cut $400 million (40%) out of after-school programs, resulting in 485,000
children being thrown off these programs. He proposes to freeze teacher
training grants, meaning a loss of opportunity for 30,000 teachers. And,
during a recession, he has proposed a $307 million cut for
vocational/technical education grants, and a freeze on Pell Grants." -
House Appropriations Committee report, 3/10/03
CONSUMER
PROTECTION
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM:
"Enhancing Consumer Credit Protections. The President proposed and
signed into law legislation to ensure citizens are treated fairly when
they apply for credit. It also addresses the growing problem of identity
theft by establishing a nationwide fraud alert system."
FACT: "In addition to
previous votes that gutted state provisions to prevent financial
institutions from sharing customers' information with others, the final
version of the bill will roll back states' anti-identity-theft
measures." – SF Chronicle, 11/22/03
FACT: The Administration
proposed new regulations that "would shield national banks from state
laws enacted to protect consumers from predatory lending." The
regulations were criticized by NY AG Eliot Spitzer as preventing the states
from prosecuting "nationally chartered financial services companies for
charging outsized fees and interest rates to poor consumers who have bad
credit." - Financial Times, 12/11/03
VETERANS
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM:
"Honoring Our Commitment to Veterans: America owes veterans and those
on the front lines of freedom a great debt of gratitude."
FACT: The Administration is
pushing a cut of $1.5 billion in military housing/medical facility funding,
despite the fact that UPI reports “hundreds of sick and wounded U.S.
soldiers including many who served in the Iraq war are languishing in hot
cement barracks here while they wait - sometimes for months - to see
doctors." - Wash Post, 1/17/03, UPI, 10/17/03
FACT: “One million children
living in military and veteran families are being denied child tax credit
help" in President Bush’s tax cut. “More than 260,000 of these
children have parents on active military duty." - Children’s
Defense Fund, 6/6/03
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM:
"President Bush was pleased to sign legislation that resolved the
issue of concurrent receipt in a fair and responsible manner."
FACT: In the fiscal year 2003
defense authorization bill, Congress stipulated that veterans with
disabilities would no longer have to give up part of the retirement pay they
have earned. In other words, they would receive retired pay and disability
pay concurrently. Bush threatened to veto the bill if it includes concurrent
receipt. - Baltimore Sun, 12/1/02,
Wash. Post, 10/7/02
AIDS
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM:
"Leading the Fight Against HIV/AIDS: In his State of the Union
Address, President Bush announced the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief an
historic 5-year, $15 billion effort to turn the tide of the AIDS pandemic. Only
4 months later, Congress passed legislation authorizing the Emergency Plan
based on the President's proposal."
FACT: President Bush's budget
introduced four days after his State of the Union "only sought $2
billion for the year" for AIDS - 33% less than the $3 billion needed to
keep his $15-billion-over-5-year pledge. When the Senate voted to increase
the President's budget, the White House "repeated its strong opposition
to any funding beyond $2 billion." - LA Times, 10/31/03
FACT: "President Bush
plans to ask Congress for relatively small funding increases to fight AIDS
and poverty in the developing world, stepping back from his highly
publicized pledge to spend huge sums to help fight them." - WSJ, 12/10/2003
INTERNATIONAL
FINANCING
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "At
the Madrid donors' conference, 73 countries and 20 international
organizations joined together and pledged over $30 billion for Iraq."
FACT: "Six weeks after
organizers of an international donors conference in Madrid said that more
than $3 billion in grants had been pledged to help Iraq with immediate
needs, a new World Bank tally verifies grants of only $685 million for
2004." - NY Times, 12/7/03
INTERNATIONAL
MILITARY HELP
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "Our
mission has broad support from the international community, including
troops from 18 out of 25 current and future NATO countries."
FACT: While the U.S. has over
160,000 troops in Iraq, the next largest force contingent is Britain, with
about 9,000 troops. Additionally, since President Bush asked for more
military help in September, not one additional new international soldier has
been sent to Iraq. - UK Guardian, 12/12/03
WEAPONS
OF MASS DESTRUCTION
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "We
are now learning the full truth about Saddam Hussein's regime: clear
evidence of Saddam's illegal weapons program."
FACT: “A draft report on the
search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq provides no solid evidence
that Iraq had such arms when the United States invaded the country in
March." - Reuters, 9/15/03
FACT: “We have not uncovered
evidence that Iraq undertook significant post-1998 steps to actually build
nuclear weapons or produce fissile material...We have not yet been able to
corroborate the existence of a mobile biological weapons production
effort…Technical limitations would prevent any of these processes from
being ideally suited to these trailers...Iraq did not have a large, ongoing,
centrally controlled chemical weapons program after 1991… Iraq's
large-scale capability to develop, produce, and fill new chemical weapon
munitions was reduced - if not entirely destroyed - during Operations Desert
Storm and Desert Fox, 13 years of UN sanctions and UN inspections." -
Bush Administration Weapons Inspector David Kay, 10/2/03
SADDAM-ALQAEDA
TIES
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "[We
have found] previously undocumented ties to terror organizations."
FACT: The bipartisan September
11th commission report “undercuts Bush Administration claims
before the war that Hussein had links to Al Qaeda." - LA Times,
7/19/03
FACT: "Since the fall of
Baghdad, coalition forces have not brought to light any significant evidence
demonstrating the bond between Iraq and Al Qaeda." - NY Times,
7/20/03
FACT: "Three former Bush
Administration officials who worked on intelligence and national security
issues said the prewar evidence tying Al Qaeda was tenuous, exaggerated and
often at odds with the conclusions of key intelligence agencies." -
National Journal, 8/9/03
MILITARY
SUPPORT
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM:
"America and more than 20 allied countries are working to help the
Afghan people rebuild their war-torn nation. More than 15 million Afghan
citizens have been freed from the brutal zealotry of the Taliban."
FACT: The U.N. delegation
reported that "insecurity caused by terrorist activities, factional
fights and drug related crime remain the major concern of Afghans
today." Insecurity is especially a problem in the southern part of the
country where "attacks against non-governmental organizations was
contributing to the slowing of reconstruction." Throughout the nation
"individuals and communities suffer from abuses of their basic rights
by local commanders and factional leaders." The problems are
exacerbated in many areas of the country "by terrorist attacks from
suspected members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda." Also of serious
concern: "Arbitrary control exercised by local commanders and factional
armies [that] has resulted in heavy casualties." - UN Report, 11/11/03
FUNDING
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "The
U.S. Congress passed the Afghanistan Freedom Support Act which authorizes
$3.47 billion for Afghanistan over fiscal years 2003-2006."
FACT: While President Bush
declared a "Marshall Plan for Afghanistan" in April 2002, the
nation has "received only a fraction of the $10.2 billion" that
the World Bank said was necessary over the first five years. - Senate
Foreign Relations Committee Testimony, 10/16/03
TERRORIST
FINANCING
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "The
Treasury Department has frozen over $136 million from over 240
terrorist-related entities."
FACT: "Federal authorities
do not have a clear understanding of how terrorists move their financial
assets and are still struggling to prevent the flow of money to terror
groups," according to a new report by the GAO to be released Sunday. -
NY Times, 12/12/03
FIRST
RESPONDERS
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM:
"Helping State and Local First Responders: The President is
continuing to give our nation's first responder and public health system
the training and equipment to prepare, prevent and respond to any future
terrorist attack."
FACT: "Emergency
Responders are drastically underfunded and dangerously unprepared. The
United States remains dangerously ill prepared to handle a catastrophic
attack on American soil. On average, fire departments across the country
have only enough radios to equip half the firefighters on a shift, and
breathing apparatuses for only one-third. Police departments do not have the
protective gear to safely secure a site following a WMD attack. Public
health labs in most states still lack basic equipment and expertise to
adequately respond to a chemical or biological attack. Most cities do not
have the necessary equipment to determine what kind of hazardous materials
emergency responders may be facing." - Council on Foreign Relations
Report by former Sen. Warrren Rudman (R-NH), 7/29/03
FACT: "Despite a $2
billion federal investment, the nation's public health system is only
marginally better prepared today to handle a bioterrorism attack or other
health emergency than it was in 2001."- USA Today, 12/12/03
FACT: The federal program that
added more than 100,000 cops to local police forces is being rolled back
because local governments can't afford to keep many of the officers on the
street. Law enforcement analysts say that the largest federally funded
buildup of local police in U.S. history is being washed away by
cutbacks." - USA Today, 12/2/03
FACT: "The White House is
now saying that its spending plan does not provide enough money to protect
against terrorist attacks on American soil. It concedes that domestic
counterterrorism programs were shortchanged." - NY Times, 2/26/03
CYBER
SECURITY
WHITE HOUSE CLAIM: "The
President provided a framework for protecting our critical infrastructure
by releasing for protecting our critical infrastructure by releasing the
first-ever National Strategy for the Physical Protection of Critical
Infrastructure and the National Cyberspace Security Division."
FACT: The annual cybersecurity
report card is out, and "the Department of Homeland Security - the
government's lead agency on matters of Internet security - led the list of
seven federal agencies that earned an "F" grade for their own
network security efforts in 2003." And "also earning an 'F' was
the Justice Department, the agency charged with investigating and
prosecuting many cases involving hacking and other forms of cybercrime."
- Washington Post, 12/9/03
-###-
Copyright 2003 by the Center for American
Progress http://www.americanprogress.org
Get this document in Rich
Text Format
|